Parenting – FENQ

Original link: https://elizen.me/posts/2023/05/see-you-see-me/

The podcast program “Suddenly Left and Right” started with “Gene Lottery” translated by Lu Dapeng, and talked about genetics-related content. It just so happens that I am more interested in this topic, including the 20th-century eugenics theory turned into a brutal political policy by Hitler, the different views of the left and right in the United States on the relationship between heredity and environment, neo-Darwinism in evolution and evolution. And the concept of life clock emerging from epigenetics is very interesting and interesting.

Putting aside some of the effects of political stances, and only starting from the development of the individual, does a person’s genes play a greater role in various aspects, or does the acquired environment have a greater influence? In biology, sociology, psychology and statistics, there are always various data research and testimonials, which is a standard complexity problem. For me, what I am most concerned about is Gopnik’s original “The Gardener and After so many years, whether the theory mentioned in “Carpenter” can still hold water, that is, the role that parents can play in their children’s education is very limited.

From “The Gardener and the Carpenter” to “Super Society”, from “Genetic Lottery” to “Don’t Trust Your Intuition”, I still get some arguments from some content.

First of all, Gopnik’s conclusion is still correct, and the acquired influence of parents on their children is still limited. In “The Gardener and the Carpenter”, Gopnik used the conclusions drawn from the follow-up research on twins and raising these children in the popular behavioral genetics at that time. Judging from the current evidence in the field of molecular genetics, it is also possible Explained, but it seems that the heritability has weakened a little, but I personally don’t agree with the current explanation.

Gopnik made a conclusion at the time that what kind of person a child will become does not depend on his parents, but on the community he lives in. The group he exists as a natural person has more important influence on him. As proof, I can say that I have completely two personalities in my circle of friends and at home, but there is nothing wrong with it. Children can even distinguish between “us” and “them” (they are also the concept of adults).

In “Don’t Trust Your Intuition”, an economist in the United States used a very convincing evidence to prove the importance of the community’s influence on children, but his evidence can draw slightly different conclusions. He pays more attention to It is about a person’s academic and career achievements when he grows up. He proves that if a person lives in a relatively good community, the children will eventually be greatly influenced by their friends’ parents. Note that he specifically emphasized that it is not Children’s friends, they are actually more likely to be influenced by their parents’ status. For example, if a good friend’s parents are Kochi, pilots, or other relatively good occupations, they will have a higher probability of achieving such achievements in the future.

So, what is a good community and why does a good community work like this?

Let’s talk about a good community first. The standard of a good community given in the book is actually not high:

Parents in the community have a relatively high level of education
Relatively high proportion of two-parent families in the community
Relatively high proportion of communities who return census forms on time

To sum up, a good community is that everyone’s cultural level is generally better, the family is more harmonious, and the people are more reliable. If you live in such a community, your children will have a higher probability of achieving relative success when they grow up.

So why does a good community have such a role?

There is an explanation in “Gene Lottery”, that is, we must first admit that genes have an influence, and we can see in some other books that this part of the influence is actually very large. If compared with the influence of the acquired environment, it may account for than higher. In “Don’t Trust Your Intuition”, I draw a conclusion through statistical data. If the parents are ordinary blue-collar middle-class, from the genetic level, the child’s future job salary will be about 56,000 US dollars per year, which is also the average level of an American blue-collar , if the parents put a lot of effort in cultivating him the day after tomorrow, such as going to various cram schools and baby chickens, the impact on his acquired days is probably less than 20%, which will make him grow from 56,000 US dollars per year to the next A better level is $70,000/year. If all these years of hard work, time, and money were included, it would be even more cost-effective to leave the money to him directly.

The conclusion is, parents, don’t bother, it’s useless.

More interesting conclusions are yet to come, and some data are cited in the book: For a child, in the first year of his birth, parents have to make 1570 decisions, such as whether to breastfeed, what brand to drink Milk powder, I can’t go out for a walk today… You can imagine how many decisions and energy his parents had to make when he was growing up, and the impact of these countless decisions on him in the end is only less than 20 %.

However, among the 20%, one decision, just one decision, can account for 1/4 of the 20%. It can be said that if you only do this one thing, you are worthy of your own children. That is to choose a good place to live, a good community. I can even tell you right now that the data at this stage proves that the best and most suitable place to raise a baby in the United States is Seattle. If you move to live there, it will be OK. It’s a pity that there is no data and research to tell me where is the best in China.

In short, I am not a neo-Darwinist, nor a fundamentalist. I know how dirty the social Darwinists did back then, and I also know that the left and right are arguing that those things are nothing more than interest struggles. My own pursuit is actually very simple. Try not to fail to be a qualified father because of intellectual defects. Passing is enough.

As for children, I have never liked the term “nurture” or “education”. For me, it is more “education” than “education”. Finally, once again, don’t bother, it’s useless.

Diary on May 26, 2023.

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