http://thebadmomsclub.com/2011/08/bad-moms-backed-by-really-smart-economists.html

Bad Moms Backed by Really Smart Economists

By Annie on August 23, 2011 5 Comments

I thought I might use a quote for the title of this post, but I just couldn’t pick one.

“Obsessive parenting has few rewards”

“What if my kids don’t turn out well and then everyone blames me? …the data say it was going to happen anyway.”

“Human beings are terrible risk assessors in general, and that no one is worse than a parent”

“To look at your child like a science project is just going to make you unhappy.”

“I think that the hardest thing as a parent is to admit that you’re going to take risks with your child’s life, to actually admit out loud, I take risks with my child’s life. If you said that at a cocktail party, people would look at you like you were a monster.”

So many gems, only room for one title.

These particular quotes are coming from a panel discussion of a group of leading economists, who also happen to be parents, on the topic of parenting. The economists include:

• Freakonomics  Steve Levitt; Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers
• Bruce Sacerdote
• Joshua Gans (the author of Parentonomics: An Economist Dad Looks at Parenting); 
• Melissa Kearney
• Valerie Ramey
• Bryan Caplan (the blogger and author of Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Parenting is More Fun and Less Work Than You Think).

If you want to listen to or read the whole thing, you can access the podcast of the Economists Guide to Parenting or read the full transcript of the podcast.

During this long and nuanced conversation, the economists were talking about what matters and doesn’t matter in the way we parent. Ultimately, a lot of our obsessions are worthless, as far as they are concerned. However, that doesn’t mean that they don’t obsess. They are, in fact, not necessarily drinking their own Kool-aid.

It was intriguing to hear them stating in a very matter of fact manner that they do invest in things that they know the data does not support — things like piano lessons, expensive nannies, art lessons, and more. I understand investing in these things because your children want them, but they talked about the battles to get their children to practice their music. Battles that could have perhaps been avoided. However, these parents, these economists, kept investing in these things in the hope that they would make a difference to their child’s intellectual ability, educational opportunities and professional accomplishments, despite knowing better. Fascinating.

C’mon: no effect on income? Puny influence on education? Now, if you’re a parent, especially the kind of hands-on parent who thinks hard about every input in your kid’s life — every flash card and every museum visit, every taekwondo lesson and, god forbid, every video game — you’ve got to be thinking: Oh man, these economists are full of crap!

Almost any significant difference I could have on my kids predates their birth and possibly even their conception. Ultimately, the age-old advice to just “be yourself” applies in parenting too. Don’t push yourself to be something or someone that you are not with the hope of raising exceptional children or being a super mom. Not only will it make you unhappy, but it won’t really make a difference to your child’s chance of success anyway.

There is one exception, however: smoking and drinking. Taking the time and making the effort to deal with your own addictions can make a difference according to these economists. Kids who grow up around parents who smoke and drink are more likely to do so themselves.

So, if I’m a smoker, if I’m a parent who smokes, and I think that smoking is bad, which would probably describe a lot of smokers, and I don’t want my kids to smoke. And I’ve got let’s say, 10 hours of time or $100, or whatnot, and I’ve got to decide how to spend that 10 hours or $100. You’re telling me based on what you’ve seen in the research that it would probably be better for me to spend those hours and dollars trying to quit smoking than it would be trying to cram in some extra reading time at the library or whatnot.

Oh, and being a good, kind and respectful person too.

Another thing that’s undoubtedly contagious is that behavior of how you interact, how you treat other people, how you treat employees at a restaurant, or a retail store or something. I think those things are probably highly contagious as well, and things that you really want to model carefully, and just like in the smoking example, you can make yourself better off as well as setting a good example for your kids.

Beyond setting a good example, the way you treat your children sticks with them too.

There’s a great Swedish twins study, where the people, ah the twins were in their fifties and sixties and seventies, and even when you’re in your seventies, whether or not your parents were kind to you stays with you, and you know, identical twins, fraternal twins have similar and quite high levels of agreement on these questions, which is the smoking gun for nurture really mattering. So the way that your kids feels about and remembers you. The quality of the relationship. This is where you really have an effect and where it is very long lasting, it really does last a lifetime.

Or, more simply stated: “The lowest common denominator for having a kid who turns out well is the kid being loved.”

Be nice. Love your children. Deal with your addictions. Otherwise, don’t sweat the small stuff. Unless you want to or feel the peer pressure to do so, in which case, don’t sweat that either. That, my friends is the Economists Guide to Raising Successful Children.