Family
How Much
Do Parents Matter?
Parents matter! Just not as much as you think. Nor in ways that are predictable from child to child. For many years I have urged parents to think of themselves as "gardeners, not sculptors." Thus, the main points of the controversial new book, "The Nurture Assumption", by Judith Harris, are not very different from my own professional beliefs. However, I think she does understate the impact of parents, overstate the impact of peers, incorrectly limit personality change to only the first 25 years of life, and ignores the rich complexity of individual lives in favor of seeking "truths".
I do recommend that parents and professionals read the book. No summary will suffice to capture all of the valuable information and challenging ideas that are found in this very readable summary of research and theory about what determines our personalities. One of the goals of the author is to reduce parental guilt by making it clear that parents do not have a primary role in shaping the eventual lives of their adult children. This is a valid objective. Current information suggests that about half of an adult's personality is influenced by genetics, i.e., what you were born with, your basic temperament which stays with you forever. The rest is "environment." Here's where Harris becomes controversial. First she says that the term "nurture, which has come to be associated with parental care, should be replaced by "environment", which would include the child's experiences in all contexts. Nothing wrong with that. Then, she claims that parenting only influences how children act around parents while peer experiences have a greater influence on our ultimate personalities. While she cites considerable research to support her claims, in my opinion, there are two fundamental problems with her conclusions.
The idea that parenting primarily influences how children behave around parents is not as radical as it sounds. As Harris points out, parents are constantly surprised to hear that the behavior of their child in school or at someone else's house is very different than what they see at home. She uses the research that supports this as proof of parents' limited influence on personality and claims that the part of personality that is shaped by "nurture" only shows in a predominate way when we go back to visit our parents as adults. What she fails to address is that, as adults, we create a "home environment" that is a significant part of our life and typically triggers many of our parentally-influenced characteristics. Furthermore, in citing research to make so many of her key points, Harris, doesn't address the fact that research data is a summary of group averages. So while it may identify trends, it doesn't establish individual "truths." Within every research group, there are a wide range of test or rating scores, i.e., a significant amount of individual variation. Thus, it becomes impossible to know if a specific child of yours is one who is going to be more influenced by family, peers, or genetics.
Another complication is the definition of personality and the concept of what really matters in our adult lives. Most theories of personality produce a relatively short list of characteristics that is used to describe an individual. While that may predict certain behaviors, knowing someone's "personality" doesn't predict specific actions that an individual may take in any situation. Furthermore, people are much more complex than a list of personality characteristics, even a long list. How we think and feel, the rich depths of our complex selves, goes way beyond any list. This is why we fail so miserably when we try to explain the behavior of an individual whose actions make our news headlines.
Harris summarizes a lot of research to support her claims. I like her point that childhood (6-12) is more an age of conformity than adolescence. Children want to be "average", not stand out, be like everyone else. Teens have a stronger need to belong to a group but by adolescence they have splintered into cliques. Then we see a desire to differentiate from the general population of teens and find an identity. Even within the clique, which now becomes a very strong influence in the life of the teen, there is an effort to have some uniqueness.
I also like her summary of gender factors, underscoring the concept that there are gender differences (although she correctly points out that there are more similarities than differences) and that they are not simply a function of how we raise our children. Across cultures there appear to be enduring aspects of behavior in boys and girls that are consistent differences, e.g., males are described as more aggressive and active, females as more affectionate and sensitive. Harris again turns to genetic and peer influences as part of these differences but she also notes an often overlooked factor - males and females look different and we know that people's appearances influence how they are treated. So maybe some of the patterns of socialization in our society are not simply the result of gender bias but the influence of children upon parents. Harris, in fact, very appropriately stresses how much children, from conception on, influence parents. It is very much a two-way process.
In summary, I believe that we should take Harris very seriously when she makes the point that parents are only a partial influence on how our children turn out as adults. I urge parents to focus more on the present, enjoying your children, and creating consistent, effective ways of influencing their behavior so as to minimize conflict and failure. Focus on each child's strengths, try to believe that even your difficult child will turn out okay, and recognize that so many different factors will influence how your children's lives will turn out that the best thing you can do is build a friendship that will last (or emerge) during all those adult years when they will need your guidance to survive the inevitable tough times.
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