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Comment by throwayEngineer | Hacker News Reader

The whole identical twins separated at birth thing makes me believe environment is the only thing a parent can provide.

Children do not listen to their parents for very long.

A decent school, technology like a laptop, and maybe an awareness to dissuade bad friends. That seems like all you can do.

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I've thought about this a lot. The evidence seems pretty strong that as long as you are a reasonably decent parent (IE, maybe anything short of child abuse) your kid will probably turn out as their genetics and the large-scale culture predetermine in a lot of important ways: IQ, income, educational achievement. However, good parenting can make the journey more pleasant for everyone involved, even if the destination is roughly the same. If I let my son watch a ton of TV instead of actively playing with him it might not affect his adult IQ much, but I do think it would make both of us worse off and less satisfied in ways that would be hard to quantify. Of course, that may just be how I justify doing what my culture tells me is good parenting even though there's not much data in support of it.

You might be interested in reading Maria Montessori (of Montessori school fame). Her stance is very much towards molding the environment rather than the child. She basically says that you can't mold the child, but you can become an obstacle to their development.

> Children do not listen to their parents for very long.

I disagree with that. I listened to my dad growing up because I respect him and think he is a good person. I probably would have gotten into more things if that hadn’t been the case.

I don't know that I "listened" to my parents very well, but I did watch them a lot. Their actions influenced mine quite a bit.

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