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Do specific parenting choices really make a difference for how people eventually turn out?
@gog posted a comment fairly deep in the thread about courtesy, which seemed worth discussing further. (https://www.themotte.org/post/812/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/176067?context=8#context)
The obvious: misery is bad all on its own, regardless of whether it affects future earnings. So, for instance, Aaron Stark’s childhood was bad (https://youtube.com/watch?v=su4Is-kBGRw) and his parents should feel bad, even though he eventually turned out alright. It sounds like Aella’s childhood was bad and her parents should feel bad (https://aella.substack.com/p/a-disobedience-guide-for-children is not about her childhood specifically, but is the kind of discourse she and others with similar childhoods end up in. FWIW, “my parents are too violent, maybe I should escalate to breaking windows” sounds like an absolutely terrible plan), and it’s debatable whether she turned out alright or not.
Also obvious: It’s possible to prevent children from learning basic things like reading by never reading to them, teaching them, or exposing them to reading culture, not having books at home, not reading or writing oneself, etc, as has been common historically among impoverished households. There seem to be a fair number of children on the margin, who can learn to read just fine with proper instruction and interesting materials, but fall off with poor instruction and boring materials (c.f. Los Angelas whole language program). There also seem to be a fair number of people who will learn to read with just the Bible and an adult who will eventually, somewhat irritably answer their questions.
Contentious: given a certain genetic makeup, family environment, and baseline level of things like nutrition, how much difference do things like daycare, schooling methods, or specific actions make?
Does teaching a child to read at 3 vs 6 matter? Does teaching them algebra at 9 vs 16 matter? Does it only matter under certain circumstances (such as a future mathematician needing to learn math early, or a future world class musician needing to learn to play an instrument early)? Do the children of the sorts of people who like cramming them full of Math and Culture and Literature end up with a richer inner life than if their parents hadn’t had time and energy for that?
I’ve read a lot of fairly surface level articles and reviews about this by people like Scott Alexander, Brand Caplan, and Freddie DeBoer, but mostly forget the details. They tend toward saying that most things work about as well as other things, but some situations are miserable or waste a lot of money and resources, and wasting billions of dollars making people miserable for no reason is probably bad.
I was homeschooled, and am now teaching public school, and sending my daughters to public preschool. Several of my friends are homeschooling or planning to once their kids are old enough, and more are stay at home parents than not, despite being generally lower middle class. I don’t have anything against homeschooling, it just isn’t pragmatic given my personal financial situation and the personalities of my older daughter vs husband and I. This might change as she gets older, she’s still in pre-K, and when I try to teach her something, she tends to argue with me about it.
My general impression on the ground, as it were, with two children and teaching 600 elementary children, is that there is not necessarily any One True Way that will work for every child. And that there are children who are thriving in the large elementary school, and children who are miserable there. Their autism program, especially, seems very stressful for everyone involved, like placing it inside a very large elementary school was probably a bad idea.
Both my daughters seem pretty happy with their publicly funded daycare/pre-K. Two year old is always waving bye to everyone and seems pretty happy to see them. Four year old talks about liking the playground, some friends, and learning to write her name. We bought food from the school cook, and it was quite good. Gog’s preschool did sound pretty unfortunate.
Is there any useful way to systematize any of these observations? Any high leverage changes people are able to make but don’t?
I honestly don't know how to feel about that little story in Aella's Substack. First off, there's no definition of "my parents were violent" other than "they hit me". So was that smacking/slapping, or was that punching with a fist? Leaving marks?
Then Author #1 is too glib about 'how it all would have gone'. Asking to be referred to the foster system? Even as a bluff, that means they had no fucking clue what that would be like in reality, and if they were the 'good child' doing well in school and winning music competitions, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess they had no problems about having clothes to wear, enough food, or heat in the house, etc.
Which is not to say that outwardly respectable nice middle-class families can't be violent and abusive! But I do wonder what the real situation was. Maybe the parents were violent, or maybe Author #1 (and siblings) did have psychological problems they don't admit, or blame on their parents, or brood too much over "I was abused" when what they mean was "When I wanted something and my parents didn't give it to me, I pitched a fit, and they gave me corporal punishment because that's how they were raised".
I don't know. But the more I read, the less I believe the parents were "violent" and "beat/hit" that person.
And then Dad stands up, apologises, and says "Well you can see for yourself what Junior is like; last night he refused to do chores and back-answered his mother, so I swatted his backside. That was the 'assault', folks". And everyone in the workplace thinks he didn't hit you half enough if you're pulling this self-dramatising shit. Seriously, a genuinely violent parent is going to drag you out of there, beat the living crap out of you for pulling a stunt like that, and you end up in the hospital. Somebody really living in fear of violence is not going to recommend 'strategies' like this, except as part of wish-fulfilment revenge fantasy daydreams of "I'll show them!"
This is also fucking terrible advice, I thought Aella was supposed to be smart? Now you're labelled as self-harming, which does make you the 'problem child', and you are revealed to be a liar trying to get your parents into trouble. You'll have a psychiatric label slapped on you, be dosed up to the gills on medication to stop you doing anything like that again, and may well end up in the foster care system anyway, plus everyone will feel sorry for your parents and the terrible kid who tried to persuade everyone they were abusing them by faking an injury. What kind of lame-brained notion is this?
Yeah, I thought it really odd and unconvincing, though I do know some people from very conservative families who should have just frickin' sent their kids to public school instead of turning their home into a powder keg. Not that anyone other than a trusted religious leader would have been able to convince them of that. At least one ended up on Aella's "the only thing I have going for me is being a young woman, guess I'll do prostitution until I can figure out something better" track, and found it pretty traumatic. My impression is that if she had tried the breaking windows and embarrassing her father in public route, she would have ended up getting belted, then possibly tied up in a windowless room until they were sure she wouldn't hurt their stuff.
From reading her post about her father, absolutely that kind of behaviour would have gone very badly for her. He would have no problem escalating, and he would have used this kind of action as more evidence to berate her: "normal people don't do that! I told you that you were a crazy, useless, worthless bitch!"
Someone who can confidently advise "A four year old can break windows, just break a couple windows and your parents will be too embarrassed to ever hit you again" has no freakin' idea what genuine physical abuse is like. Just try reading the Victoria Climbié story and imagine how "break the window" would have gone over. At least Aella isn't the one telling people "you should have tried this, I wish I had tried this".
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