The night I met my future father-in-law was scary as hell. It was a phone call that began as civil and devolved into insults, profanity and finally threats. I’d only known this kind of person through movies or books. My husband -to-be, had grown up with him. So, what? I thought. I was marrying the son, not the father.

In the age of 23 and Me or Ancestry.com, what do we really know about who we are, how we got this way, and the effect it has on our parenting?

Dr. Rachel Yehuda is a pioneer in the study of traumatic stress. She is a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is also Director of Mental Health at the Bronx VA Medical Center and Director of the Traumatic Stress Studies Program at Mount Sinai. More recently, she spearheaded Mount Sinai’s Center for Psychedelic Psychotherapy and Trauma Research.