Parenting guru Bryan Caplan prescribes less fuss ? and more fun | Life and style | The Observer

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Amid the blizzard of books telling parents how to best raise their children, a new volume has shocked many middle-class families in the US. Its advice? Relax. Do less parenting. Let them eat pizza and watch more TV. Dr Bryan Caplan, an academic and economist from George Mason University in Virginia, believes parents are working far too hard at bringing up their children. In his book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun than You Think, he recommends mothers and fathers take more of a backseat role and, crucially, abandon the hothousing. "What I'm trying to say is, if you are a person who likes the idea of kids, being a great parent is less work and more fun that you think. Right now, parents are 'overcharging' themselves for each kid," said Caplan, who is a father of three – eight-year-old twins and a one-year-old. He added: "Parents can sharply improve their lives without hurting their kids. Nature, not nurture, explains most family resemblance, so parents can safely cut themselves a lot of additional slack." Caplan's style of "serenity parenting" comes in stark contrast to other models advocated, most prominently this year by Amy Chua, a Yale professor whose bestselling book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother extolled the virtues of tough love and hard work. Caplan believes, however, that "investment parenting" – piano and violin lessons, organised sports and educational games – doesn't have the slightest effect when the children move into adulthood. He suggests letting children drop sports and other activities unless they really love doing them. His book, which was published earlier this month, recommends that highly strung parents lighten up not only for their own and their offspring's good, but also for other would-be parents who may think that they cannot afford children. "What do good sense and economics tell you to do when the prices turn out to be lower that you thought? Buy more. Stock up," said Caplan. "Quit fretting over how much TV your kids watch. Don't force them to do a million activities they hate. Accept that your children's lives are shaped mostly by their genes and their own choices, not by the sacrifices you make in hopes of turning them into successful adults." Caplan points to scientific evidence to support the idea of "serenity parenting". Research on twins and on adopted children shows, he says, that parents' long-term effects range from small to zero for a wide range of outcomes such as health and success. "For life expectancy, you see no effect of parenting. You might say, 'Well, who thought parents affected life expectancy?' Parents can nag you all they want, but when you're an adult you're going to do your own thing." Research also shows that a child's intelligence can be increased by parental interaction when they are very young, but by the time the child reaches 12 the effect has disappeared. "You need to look at adopted kids – that actually does measure how much parents matter and how much heredity matters." His contrarian theory has caused consternation among the new army of "tiger mothers", the latest childcare movement which has also emerged from American academia, emboldened by Chua. "If in their early years we teach our children a strong work ethic, perseverance and the value of delayed gratification, they will be much better positioned to be self-motivated and self-reliant when they become young adults," Chua writes on her blog. "This is a way to combine east and west: more structure when our children are little and will still listen to us, followed by increasing self-direction in their teenage years." But there is widespread support for Caplan's more relaxed approach. "The idea that parenting has become the overwhelmingly most important gauge of how a child will turn out is completely implausible," said Dr Ellie Lee of the School of Social Policy at Kent University. "The 'tiger mother' thing – that you can turn your child into Mozart by force of will – is an utterly bizarre suggestion. It's reflected in a lot of recent policy documents so it gains traction but the idea that a parent can determine how the next generation turns out has to be called into question. Imagination and talent is something we need to develop culturally; it's a collective enterprise... "We have this great expansion of parental time and so everything about bringing up kids is suddenly magnified, so in that respect Dr Caplan's advice to enjoy parenting more and hothouse less is a welcome one."

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The 'tiger mother' thing – that you can turn your child into Mozart by force of will ...

Unless Chua really said something like that, it seems a bit of a strawman. And counter-examples are also possible. Tiger Wood, all those teenage-athletes. They're not there coz they like it. They're where they are either because their parents were nuts or because they lived in a totalitarian state willing to sacrifice anyone for The Glory of The Motherland.

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Caplan's style of "serenity parenting" comes in stark contrast to other models advocated, most prominently this year by Amy Chua, a Yale professor whose bestselling book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother extolled the virtues of tough love and hard work. Caplan believes, however, that "investment parenting" – piano and violin lessons, organised sports and educational games – doesn't have the slightest effect when the children move into adulthood.

Depends what you measure. Most of us know (and I've posted them myself) the numbers: Your future is pretty well determined by your parents' income/socio-economic strata and your year of birth. But that's if your only concern is your child's socio-economic strata.

Piano lessons may not impact your child's chances of socio-economic success but it does mean your child will be able to play the piano as an adult.

I always thought that, in any case, the best way to motivate a young teenager into music was to tell him that it'd increase his chances of getting laid for a lifetime.

Not sure what kind of parents that'd make me...

As to parents having no great influence, that's roughly true but, iirc, the peer-group of your teenager was of paramount importance. And, as a parent, you can more or less select the peer-group.

Basically, you just got to understand the data and realise that the levers you thought were working don't or, more precisely, don't work the way you thought they did. It doesn't mean there are no levers...

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