Responses to Comments on Economic Inequality’s Effect on Parenting Style

I respond to comments on college admissions procedures, family economic background, contexts of "hard work," concern for "happiness," and concern for kids' futures, as they affect parenting style.

Kindelmedia/CC

Dear friends,

In Letter #58 I summarized evidence, generated originally by Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti, that across nations, and over time within the US, economic inequality influences parenting style. More specifically, the theory supported was that when the gap between the richest and poorest citizens is great, parents adopt a more intensive, controlling style, focusing on getting their kids to work hard at tasks believed to be good for their future, and when the gap is smaller parents are more inclined to allow their kids more freedom to discover and pursue their own interests.

That letter generated many very interesting comments. Some readers who agreed with the Doepke-Zilibotti theory, and with my addition that this helps explain the high anxiety of US kids today, gave examples from their own experiences.

For example, Judith reported: My parenting became intensive when I feared our daughter’s creative skills were greater than her practical ones. And it did not serve her well. She became anxious and not well in high school. When competition drives parents to pressure their children, the greatest loss is the relationship between the parent and the child. The child feels unsupported and unloved. Too big a price to pay. Btw, she is doing well now, giving her young sons a play-based early childhood curriculum.

And Lish reported: I was born in 1985, and I can relate to the resume building of childhood. That's what my parents believed would give us (my brother and me) a successful life. There was no negotiation, college was a must, and everything we did was to build our resumé. We joined organizations that would build our resumé all through middle and high school years. We are now parenting our 3 young kids completely differently; college is optional, and they must work a job out of high school. I'm not sure "how" they will get into college 6/7 years from now but that's definitely not the end goal in life.

Others made comments that either went beyond the points made in Letter #58 or questioned some of what I stated there. I summarize and respond to those under the following headings.

What Does It Really Take to Get into College in the United States?

Lila, who came to the US from India, pointed to US college admissions policies as an explanation of why parents are directing their children into all sorts of resumé building activities beyond just academic school performance. She wrote: In the US, college admission requires you to have some combination of volunteer experience, internships, excellence in sports, musical ability, along with great grades and SAT scores, as well as an insightful essay. To excel in sport/art, you end up needing to work on them from an early age so you get to compete in the leagues that allow you to display excellence. There's no room to just pursue an activity for fun. Every single activity a child does is looked through the lens of "does this help with college admissions?". I blame the American college admissions process for all of this.

I agree that college admissions policies are part of the problem, but there is also a general misconception about college admission. My follow-up studies of kids who grew up with Self-Directed Education indicate that many of them get into four-year colleges, including sometimes quite elite ones, without the standard resumé and even without any school grades, primarily by presenting evidence of a passionate interest, success in pursuing that interest, and a good reason for choosing the college to which they are applying. College admissions officers are often looking for students who are interesting because they did not take the standard route.

It is also the case that in the US, unlike in India, almost anyone can get admitted to college, regardless of what their resumé looks like. The elite colleges reject most applicants, but there are many other very good colleges that don’t. There are more college positions available in the country than students seeking to fill them. This, in a way, is an advantage of capitalism in education. Colleges are businesses competing to get students, and different colleges take different approaches. There are also community colleges, in almost every community, where essentially anyone can take courses for little cost and then matriculate for a two-year degree and use that to transfer (with two years of credits) to a four-year college. This is not only a way for non-resumé-builders to go on to higher education, but a less expensive way. The mistake of overanxious parents is to believe it is essential for their children to go on, right after high school, to an elite four-year college. In my next letter I plan to explain why this is a mistake.

In India and some other countries, especially in East Asia, high academic test scores are the only route to higher education. The result is pathologically intense academic competition. Parents who cannot afford it are spending money they don’t have for test drill, and kids are losing not just play but also sleep preparing for tests. I spent some time in Northern India a few years ago and saw almost no children out playing. People I talked with explained that the kids were in after-school tutoring. Parents who are poor push their children academically and sacrifice economically for this partly for their own social security. If their kids get into college, they are pretty much assured of a future bureaucratic job and will then be able to support their parents in the parents’ old age. Others who write about schooling in China and South Korea report the same thing (see my essays relevant to this here and here). The suicide rates among kids in those countries are extraordinarily high.

How Might Economic Inequality Affect Different Families Differently?

One might think that economic inequality would motivate poorer families to be more concerned with their kids’ resumé building than wealthier families. Anna, in a comment, seems to suggest this is the case in her comment stating that, because her family is well off financially, she doesn’t worry about pushing her daughter into competitive extra-curricular activities. She adds, however, this about the teachers at the private school her daughter attends: The teachers who are also parents are flummoxed by the fact that I don’t care about sports. I get it--they are paid so poorly that they have to push their kids to get scholarships. Recently some of their children have had to go into the military or trades because they couldn’t afford college..

This is a good point, and I am sure there is truth in it. However, it doesn’t explain why research shows that, overall, the greatest achievement pressure is on kids from wealthy families who send their kids to “high achievement schools.” The rates of anxiety, depression and suicide in those kids are much higher than the national average. I summarized that evidence in Letter #43.

My way of making sense of this is to assume that wealthy parents feel their kids would be failures in life if they do not reach a position of status and material wealth at least equivalent to what the parents have achieved. At times of high economic inequality, it may be easier to fall or rise from your starting position regardless of where that position is on the economic ladder. It might even be argued that the higher you are on the ladder, the farther you have to fall and the harder it is to go still higher. Moreover, wealthy parents may be people who especially value wealth and status, so, on average, they push their kids harder than do parents who value those less.

Encouraging Hard Work Is Not a Bad Thing.

In Letter #58 I noted that Doepke and Zilibotti defined controlling parents as those who rated “hard work” and “obedience” above “imagination” and “independence” as values they want to foster in their children. This led Sarah to write: I would absolutely encourage "hard work" as a value, just not mindless hard work--just the recognition that hard work is the only way to get really good at anything (and very often overshadows natural talent). Very often there is drudgery to overcome--musicians may not enjoy learning scales or sight-reading, but they may enjoy being able to play an instrument really well and play a new song without much difficulty because they've practiced scales and sight-reading. I think the issue is more with parental-imposed goals than the value of hard work per se (I think we should encourage children to take themselves seriously and work hard to meet their own goals.)

This is, of course, a good point. I completely agree with Sarah. I doubt if any reasonable person doesn’t see the capacity and willingness for hard work as a value. Indeed, most people would agree that all the values in the list used in this study are worth encouraging or at least not discouraging, depending on context. The distinction just had to do with which ones the parents ranked higher as something they were motivated to foster.

My own view on “hard work,” based partly on observations of kids involved in Self-Directed Education, is that kids indeed do work hard at activities they value and wish to become good at, without anyone particularly encouraging them. For example, kids who develop a passionate interest in mastering a musical instrument go beyond just fooling around with the instrument to a stage of working hard to be good at it, and some of that work is not pleasant in an immediate sense. If a parent has to push them to do this practice, that probably means the kids aren’t really interested in mastering the instrument.

Beyond this, however, I also believe that kids, as part of being in a family, have a responsibility to do some of the domestic work of the family. It’s only fair that they take part in family chores. Not only does this help the family, but it helps kids grow up with a sense that they owe it to their future family, when they are adults, to do their part. That’s different, however, from pushing “hard work” to get A’s in school or excel at any activity that the kid is not passionate about for the sake of resume building. In other words, I’m a fan of self-motivated hard work and hard work in shared chores.

One situation where I am perhaps most sympathetic with parents who push their kids to work hard in school is that which faces many immigrant parents, who have come to a new country from poverty and see school performance as the most direct route for their children’s success. This has been true for many waves of immigrants to the US and other relatively wealthy countries. Tricia expressed this well in the following comment: I was born in the early 70s in London to immigrant parents. Although the early part of my childhood education centered around play, by the early ‘80s and with more financial power, my parents saw education as a way to success. From then on, the focus was on academic success.  I wonder, looking at the statistics, whether the immigrant family feels even more pressure on scheduling every minute of their child's life. My parents chose to move across continents for a better life; they did all they could to ensure that paid off.

I Need to Qualify What I Mean by “Concern for Children’s Happiness”

In Letter #57 I wrote, “‘Good enough parents,’ which are the best parents, are much more concerned with their children’s present happiness than with their future,” and I claimed that happiness in childhood is a key to a happy, successful adulthood. I repeated that in the conclusion to Letter #58.

In response to this, Tad, quite appropriately, reminded me that I should qualify that statement. He wrote: I think there is likely too much concern now about the “present happiness” of children, too much checking in on how they feel about everything. I think this likely induces much more rumination in kids than was present in earlier “good enough parenting” generations. Happiness is something that seems to be best achieved indirectly. Those most focused on their own happiness, don’t seem to be the happiest. They seem to be the most selfish. Some parents give their kids everything, toys, activities, (everything but boredom and risk) and then expect their kids to be happy.

Yes, I agree, and I have said much the same thing in previous writings. “Present happiness” was a poor choice of words there, as it implies happiness at every moment and parental responsibility for that happiness. Part of growing up is experiencing unhappiness, learning how to deal with it, and learning that one’s own unhappiness is not always someone else’s fault. Kids have a right to sadness, anger, and other negative feelings without someone always checking in on them about that. Instead of the comment about “present happiness,” I probably should have said something like, “Good enough parents are much more concerned with their children’s overall wellbeing and agency in childhood than with their future.” That’s what I really meant.

Re Concern for Our Kids’ Futures, It’s Not the Goal but the Methods that Are Misguided.

Of course, “good enough” parents are concerned about their kid’s future, but they don’t obsess about it, and they are humble about the degree to which they have control over that future. What they assume is that kids who are respected and allowed agency in childhood are more likely to be successful in adulthood than those who aren’t. They are, however, concerned about the moral development of their children. They aim to be good models of morality themselves and are not afraid of chastising their kids (respectfully, with reason) for moral transgressions.

Relevant to this, Kathleen wrote: [Parents] think they must "prepare" their kids for the endless scrabble. It's not true of course. The things kids need to prepare for the future are mostly intangibles. A sense of self-worth. An internal motivation to learn and grow. Open mindedness to learning new things. Curiosity. Caring. Emotional self-awareness and empathy. The ability to set boundaries, meet their own needs, give to others.

Also relevant here is Ian’s comment: [T]o me it seems that feeling pressure to help your child succeed and be better than the others is a good thing. … The question I have, and the primary reason I find this substack valuable, is: are our methods of attempting to do this actually working? Are they helpful, or are they counter-productive? I work in higher education and see a cohort of mentally fragile young people who haven't learned how to navigate conflict whatsoever, and that certainly isn't creating the next generation of greatness pushing society forward. I'd love to read more exploration on parenting styles vs actual success in life (both material and psychological).

The methods of intensive parenting are clearly not working well. By treating children as if they are fragile and need constant guidance and protection, we are reinforcing fragility and undermining agency. Ian, you might be interested in these articles I wrote on the emotional fragility of college students some years ago:  Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges and Causes of Students’ Emotional Fragility: Five Perspectives.

On the same issue, Tad wrote: I think “good enough” parenting means taking a reasonable approach to both present and future happiness. This may be done by emphasizing moral/character, social education. My kids know that their careers are largely up to them, but that we expect them to be honest, kind, and brave in whatever situations they are in. If my kids are jerks, I’ll feel I failed as a parent. If they can’t be depended on by their employer or spouses, I’ll feel like I failed. But I don’t care about their salary, other than hoping they can live happily within their means. At the same time, they can and should be kind, honest, and dependable now. Like my wife and me, my kids aren’t perfect. But they are certainly “good enough”! If the only way you’ll feel like you did a good enough job as a parent is if your kids go to an Ivy+ or even your flagship state university, you probably aren’t very happy now and neither are your kids.

I agree with Tad except for one thing. If his kids turn out to be jerks, I don’t think he should necessarily feel it is because he failed. By being “good enough” parents we increase the chance that our kids will not be jerks, but there is no guarantee. We all tend to overemphasize our role as parents in our kids’ development and don’t give enough credit to the many other factors that come into play. There are lots of great people out there who had terrible parents, and there are lots of “jerks” out there who had “good enough parents.”

Part of being a “good enough parent” is humility about the influence we have on our kids’ development and an ability to neither blame ourselves much for things that go wrong nor take much credit for things that go well.

Further Thoughts

I have not addressed all the great questions and comments presented by readers of Letter #58, just the ones for which I thought I had something worth saying.  Again, I thank all readers who take the time to pose questions and comments. You make these letters much more interesting, for me and others, than they would be otherwise.

If you aren’t already subscribed to Play Makes Us Human, please subscribe now, and let others who might be interested know about it. By subscribing, you will receive an email notification of each new letter. If you are currently a free subscriber, consider converting to a paid subscription. I use all funds that come to me from paid subscriptions to help support nonprofit organizations aimed at bringing more play and freedom to children’s lives.

With respect and best wishes,

Peter