Parenting doesn’t do what I thought

Every parent should read this article: Does parenting even matter?

Here are some money quotes.

On the things we think are important:

Things like which school your child goes to, whether they travel, how many books you read them when they’re small and how hard (or if) you push them into certain activities, aren’t likely to have much, if any, effect on who they fundamentally are now, or who they become.

On changing their personality:

If your child is defiant and strong-willed, they’re almost certainly going to spend their life challenging authority whether you run your household on a strict military timetable or unschool them in a yurt.

On setting them up for success:

Many character traits widely assumed to be the result of environmental factors and social conditioning-like curiosity, diligence, intelligence, fastidiousness, academic inclination and drive-are, in fact, highly heritable.

On why parenting still matters:

Parenting does matter-of course it does-just not in the overly complicated, competitive, anxiety-ridden way most of us have been led to believe. Our kids are born who they are. As parents, it’s our job to love, support, accept and enjoy them. The rest is gravy.

The book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids is all about this concept. If you meet a very low bar for parenting then your kids are going to turn out how they’re going to turn out.

There are decades of identical twin and adoption studies to back it up. Those studies have only linked a few things to upbringing. Religious and political affiliation are two examples.

Everything else has little to no correlation. That includes salary, education level, health (smoking/drinking, cavities, etc.), grades in school, criminal behavior, etc. It’s genetics all the way down for those.

That’s disturbing, right? There’s nothing I can do to help my kids grow up to be healthy or well paid or educated? Yeah, but it’s also freeing. Our job is to love our kids and give them happy memories to look back on. We can focus on the fun stuff, because that’s the stuff that matters. The rest, as the article says, is gravy.

Originally published at http://critter.blog on October 23, 2020.