Beautiful Fotos 5: A fairy tale park in Croatia

The Power of Parenting, or Not

How much influence do parents have in the lives of their children? If you browse the bookstore shelves or Amazon.com you'll think that parents are the be-all and end-all of how we all turn out. There are parenting books for every possible quirk in children and how to parent it to accentuate it or parent it away. However, if you listen to behavioral geneticists, you hear a different tune. Kids are mostly a product of their genetics and parents, aside from being the source of these genes, don't matter as much as we think we do.

Did you raise a responsible kid? You didn't teach responsibility -- you passed on "responsibility-friendly" genes. Is your kid intelligent? No, that expensive preschool had nothing to do with it. She's got some smarts-producing genes.

Nature vs Nurture

When scientists try to answer the nature vs. nature debate, they turn to two kinds of children: twins who were raised apart and adopted children. In some fascinating studies, including hundreds of twins who were raised apart, identical twins turn out to be much more alive in intelligence and happiness than fraternal twins who were raised apart. (See the source article here.) In other words, genetics trumps parenting every time.

As an adopted child who feels very much like her parents in many ways this research never sat well with me. If I was more a product of my genetics, I was a product of a string of people I didn't know. So I focused on the ways in which me and my parents were alike and ignored some of the crucial ways in which we are different.

Powerlessness of Parenting

Now, as a parent, I find the behavioral genetics argument compelling and liberating. I am the mother of two children, and coming to know them over the past decade, I see how much their innate nature and genetic traits are the true rulers of their lives. I often joke about how "they just came out that way," but that statement is no joke. It is true on a profound level.

I am liberated by the ability to shove off the guilt and the shame that comes with raising children. Yes, I've made mistakes -- we all have -- but there is much more at play than my successes and stumbles. I may agonize over whether we should have started Ben in public school one year later, when we was 6, not 5, but how much of a difference would it have made to his core being, the inside Ben he will carry throughout the rest of his life. Not much, I now believe.

Ellie has started and stopped numerous activities in her short life, flitting from one thing to another as her interest wanes. Gymnastics, dance, piano and guitar have all fallen by the wayside. She's on violin now, and I have little doubt that this pursuit will be as short-lived as the rest, but what value is there in pushing her and fighting with her if she decides to quit? Not much.

Again, from the Brian Caplan article cited earlier:

"If you enjoy reading with your children, wonderful. But if you skip the nightly book, you're not stunting their intelligence, ruining their chances for college or dooming them to a dead-end job. The same goes for the other dilemmas that weigh on parents' consciences. Watching television, playing sports, eating vegetables, living in the right neighborhood: Your choices have little effect on your kids' development, so it's OK to relax. In fact, relaxing is better for the whole family. Riding your kids "for their own good" rarely pays off, and it may hurt how your children feel about you."

(One important point it feels necessary to raise now. Abusive child-rearing is obviously outside of these parenting "choices". We're talking about run-of-the-mill parenting here.)

So yes, it's "not my fault," but the powerful specter of genetics also makes me feel helpless in the face of some of my kids' tougher challenges.

I've been mulling all of this over again and again as we work toward a critical decision for Ben -- choosing his middle school. On the one hand, I could be making a decision that has a powerful effect on the rest of his life. It could be a great success or a dismal failure, and we're charged with making that choice. On the other hand, this decision will have little effect on the ultimate happiness he experiences in his life or his level of intelligence. Apparently, even though parents might have some effect in the short term, it wears off over time. (Again, read the article.)

My Unique Genetic Perspective

I only know two people on the planet who I am related two genetically -- my children. In them I see some wonderful and disturbing representations of myself that I know have been passed on through genetics and not parenting. I claim all responsibility for their love of Red hot Chili Peppers and Dark Side of the Moon, but those basic character traits? Not much.

When I was younger I was fascinated with the prospect of there being people in the world who looked like me. But I always focused on the superficial genetic relationship -- the shape of a nose; where a woman carries here weight; eye color. Now that I have that kind of relationship (my children resemble me very much) I am not so interested in those commonalities with my genetic relations.

What I must conclude now is that there are, or were, people in the world who are like me in much more significant ways. Interests, character, disposition, intelligence, happiness, etc. I'm not sure if I'd want to meet those people -- sometimes it's best not to look too closely at the reflection.