Can we be different from our parents?

Can we really be different from our parents or do they affect us so much that we consciously and unconsciously carry on their characteristics? We touched on this topic in Sociology but I've also been talking about this in World Masterpieces. Today in WM we talked about change, like whether or not you can separate from some of your parents traits. It has been said that parents have the biggest affects on their kids lives. It makes sense, obviously, because they are usually the only people that around you all of the time. Unconsciously, many of their traits are passed onto you because you learned basically everything from them, or in some cases through friends as well. The grey area comes forth when the topic of change is encountered. On many occasions, I can vouch for this as well, many kids see things their parents do and think to themselves, "I will never do that when I'm a parent". But can you really help it? There have been studies that show that kids with abusive parent/s are more likely to be abusive, and kids with parent/s that are alcoholics or drug addicts are more likely to become an alcoholic or drug addict.
In my opinion, a lot of this has to do with choice and education. Many little things can be picked up by parents through your unconscious like the way you sit or the way you eat. On the other hand, many things can be changed if you choose to change them. If you have a parent who is abusive and you think that abuse is o.k. because no one ever told you it was wrong, then you may grow up to be an abusive parent. But, if you have an abusive parent and you know that abuse is wrong, then you can make that change to never be abusive in the future. This is because you are becoming consciously aware of the fact that abuse is wrong rather than leaving it in your unconscious. So, although many things are passed on from parents to children, it is possible to change.