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.
With a system like this, it’s a shock that any guns ever get traced: This is the maddening, inefficient way gun tracing works, and there is no effort afoot to make it work any better. For all the talking we do about imposing new limits on assault weapons, or stronger background checks, nobody talks about fixing the way we keep track—or don’t keep track—of where all the guns are. I had NO idea things were this bad!
This story made my eyeballs leak a little. Apologies that it’s not in a very readable format, but it’s worth it if you can.
We’re getting better and better at packing lightly but I always felt awful at it during JB’s infant years. GenYMoney inspires me to do better at it with her 12 days traveling with just carry-ons!
Boom! Lawyered: Pregnant and Going to the Doctor? You Might End Up in Jail
I remember giving what seemed like endless urine samples during my pregnancy and I am pretty sure that they didn’t tell me it was for drug screening. Simultaneously, they were really persistent in scheduling me with a maternal health drug and alcohol therapist of some sort. I was equally persistent in dodging her because it seemed unnecessary. When we finally had our interview she seemed tense at first but then started to laugh at all my bland incredibly boring answers. They were concerned I was a drug addict and that’s why I was dodging the appointment.
Call me morbid but I’m always reading articles about how people dealt with their parents’ passing looking for ways to make our estate plan and paperwork more airtight and clear cut so that in the event of one of us passing, there isn’t much work for the other person.
A stunning chart shows the true cause of the gender wage gap: “Historical drivers of the gender wage gap — a lack of education among women, for example — are disappearing. But the professional penalty women face for having children is stubborn, and it isn’t going anywhere.”
JB has been asking for a lot of Elmo lately. Normally I don’t mind but for the last couple of weeks, his squeaky voice has been getting on my last nerve so I was pleased to find this version of Elmo that satisfies zir request and doesn’t annoy me!
On baby books: “At their worst, the Baby Trainers seemed to suggest that my son was best thought of as an unusually impressive dog, who could be trained, using behavioural tricks, to do what we wanted: if we stopped responding to his night-time cries, he’d learn that he could return to sleep without our assistance and would, as a consequence, stop crying.”
I laugh because much of raising JB has been like training a slightly clever dog. A much more clever dog, Seamus, assists (judges & corrects) us in the training process when he thinks we’re wrong.
Maybe this is what I’m trying to do in therapy – work on the process of moving on and forgiveness. Saying forgiveness is hard for me because I don’t think I’ll ever truly forgive Dad in the sense that I let him off the hook for what he’s done to me and my family, but rather I need to find a way to let go of the hurt and the resentment that’s lurking. Perhaps the conflict there, the inability to accept forgiveness as defined, is what’s preventing me from embracing it.
This analysis of the recent layoffs at B&N makes me sad. Barnes & Noble and Borders crushed most independent bookstores, so they’re no saints, but it makes me sad that B&N is now laying off employees in the way that does look a whole lot like the executives are trying to milk the cash cow for as long as possible until it dies. It also makes me sad that we’ll eventually lose another cool place we liked to meet friends for kids’ activities.
We tried tax loss harvesting in 2017 and I’m pretty sure I did it wrong in retrospect. I’m not sure if we’ll be trying tax gain harvesting any time soon but just in case you want to know, J Savvy talks about how he did it.
A dramatic story of dodging the FUBAR bullet (Part 1 and Part 2)
There’s a lingering thought that one of these days, I’m going to do something worth selling so I keep reading these articles on selling and pitches to tuck the knowledge away. I’m mulling over what kind of parenting article might be worth pitching to a magazine but nothing has bubbled to the surface yet.
I mentally categorize our money like Jim’s Time Capsules. It helps me decide each priority and what to do with them.
Please vote for my post (Father) on Rockstar Rumble, live today and tomorrow (Friday). The link still works, I don’t know why the blog likes to strike through links occasionally!
Kathleen’s moving to Arizona and says some quite true things about kids. We’ve gotten past some of those hurdles by having family visit and adjusting our expectations, and PiC works out of the home so we don’t feel trapped. But it’s true that without a supporting cast, it’s hard having kids.
I am always thinking about ways to teach JB good money habits and self control. We might give this one a try when ze is older.
Keep Thrifty’s Chris didn’t replace their pizza cutter. We work on not having specialized tools in the kitchen too but we recently added a food processor and it was sheer heaven when preparing a veggie heavy meatloaf and my Hainan chicken recipe. So much time and energy saved! Two thumbs up on that.
I don’t usually love list posts but I love mail so the 21 things you can mail was a bit of fun.
Should I say yes more often as a parent? I dunno, I try for a reasonable balance. We allow small snacks before dinner though if you kept saying yes, JB would have two dinners and four desserts before the real dinner so the madness has to stop somewhere.
A transcript on how generosity in business pays off. It’s a good read but this made me laugh: “The more you can pour into making it a gift about them… Think about going to a wedding. You’d never engrave something with “Compliments of John Ruhlin” or “Compliments of Giftology.” It would be the cheesiest thing on the planet.” An incredibly tacky cousin stapled her business card to some cash for our wedding present. We’ve got some weird relatives.
This made me nod, this is exactly how we approach marriage and parenting which is why our partnership works. We don’t count how many times we’ve done something, we look at what our partner’s been carrying and try to alleviate their burden:
“So often in marriage we’re thinking about our own needs and what we want and what’s fair, and that’s natural. That’s really human, but good marriages come from two people thinking about how they can serve one another and really approaching marriage from a place of generosity. That gets really practical. It comes down to the division of household chores.
Instead of thinking primarily about equity and fairness, in a great marriage where both people are being generous you’re just looking for opportunities to help one another. It’s true of parenting too. Like, who’s going to put the kids to bed? Who’s going to get them ready for school or church? Who’s going to take them to practice? All those kinds of things. The endless driving. Hello. The endless driving. I’m so in that season right now.”
And then I REALLY liked this idea: “One of the things he said to me is the easiest, fastest way to get money to the people who need it the most… Don’t send it to Washington and let them skim off a big administrative charge. Instead, just give all of it to the people who need it the most.”
@geekymath would appreciate your vote