This essay is adapted from Melinda Wenner Moyer’s newsletter “Is My Kid the Asshole?” Subscribe here.
The other day, a friend told me about Arthur C. Brooks’ new essay in the Atlantic, “The One Great Thing You Can Do for Your Children.” Brooks is a Harvard University social scientist, Atlantic columnist, former president of the American Enterprise Institute, and author of 13 books, including co-authored with Oprah Winfrey.
Brooks makes many points in his essay that I support. It’s similar to the claim that “the really important parenting techniques are warmth and affection,” or the claim that “you’re going to make a lot of mistakes, but most of the time it won’t matter.”
In other words, you don’t have to be a perfect parent, Brooks says. Our kids are fine.
I totally agree, but I’m not entirely convinced by the premise of his argument. Brooks insists it’s okay to make mistakes as a parent. Because it doesn’t matter how we parent. The characteristics of our children are shaped much more by nature (genes) than by upbringing (environment). “Personality is largely biological and inherited,” Brooks writes, citing several studies.
I think he’s going too far here, and he’s also ignoring other important considerations.
First, Brooks cites research showing that genes play a major role in shaping personality. He writes:
A 1996 study of 123 pairs of identical twins (who share 100 percent of their genes) and 127 pairs of dizygotic twins (who, like other siblings, share about 50 percent) found that It is estimated that 41% may be inherited. Additionally, 53 percent were extraverted, 61 percent were open to experience, 41 percent were agreeable, and 44 percent were conscientious.
But when I think about the kind of people I want my children to be, I don’t focus on these broad personality traits. I mean, yes. I hope my children don’t become neurotic. And I hope they grow up to be conscientious, cooperative, and open to new experiences. (I couldn’t care less about extroversion.) But what I care much more about are their values and choices. Will my son treat girls and women with the respect they deserve? Will my children be anti-racist? Will they stand up for their bullied peers, or at least show support and sympathy?
These questions are not answered in that study. But they are addressed by others, which suggests that what we do as parents crucially shapes our children’s values and behavior toward others. We hope that the conversations parents have with their children about racism, sexism, sex, consent, and bullying will make a difference in what children value and how they behave towards others. we know. I cite this research a lot in my first book. Other research has found that a wide range of parenting practices shape children’s values and moral development. Some studies even suggest that the quality of the parent-child relationship influences how strongly different traits are shaped by genes and environment. This suggests that the way we raise our children not only affects their future, but also their development. It also affects how much influence we have.
I would also like to think a little about the numbers from personality trait research. According to the study, “41 percent of neuroticism is heritable, as is 53 percent of extraversion, 61 percent of openness to experience, 41 percent of agreeableness, and 44 percent of conscientiousness.” That’s what it means.
If 41 percent, 53 percent, or 61 percent of a trait is heritable, this means that a significant portion of the rest is not. This shows that the environment in which children are raised is important.
A few years ago, I interviewed Daniel Dick, a psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University, for this newsletter. Daniel Dick specifically studies genetic and environmental influences on human behavior. Dick explained to me that, yes, our children’s genes determine who they become. “This study clearly shows that our children’s genes play a huge role in their behavior,” she told me.
But she added, “I’m by no means saying parents aren’t important.”
I interviewed Dick because she wrote a (great!) parenting book called The Child Code: Understanding Your Child’s Unique Nature for Happy, More Effective Parenting. If genetics were the only thing that mattered, I daresay she wouldn’t have written a book full of parenting advice. In The Child Code, Dick argues that parents should consider how their children are wired when making parenting choices. This is because parenting strategies can be made more effective by matching them to the child’s temperament.
Let’s return to Brooks’ essay. To support his claim that parents don’t matter, Brooks also points to a 2021 study that looked at the link between certain parenting behaviors and personality. Dr. Brooks said the study shows that “in most respects, parenting is as important as birth order, which means it has little or no effect.”
But in the next paragraph, Brooks highlights two important exceptions. In other words, the personality traits of conscientiousness and agreeableness were shaped by parenting. Conscientiousness is shaped by parents’ involvement in their children’s lives and how much cultural stimulation they provided, while agreeableness is shaped by how much structure parents provided (did they let their children do their homework? ) and parents’ goals. .
Honesty and agreeableness are among the personality traits I care about most. Because they are most closely aligned with being a good human being. And this study that Brooks cited as evidence that parenting doesn’t matter suggests to me that parenting does matter for these traits. . Other studies have reported that the environment also plays an important role in shaping social values.
Additionally, this 2021 study only examines how personality traits are shaped by four specific parenting factors: parental goals, parental involvement in their child’s school, parental structure, and parental cultural stimulation. It is also worth emphasizing that we investigated This study did not examine the impact of many other things we do as parents, such as the conversations we have with our children and the way we interact with their children’s emotions (research shows these are important factors in child development). suggested to be important). moral values).
Daniel Ember
Hey mom and dad: relax! Parenting is not that important.
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Therefore, even though this study found no associations between the four dimensions of parenting and children’s personality traits, it would be inaccurate and misleading to conclude that parenting does not matter. It will be. This study investigated only a small portion of parental behavior.
As a side note, it’s interesting that most of the essays I’ve come across recently that argue that parents aren’t important are written by men who aren’t really involved in raising children. Maybe it’s becoming a little more streamlined? It’s okay if you don’t do much at home. Childcare has nothing to do with it. Or maybe that makes sense. If men are not as involved in raising children, then naturally they will not have as much influence on their children. Research shows that children learn more values from their mothers and grandmothers than from their fathers and grandfathers.
Slate crossword: “Renaissance” woman, to the fans (3 letters)
Still, these essays make me uncomfortable, and not just because they overgeneralize and excerpt science. These feel like yet another way to undermine the hard and important work that women typically do. (Mr. Brooks wrote an essay on marriage last year in which he argued that husbands and wives should not try to divide household chores equally, because doing so “reduces one of the most important elements of love: generosity; This is because it undermines the desire to give more than one’s share.” “The spirit of abundance. Because giving to the people you care about is fun in itself.”
Let’s return to Mr. Brooks’ most important point. Brooks argues that it’s okay to make mistakes as parents because what we do doesn’t make much of a difference. I disagree. I think it’s okay to make mistakes because parenting is important. Mistakes are opportunities for growth and education. When we fail, we teach our children many important things. We teach that all humans are works in progress and should strive to learn and grow throughout their lives. We model for them how to apologize, be humble, and take responsibility for our actions. We teach our children that life is often more complicated, messy, and beautiful than we expect, and I believe that’s a good thing.
