I’ve commented more extensively on the scientific and logical basis for Caplan’s ideas elsewhere, including my serious concern about his reliance on separated-at-birth twin studies, but I’ll limit my comments here to something a little more subtle.
While some of his data about intelligence and physical health seemed pretty sound, I remember his conclusions about personality and happiness seeming a lot sketchier. Which makes sense since the psychological health of any given individual is extremely difficult to quantify (much less the effect of one person’s psychological health on another’s). But I think it’s these aspects that good parents are most concerned with: Will my child live a life that is largely stress free? Will I pass on my bad habits? How can I teach my child to be able to form strong and healthy emotional connections to others?
When I (non-scientifically) observe the reasonably sane parents I know, my general fear is not that they’re making their children stupid or that they’re sabotaging their child’s future health. My fear is that they’re passing on a host of much more insidious problems—body image issues, co-dependency, repression of anger, etc. When adults go into therapy, it’s usually not because they’re worried about their lack of income or talent or intelligence, it’s because they’re struggling with complex issues relating to self-esteem, trust, and identity.
Now I admit that these are extremely fuzzy concepts—the “science” of psychological health is still extremely young and hard data is difficult to obtain—but I’m not the one writing a book on parenting. What I’m trying to get at is that while I agree that the modern trend of “tiger-parenting” is useless at best and damaging at worst, that doesn’t mean there might not be some less-cartoonish improvements that parents ought to adopt. And Caplan’s book doesn’t just present the research for your consideration, he makes a point of boldly telling you to just stop worrying. I think his evidence doesn’t justify such boldness, and that he’s trying to take the air out of a question which still deserves a great deal of cultural attention.
Damn straight. This common-sense observation really is needed to balance the (oh-so-contrarian) original post; techincal/quantitative concerns about overpopulation, heredity, etc all seem less much less important in contrast with the point above—at least to my limited psychosocial understanding.
I’ve commented more extensively on the scientific and logical basis for Caplan’s ideas elsewhere, including my serious concern about his reliance on separated-at-birth twin studies, but I’ll limit my comments here to something a little more subtle.
While some of his data about intelligence and physical health seemed pretty sound, I remember his conclusions about personality and happiness seeming a lot sketchier. Which makes sense since the psychological health of any given individual is extremely difficult to quantify (much less the effect of one person’s psychological health on another’s). But I think it’s these aspects that good parents are most concerned with: Will my child live a life that is largely stress free? Will I pass on my bad habits? How can I teach my child to be able to form strong and healthy emotional connections to others?
When I (non-scientifically) observe the reasonably sane parents I know, my general fear is not that they’re making their children stupid or that they’re sabotaging their child’s future health. My fear is that they’re passing on a host of much more insidious problems—body image issues, co-dependency, repression of anger, etc. When adults go into therapy, it’s usually not because they’re worried about their lack of income or talent or intelligence, it’s because they’re struggling with complex issues relating to self-esteem, trust, and identity.
Now I admit that these are extremely fuzzy concepts—the “science” of psychological health is still extremely young and hard data is difficult to obtain—but I’m not the one writing a book on parenting. What I’m trying to get at is that while I agree that the modern trend of “tiger-parenting” is useless at best and damaging at worst, that doesn’t mean there might not be some less-cartoonish improvements that parents ought to adopt. And Caplan’s book doesn’t just present the research for your consideration, he makes a point of boldly telling you to just stop worrying. I think his evidence doesn’t justify such boldness, and that he’s trying to take the air out of a question which still deserves a great deal of cultural attention.
Damn straight. This common-sense observation really is needed to balance the (oh-so-contrarian) original post; techincal/quantitative concerns about overpopulation, heredity, etc all seem less much less important in contrast with the point above—at least to my limited psychosocial understanding.