My New Favorite Parenting Book

​The following excerpt is from the introduction of Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan. I bought Caplan's book after listening to this conversation regarding his book. 

Adoption and twin research provides strong evidence that Parents barely affect their children’s prospects…

…[Researchers] find that when adopted children are young, they resemble both the adopted relatives they see every day and the biological relatives they’ve never met. However, as adopted children grow up, the story has a shocking twist: resemblance to biological relatives remains, but resemblance to adopted relatives mostly fades away. Studies that compare identical to fraternal twins reach the same conclusion.

The lesson: it’s easy to change a child but hard to keep him from changing back. Instead of thinking of children as lumps of clay for parents to mold, we should think of them as plastic that flexes in response to pressure—and pops back to its original shape once the pressure is released. (pages 4-5 of Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan)

One more sentence from the first chapter, “The best available evidence shows that large differences in upbringing have little effect on how kids turn out.” (pg 34)


We can all chill out about parenting. My previous advice stands: don't abuse your kids, avoid poverty, and love them. The rest, I agree with Caplan's conclusions regarding the science of nature vs nurture, is not going to have a large lasting difference on who your kids become.

Attention and Parenting from Alice Munro

Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2013. I've read one or two of her short story collections. I like her. I started another one of her books last week. I keep thinking about the first story. The title is To Reach Japan, you can read it online for free if you create an account here. 

One section especially spoke to me. And after a week, I'm realizing how good the story is. I wouldn't say the story is about parenting, but is it about a parent. And that parent captures one of my largest struggles as a parent. I would call it a tragedy of parenting, Munro's narrator calls it a sin.

I can relate so much to her quote below. I'm so often preoccupied and giving my attention "to something other than the child." Munro has 4 children, so I'm sure she's very familiar with the sin she describes. Even when you put your child in daycare for 7-9 hours a day, it is so easy to commit this sin.

Minimal spoiler warning! and brief context. The protagonist, Greta, left her child unattended on a train ride across Canada. The child was napping and when she woke up she wandered off crying looking for her mom. Here is the quote.

"All of her waking time for these hundreds of miles had been devoted to Katy. She knew that such devotion on her part had never shown itself before. It was true that she had cared for the child, dressed her, fed her, talked to her, during those hours when they were together and Peter was at work. But Greta had other things to do around the house then, and her attention had been spasmodic, her tenderness often tactical. 

And not just because of the housework. Other thoughts had crowded the child out. Even before the useless, exhausting, idiotic preoccupation with the man in Toronto, there was the other work, the work of poetry that it seemed she had been doing in her head for most of her life. That struck her now as another traitorous business—to Katy, to Peter, to life. And now, because of the picture in her head of Katy alone, Katy sitting there amid the metal clatter between the cars—that was something else she, Katy’s mother, was going to have to give up. 

A sin. She had given her attention elsewhere. Determined, foraging attention to something other than the child. A sin."

Advice for Expecting Parents/Fathers

A January 2026 Update here. Read first!

A Brief Lesson in Parenting: All You Need Is Love Minus Chronic Stress

There are only three things people need to know about parenting:

1. Love your child.
   
2. Avoid abuse.
3. Avoid poverty.

Give your child lots of love. They won't overdose. Loving your child will have different meanings as they get older, but don't worry about holding or showing a baby/toddler too much love.

Parents have a lot of control over their offsprings' environment. Most of those choices won't be very consequential. If you look at what messes kids up, it's the effects and stresses of abuse and poverty. As a parent you need to love your children; prevent them from suffering abuse; and do your best to avoid the stressors of poverty.

Fuck Parenting Advice

In case you couldn't tell, I don't value parenting advice, especially unsolicited parenting advice, especially especially unsolicited parenting advice from people without children. Parenting is not a science. There were some real experiments with raising children prior to modern ethics in research, spoiler warning, they're tragically depressing. So if and when someone suggests or gives you a parenting book, just smile, say thank you, and feel free to ignore. Parenting books are either theory based or anecdotal. Both may or may not apply to you and or your family. What worked for someone else may or not work for others.

If you personally want a certain structure, I would amend my advice. Parenting books can be useful for giving ideas. Big surprise, I found parenting books to be a waste of time.

For evidence based parenting choices, Emily Oster. I subscribe to her parenting newsletter, Parent Data. She has at least a couple books and I would recommend her if you must have a parenting book. Or if you want to learn about choices parents need to make, like drinking coffee/alcohol while pregnant/beast feeding, using formula, babies sleeping with parents. Oster is all about risk analysis and encouraging people to make the best choices for their families. Oster is an economist, so she analyzes the available data and studies it like an economist.

Feelings

Any feelings or lack of feelings are normal and fine. It's okay to not like being a parent, just love your offspring, don't abuse them, and, if possible, don't be poor.

I have a theory, untested and solely based on my experiences with myself and other fathers, that fatherhood being the greatest experience know to man is a false consensus. I'd bet many men would confide in privacy that fatherhood is less desirable than they publicly announce.

I'll admit that my opinions could very likely change. But to make a financial analogy, I'm still waiting for the return on my investment.

I could make this into a long rant itself, but whatever you're feeling or not feeling is fine. You'll love your kids and be a great parent.

The First Few Months

The first weeks were a blur. One of the only things I remember was how amazing going back to work was. I felt bad because my wife didn't have a work to go back to, but the break away from home was incredible.

Take all the help you can. We had my in-laws within an hour drive and my mother came to spend 2-3 weeks with us a couple times. Having help was the best. Even little things like cleaning the house or cooking a pot of food made everything else easier.

If you don't have family helping and or you can afford it, hire help. Help helps. If the stress is building and there are things you can outsource, hire someone to help.

Be Prepared

For the most part, babies only cry for a couple reasons. You'll figure that out real quick. But sometimes the baby will cry and nothing you do will help. That's normal and depending of the baby it will vary in frequency and duration.

I would have avoided some terrible experiences if I was mentally prepared for times when I was stressed, tired, hungry, upset about something else, etc and my daughter was having a bad fit. This will happen. It's frustrating. And frustration can easily rub off and extend the episode. Be prepared for how to handle these moments calmly and patiently. Think about how you would like to respond. Think about how you might naturally respond. Think about how you can trick yourself into doing your preferred response instead of your natural response.

The crying fits got worse for me as my daughter got older. After 2 years old, I lost my cool a few times. I do a lot better now because I'm learning from my mistakes and thinking about triggers and indicators to look for and expect. Not surprisingly, all of my worst parenting performances occurred when I was watching my child alone. Anticipate and prepare for unideal circumstances and practice handling the situations smoothly. Unideal circumstances will become a lot more regular with a child.

One morning your kid will ask for something unexpected for breakfast and you'll say no. You'll probably be running a little late for work, the dog will need to go to the bathroom, and you'll be in the middle of sending a message. Next thing you'll know, the the kid will freak out like someone is sawing their leg off with a butter knife. What do you do? That is one of many situations you can practice preparing to encounter. Another spoiler, yelling and getting visibly frustrated doesn't help the situation.

Your Parents Are The Default Parents.

Continuing with being prepared, most people learn how to parent from their parents and close relatives. I find myself parenting like my parents more than I'd prefer, not a compliment.

I find myself losing my patients like my dad, and I find myself antagonizing my whining daughter like my mom. I know both of these are poor strategies. But in the moment, I just default to my parents too often. Consider what your parents did well and poorly. You might find yourself being more like them than you expected.

Conclusion

I've already far surpassed my advice rule. Nothing ground breaking. You're going to be fine. Parenting is more exhausting than hard. I focus on the negative because the positives don't need advice. It's easy to enjoy the positives. If you want to wash my recommendations down with positives, test out my theory and ask some father in public! But the negatives can create more negativity. The negatives compound more than the positives, and many negative experiences could be minimized or prevented with mindfulness.

Top Resources

• The Data-Driven Guide to Sane Parenting (interview)
  
• Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong - and What You Really Need to Know (book, if you must)
  
• Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool (book, if you must)
• Scientific Secrets for Raising Kids Who Thrive (college course lectures)
  
• The Coddling of the American Mind (book, but not on parenting)
  

Stay at Home Parenting

The last two days, I've had a taste of being a stay at home parent of a school aged child. It's awesome! I drop the kid off at day care, come home, and have peace and quite for about 6 hours until it's time to pick the kid up from daycare.

Being a stay at home parent with pre school aged kids is a different story (unless the working spouse makes enough to pay daycare costs then that would be in the awesome zone.) 

Every parent should have to spend extended time as a stay at home parent. Otherwise, it's just unfair.

The summer of 2019, I stayed home most of my summer break from teaching. It wasn't too bad from what I remember now. But I took a 3 week vacation to Oregon with the kid, and at the time we lived within an hour from my in-laws.

The last six months, I was the stay at home spouse. Making matters worse, the working spouse works 60-80 hours a week with fluctuating day and night shifts. It's miserable at times. I'm not joking, even though it is funny, I thought I was going to literally lose my mind a couple times. My behavior was worse than the toddlers. Most of the time it's varying forms of tedium. After a couple months, it was worse than being a teacher, which is pretty bad.

So reader, how do you know I'm not just ranting and being a whiny liberal? Well, my daughter is in daycare, and I started subbing for $105 a day before taxes. So babysitting other kids, so I can pay someone to babysit mine. Some might call it poetic justice.

Anyways, with this week being winter break, I get to feel the nirvana of being a stay at home parent of a school aged kid. I could get used to this.

The dishes are done; the house is mostly clean; the dog got a nice long walk on the beach and is passed out; and I get to write a rant. I should have time to workout, read, and play chess before picking up the kid.

So, for all you parents who get to work, and don't know what it is like to "watch your own damn babies!" (this is a quote I loved from the novel Jazz by Toni Morrison. I'm using the quote out of context, but it is too good not to use) It's just not fair.

Children Never Get a Chance to Be Themselves

I didn't research anything yet. I also have a bias. I haven't heard a convincing argument against causal determinism. I believe determinism rules the universe whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not. My ideas are stemming from my denial of free will.

Causal determinism is, roughly speaking, the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

A little more background, I have a 13 month old child. Observing her develop sparks many ideas about parenting, education, learning, etc. My daughter has been a hilarious baby. Jamie knows how to work a crowd. She picks up what makes people laugh and what gives her positive feedback. She loves laughing and positive feedback. I don't think this makes her unique or special.

Readers should know what I mean by "true" or "own personalities." Writing philosophy is tough. Terms and words need to be unpacked, defined, and or explained. I'll try to be concise. I'm going to stick with the terms baby, child, and parent to sum up the interactions between children and whoever provides them care.

Today's Rant: Children are sculpted by their parents/caregivers/family/environment, so babies/children have no chance to develop their own/true personality.

The Argument (I'm working on this. It's a mess)

1) Genes and environment produce behavior and personality.

2) If parents dictate environment, offspring cannot create their environment.

3) If parents condition offsprings' behavior, offspring cannot create their personality.


Conclusion: Parents and genes dictate offsprings' personality.

The Reasoning and Analysis

I'm not suggestions that people's behavior or personality do not change or evolve later in life. I also know that friends, society, profession, schools etc. have huge impacts on personality.  But by the time these events take place, offspring have been sculpted so finely by parents, environment, and genes that offspring have no agency in their personality or identity. I'm saying that, Jamie, you, and I have no influence over who we are. Our identity and personality is determined

My daughter is confirmation bias for my predisposition.

I watch Jamie, and she laughs because we laugh. My wife and I especially are creating her sense of humor. Something happens; Jamie looks to us; we tell Jamie if it is funny or not; Jamie laughs or doesn't.

One day Jamie randomly or accidentally made a noise. I don't know what the noise sounded like, but my brain processed it close to "was dat." Of course, I started mimicking and pointing to Jamie, which reinforced Jamie learning to say "was dat." It was hilarious and random, but it became part of her personality and our relationship. I could have ignored it. I could have heard something different. I could have thought that wasn't. This might be a counter example to my argument, but the point is I not Jamie reinforced and conditioned us to.

Little things like this happen all the time. Now that Jamie is 13 months I can see how much I influence her. Jamie started head banging dancing last week. It's pretty awesome, and everyone loves it. So she keeps doing it. This along with everything else is teaching her what is funny.

I'll admit, I don't have full control over Jamie. I wish I did. When she gets hysterical, she has this unbearable screech. It's terrible and gives me a headache. But this behavior, and a few others, we try to change and condition.

Still I can't help think when I see her interact, how much "thank you"s, "no Jamie"s, clapping, cheering, etc shape her. She conditions us too, of course, but we condition her more.

How much does each of my actions affect her? How many behaviors that I inhibit would have lead to x identity or personality?

There isn't a double blind study to run. She doesn't have an identical twin that we could not condition. And I'm not worried. My worldview doesn't care much. But it's a trip to think about. What if I was more compassionate or tolerant of her cries and screeches? Would she develop into a more "true self?" I don't believe in a true self/personally, but it's a term that captures my idea best.

That's good enough. Please leave a comment if you're interested. I can add explanations where they are needed.

Jimbo Out

3 April 2022 (Update!)

This sounds like a bunch of nonsense now. I mostly agree with the ideas, but this isn't going to convince or change anyone's mind with a different idea.  

Jimbo out again

23 January 2026 (Update!)

Nature > Nurture

"The best available evidence shows that large differences in upbringing have little effect on how kids turn out.” (pg 34 of Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan)