Just a little (link) love: dragons edition
March 15, 2018
@geekymath would appreciate your vote
Claire Gooding, aka Luke’s mom on Twitter, passed
We make choices, and choices NOT to do something is as much a habit as a choice to do something regularly.
Juuling – did I really need another thing to warn JB off of? Sigh.
Dar shares an experience with top surgery.
I have an obsession with hybrid/electric minivans right now. Especially because Japan’s not sharing theirs with us (aka selling them to us). Sadface.
The premise of this article, that parenting largely has no real effect on the development of a child into adulthood, as presented is a bit disturbing. He claims that reading to kids doesn’t matter. Hm. Really.
But then the concluding paragraph summed up much of our approach to parenting:
Natural selection has wired into us a sense of attachment for our offspring. There is no need to graft on beliefs about “the power of parenting” in order to justify our instinct that being a good parent is important. Consider this: what if parenting really doesn’t matter? Then what? The evidence for pervasive parenting effects, after all, looks like a foundation of sand likely to slide out from under us at any second. If your moral constitution requires that you exert god-like control over your kid’s psychological development in order to treat them with the dignity afforded any other human being, then perhaps it is time to recalibrate your moral compass; does it actually point north or just spin like a washing machine (see Pinker’s work for this same point made more eloquently)? If you want happy children, and you desire a relationship with them that lasts beyond when they’re old enough to fly the nest, then be good to your kids. Just know that it probably will have little effect on the person they will grow into.
I have no idea how much parenting does or doesn’t matter. We want JB to be a good human; we will model decent behavior and explain why we do what we do, and most importantly strive not to break zir in the popular authoritarian style that the previous generation seems fond of. But in the end, I’m not sure that who ze becomes is really in our hands. How well we cultivate our relationship is but that’s the best we can do. It’s still disquieting but in a different random lightning strike kind of way.
The article about parenting instantly made me think about the article about the man who found out he had the brain of a psychopath:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/
When I think about myself and my siblings and my husband and his– I think that environment isn’t everything, but neither is genetics. In some diseases and conditions, people start out with a genetic tendency but they don’t actually develop it until they experience an environmental trigger. I think that’s similar for all life. It’s the two in combination, not separate. I personally think that parents make a big difference to the degree that they can influence and control the child’s environment. It’s not the whole equation, but it’s a significant variable.
Yes, I don’t think we’re close at all to figuring it out!
Anything that has the title “most social science research is probably wrong”…
Right? I started the article squinting from that title alone. It’s a miracle I made it to the end.
Thanks for the shout out today! I was really proud of that one (as well as the successful year in general). And I’m in the camp that it’s 100% nature and 100% nurture – who we are is inherently ingrained in us, but parenting seriously matters as well. That idea you linked to sounds dangerously similar to past arguements that certain races (ie not white) were inferior due to nature.
You’re welcome! Yes, I should have been more clear that I was mostly linking to it for my own discussion rather than any endorsement of an article that was not that strong in good arguments.
Genetic determinism has some really unsavory underpinnings that makes me extremely wary of the author’s argument. Also, I have to assume separated-at-birth twin studies are kind of a biased sampling (involve highly motivated adoptive parents with enough stability to undergo a longitudinal study). Though, I do agree with the author that we probably do underrate the effect of peers/cohort on long-term outcomes.
I forgot about that last part – you have a point. I’ve read some research that’s starting to suggest that the effect of peers is more significant than parenting on long term outcomes.
A lot of that article resonated badly in that “oh this is not great” kind of way.
I think that about who we are and what be become into as adults, at least some of it is attributed to how we grew up. Which is why I think parents are a big contributer to a child’s life, they help guide them and provide a great influence when they start out.
I did think that too, but then I see how we were raised, and how my sibling and I turned out COMPLETELY differently. He turned into the person that my dad was, inherently, even though as far as I know we were taught to be better and I didn’t. Weird.
Thanks for including me! I have a ways to go with the amount of likes. One girl at my local gym has over 1000 already, so I need all the help I can get! I think she has the most in the competition from all the locations USA/Canada-wide.
You’re welcome, and good luck!
So interesting, because I also think about how differently my sister and I turned out, even with nearly the same upbringing.
My mom’s family members are generally very successful, stable, kind citizens of the world. My mom and her 3 siblings all flew the nest across the country to pursue their dreams, and since have/had great, stable careers and families of their own and are very close to this day. My mom was the first in her family to get a Master’s degree. Now, my cousin and I are working through a PhD programme, another cousin has her PhD and works for a prominent think-tank, and yet another cousin has her Master’s. We’re all loving and kind to one another, have stable jobs, etc. My mom and her siblings get together in their original hometown for a 4 day weekend every year (away from their spouses and everyone else) and just hang out, eat together, and do stuff like play card games. They all LOVE it and each other so much, and we kids feel that. It’s just all very loving and healthy.
On the other side, my dad and his siblings all hate each other and have spent their entire lives being petty and mean to one another. There are some severe personality disorders and mental illnesses (and concomitant addictions) at play there, and I think that was a major contributing factor. My dad was the only one that had/has a stable career and personality. The other 3 abuse(d) drugs, became alcoholics, tended to get into very abusive relationships, got into fights with all bosses/friends/family, and/or were not able to or refused to hold down a job. My aunt died from an accidental prescription drug overdose after a lifetime of skipping around from one failed money-making scheme and abusive boyfriend to another. By the end, she was hallucinating someone living in her walls & stealing from her and was regularly taking her shot gun and shooting up her house. My one uncle had a severe mental illness, was not able to work his whole life, and never got over my grandmother (his mom) dying of cancer, became a reclusive alcoholic, and died driving drunk only a few years after her death. My remaining uncle on my dad’s side refuses to get a stable job, and even when he works odd jobs, he messes it up by taking advantage of his employer’s kindness. He refuses to speak to my dad unless he is giving him money, lending him his truck (which he returns with no gas and scratched up), or doing him a favor. Even then my uncle complains my dad doesn’t do enough for him. He has a wife and kids, but my (wonderful, hard-working) aunt has recently bought a house and refuses to let him live with her anymore because of how selfish and awful he is. My dad’s siblings all fought constantly and would get intensely, screaming-angry at one another for dumb stuff like my grandmother loaning one $20 and not the others (for real). I don’t ever remember a time when they all got along, and multiple thanksgivings/family get togethers were marred by some extreme tensions and screaming matches and someone storming out of the house or calling and yelling. My dad was the only one who ever financially supported himself and remained in good humor.
All that to say, my sister and I were exposed genetically and environmentally to two very different ways to be. Like you and your brother, we turned out very differently.
Genetically, I happened to escape the Family Curse of mental illness/learning disabilities on my dad’s side, but my sister didn’t. While she and I were more similar to my mom and her side of the family growing up, since her mental illness kicked in at 19, she has solidly followed in the footsteps of my dad’s side. Nothing I do is right and I am always screamed at now. Her hygiene and self-care is atrocious. Because of meds/poor self discipline, even at 37, she can’t control her bladder at night and still, doesn’t make her bed and sleeps directly on the mattress. She smokes 2 packs a day in her rental house, she eats junk food and drinks soda even though she is diabetic, she stays with an emotionally abusive boyfriend, and recently quit her month-old, part-time job (which her case manager got her through a state-run program, a highly coveted and waitlisted, flexible, understanding position designed for people like my sister) because one of the other people there made a face at her. She threw away my most recent Christmas gift to her for absolutely no reason at all (it was something she asked for!!), and wasn’t even sorry to tell me that, nor did she see why I was upset about it. And all of that is the version of her that is STABLE and on a medication regime that is WORKING (finally!). It just seems like the bad behaviours modeled by my dad’s family are just too strong to break out of? She and I talked a lot growing up about how we didn’t want to be like them. When I talk to her now about how similar she acts to them sometimes, she can’t see it and gets angry. My mom and dad taught us much better than how she behaves sometimes, and yet…? She thinks the world/my mom and dad/I owe her something and that she’s entitled to everything, without working for it at all. She’s jealous of my job and life but doesn’t connect the fact that I work really hard and have had to develop extreme self-discipline, suck up a lot of shi%, and make a lot of sacrifices to get where I am today.
So I don’t agree with that article, either. Parenting does matter! Without my mom and dad giving me a solid base to start off with, I wouldn’t be who I am today and couldn’t have gotten as far as I have. And, barring a few unfortunate genes leading to mental illness, I think my sister would be a completely different person because of my mom and dad’s parenting. It’s just that sometimes, genes are too strong to overcome the good parenting base, and then bad models get repeated.
I have relatives who also follow the exact model of their parent’s bad behaviors, which they complain about hating, even when it’s pointed out to them. And while Mom’s side of the family are highly dysfunctional, we weren’t exposed to most of them until our later teens, my sibling was well on his way to being the person he chose to be at that point despite our parents raising us the same way.
I’m not really sure how to interpret that but I have to hope that any of our parenting will matter in the long run for JB.