I speak from personal experience with this, Arpad. I can say that I gave birth to a child who had all the love she could hope to have and by the age of 3, was showing signs of something being "off." So began several years of therapists, social workers, child psychologists, a few months in hospital behaviour modification programs (times two), thousands of hours of my sitting with professionals and tolerating intolerable behaviour at home.

It damaged my younger children. It was a complete nightmare. I was afraid to go to sleep with her in the house when she was 8. I woke up one day and my carpet was wet. She had cut up my waterbed with scissors.

She can be the most loving and wonderful daughter, or the most evil, vindictive being who laughs at the awful things she does to people just to push their buttons. She plays with people; it's her favourite source of entertainment. She did drugs with her young kids. Meanwhile, I'm hard-pressed to take a Tylenol. She didn't learn this stuff from me.

I cut her out of my life eight years ago. Couldn't stand being on the receiving end of her behaviour, or hearing about the awful things she did to others.

So yeah - some people are just born this way.