IF GOD COULDN'T MOLD HIS CHILDREN, WHAT HOPE DO THE REST OF US HAVE?:

Economics, Genetics and Hippies (Bryan Caplan, 4/11/11, Freakonomics)

As I explain in my new book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, adoption and twin researchers have spent the last forty years measuring the effect of parenting on every major outcome that parents care about.

Their findings surprise almost everyone. Health, intelligence, happiness, success, character, values, appreciation – they all run in families. But with a few exceptions, adoption and twin researchers find that nature overpowers nurture, especially in the long-run. Kids aren’t like clay that parents mold for life; they’re more like flexible plastic that responds to pressure, but returns to its original shape when the pressure is released.

The most meaningful exception to this flexible plastic rule is appreciation – how your kids feel about and remember you. One Swedish study asked middle-aged and elderly twins – some raised together, some raised apart – to describe how their parents raised and treated them. Twins raised together painted much more similar portraits of their parents than twins raised apart. If you raise your children with kindness and respect, they will probably remember it for as long as they live.

The upshot: Parents spend too much effort trying to mold their kids for the future, and not enough just enjoying life together. Vainly struggling to change your kids isn’t fun for you or them. And the struggle can easily hurt the main outcome where parenting really matters: the quality of the bond between parent and child.

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