How intellectual pollution has crippled America's children | Hacker News Reader

How intellectual pollution has crippled America's children

alexkrupp.typepad.com

48 pointsAlex391724 comments

The article itself is intellectual garbage: a hodge-podge of guesses, social fables and random facts assembled on a web page.

He far overestimates parents' influence on children. Judith Rich Harris' work has proven that (for normal families, where parents don't traumatise their children) the peer group is far more important than parents in the child's development.

"the peer group is far more important than parents in the child's development."

That's during the school years. I'm only talking about kids younger than four. Also, I'm talking about the cognitive development of structures which become relatively fixed after age five. (Like extraversion and executive function.) The peer group is more important than parenting, but only for predicting the trajectory of further academic achievement, which is completely different from the ways in which parenting styles affect cognitive, emotional, and physiological development.

EDIT: Also, speaking of peer groups, one of the reasons good parenting is critical is because schools sort children into different tracks as early as age six. In principle, track placement is temporary. In practice, it is quite permanent. To quote one researcher, “We found that first-grade ability-group placement can have persistent effects on children’s achievement in school over a period of several years and may shape the expectations of children’s performance held by significant others, such as parents and teachers. Whether these effects are instructional, social, or institutional, they are real, and they have implications for children’s future schooling trajectories. […] Instructional grouping may have the unintended effect of increasing inequalities in educational outcomes, largely by creating inequalities in educational resources and rewards.”

(This comes from Equality and Achievement, and also from Pallas et al. “Ability Group Effects: Instructional, Social, or Institutional?” Sociology of Education 67 (1994).)

A few semi-questions. Structures that become relatively fixed after five? This seems suspect. There are two major prunings of overgrowth of neurons: once soon after birth (where your case stands), once in puberty (where your case falls). I'm not the best at sources but without evidence in my face my guess would put post-puberty for the "relatively fixed" threshold, and common sense confirms this: "identity formation" = puberty. And identity formation basically means habits, which are also manifested in parenthood. As for executive functions, we're probably talking about white matter growth, which is mostly genetic. There could be swing cases, but if your white matter puts you firmly above or below your peers, there's no way in hell you will not perceive it and act on this knowledge -- unless there is some crazy conscious brainwashing going on, which doesn't apply in this case.

Amount of father time vs mother time, and type of father time vs mother time is unaddressed in your post but potentially a critical difference. Role models are important in gender role formation (and, no, we aren't all equal): a negligent father would imply less play-ball, a negligent mother would imply no breastfeeding... for whereever those lead. (I recall breadfed children grow to be less anxious)

Finally, I see a chicken and egg here -- what is your opinion about that? Suppose a borderline autist has a child. They turn out to be an aloof parent. Their child ends up being aloof as well, etc. Okay, that was a convenient example -- but really, how convenient? The kid with a submissive employee for a parent imbibes submissiveness through how they are reared; is this a learned and transferred behavior, or a preexisting tendency, a phenotype observed externally and possibly mistakenly over-credited to the environment?

/i make no reservations in stating my affinity to nature > nurture and determinism > free will

But, I totally agree that good parenting is important, overlooked, and underestimated.

Right now it's just intellectual garbage, but it's this type of person who ends up in Obama's cabinet of czars: ivy league educated, theoretical, and very confident in his assessments of what society "needs."

Notice his comment below the article:

"What I'm actually advocating is that employers treat their employees humanely. Basically, it's no longer acceptable to say that if someone agrees to work for $8 an hour it's ok to treat them any way you like, because their work environment has an effect on others who aren't able to consent."

His underlying assertion is that government shouldn't really have a constitutional limit on interfering with a private contract. Rather, private contracts should fit his definition of "acceptable" and "humane."

"very confident in his assessments of what society 'needs.'"

I don't understand how you got this. I specifically delineated my theories with "I suspect", so as to make it clear that they were unproven and represented only my best guess based on the evidence available.

The terrible title and blaming Dr Spock for our cultural woes almost put me off the article. Below the fold he starts to make some interesting points. By age 4, higher income children have been talked to nearly 4 times as much as poor children. The encouragement/discouragement ratio is 2 to 1 whereas for poor children it is 1 to 2. He talks about the soccer mom phenomenon where every minute of a child's day is scheduled with some activity. He thinks that with the move to white collar work, there is too much emphasis on status and social climbing.

I agree with the over scheduling criticism. Kids now have too many formal activities and too much homework. I also wonder if two income families and early day care adversely affect the kids.

The language difference might not be as significant as Alex thinks. Steven Pinker criticizes studies of the kind that Hart and Risley did, where they measured language used with children and assumed that affected development. He says that causation is not established, and points to twin adoption studies that indicate that the causal factor affecting IQ is genetic.

I thought the most interesting point was the one about what happens when you bring in a big, flat-screen TV -- you are introducing a highly culturally influential meme-blaster into your environment. I think it's debatable whether to call it pollution, but I have noticed that not having a TV leaves me naive to all sorts of time wasting thoughts.

I also liked the point about trying to be "chosen". I think there is some truth to it. But isn't pretty much any job about being chosen -- entrepreneurs get chosen by VCs and customers, new lawyers by the partners, mcdonalds employees by the regional manager, etc.

"But isn't pretty much any job about being chosen -- entrepreneurs get chosen by VCs and customers, new lawyers by the partners, mcdonalds employees by the regional manager, etc."

Well for an entrepreneur it's your product or service that's being chosen, not you yourself. It's pretty clear when you talk with entrepreneurs that they see the world very differently because of this.

At the end of the day there are two economies, the economy of those who do and the economy of those who do what they're told. And both the children of white-collar and blue-collar workers are largely ending up in the latter economy. My point was that this isn't happening only because of the worldview that parents are transmitting, but rather because the way parents are raising kids is causing irreversible cognitive damage that puts kids at a huge handicap regardless of what worldviews they're later exposed to. I didn't bother to go into the statistics about how ECE stuff affects later outcomes like adult literacy and such because I thought it would be excessive. But it's all there if you're looking for it.

Interesting point.

I would be interested in any links you might have...

I wonder about this question now and then in the context of the thought experiment "describe a capitalist utopia". In my musings, such a utopia might eliminate the distinction between work and play, and possibly even between learning and play. If such a scenario came to exist, doing what one was told would surely be the lowest form of existence and would be viewed as outright subjugation.

Or would it -- maybe many people enjoy structure and thrive when being told what to do. In reading about Myers Briggs it seems that the "guardian" personality type enjoys structure and respects authority. Doesn't it follow that if one respects authority he will do what he is told by said authority? Guardians are over 10% of the population... Are these (often high functioning) people actually the victims of the cognitive damage you describe?

I know this comment is a bit out there :)

"I would be interested in any links you might have..."

The Hart & Risley book is the best source for understanding how parenting styles affect language acquisition. If you then want to see what how high-SES and low-SES children diverge even more after age five, check out Equality and Achievement by Riordan. If you're interested in ECE stuff other than language then there are a ton of interesting academic papers, but it really depends what you're looking for.

The article seems to be missing the evidence to show that people treat their kids in a given manner as a result of where they work. Just as possible (although certainly less palatable) is the conclusion that parents who are capable of getting white collar jobs, or any job at all, are inherently more inclined to treat their children in the way that they do. This possible conclusion is not even considered, so the article pretty much amounts to guesswork.

I agree that the piece would be much better without the baity title and the bizarre imputation to Spock.

Yes especially since he starts of bemoaning the difference in intellectual attitudes between Anglosaxons and other countries - failing to note that Dr Spock was widely translated and read worldwide. He also misrepresents what Dr Spock said, which given the social climate at the time was actually a useful addition to the childreading debate.

When the paediatricians were telling mothers to formula feed (and formula was awful in those days - sugar and soluble fat mostly, not like today) every 4 hours (no more often, no matter how the baby cries) instead of breastfeeding on demand (as is the current best practice), "ignore the authority and listen to your intuition" was not the worst advice in the world.

The author makes a several interesting points, but then many of his conclusions come out of nowhere. It is certainly of note that lower class children are admonished more than encouraged, it is certainly of note that America and Britain do not have intelligent political discourse.

But where does he justify the anti consumer sentiment thrown in at the end?

And what is the consequence of high SES children being overscheduled? Don't they end up in a higher economic class in the end?

What do the last two sentences even mean?

A disappointing article. The 'intellectual pollution' consists of exactly one supposed change in the way we raise our children: following our intuition instead of some guidebook. This change was supposedly brought about by Dr. Spock in 1946, but I think it is obvious that doesn't make any sense: how on earth does the author think people were raising their children in the past few hundred years? Based on keen pedagogical insights, gathered from books on the subject? Given illiteracy rates, lack of education, availability of books, etc., I doubt even 10% was reading about 'how to raise children'. The others raised their children as they saw fit, so there hasn't been a change at all.

"It's not that parents weren't raising their children this way before. They were, but since the 40's the wealth of scientific best practices have been largely ignored thanks to Spock's influence."

In other words, if not for Spock less people would be making these mistakes today. I don't think Spock himself was a bad guy and his advice may or may not have been sound at the time, but the problem is that this book has taken on a life of its own to the point where people today use it as a justification to avoid learning anything about being a good parent. And of course most of these people haven't even read the book, but that's a whole other thing.

We don't have an alternate history without Spock to compare to, so I reserve the right to doubt that it would have made any difference whether Spock would have existed at all. If not this book, then they would've used other excuses. Everyone likes to do things 'their way'. Only those motivated to be good or better at something go out of their way to read, learn and change. Most people aren't motivated to be better at parenting, because they think they are already doing a good job. Isn't Johnny smiling, crawling, talking, walking, potty trained, ... when he should?

For a more everyday example of how everyone wants to do things their way, despite evidence, see this post by Robin Hanson, http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/05/sweat-intuition.html

"It's not that parents weren't raising their children this way before. They were, but since the 40's the wealth of scientific best practices have been largely ignored thanks to Spock's influence."

I stopped reading here.

You could always tell who read Dr. Spock because they were the ones with problem children. And the laughing stock of their community.

"largely ignored" != "mainstream acceptance"

> I stopped reading here.

Ignore that part; the middle of the article is interesting. Also ignore the very weak conclusion, which appears to be there because he felt there should be a conclusion. I attribute this to the way he was raised. ;)

You don't think Spock is mainstream? Baby and Child Care alone sold over 50 million copies, which makes it one of the top 5 best-selling non-fiction books of all time. And that's not even counting his other three best sellers.

"Harry Potter" has sold over 400 million copies, and yet we don't all think we're wizards. Similarly, Ayn Rand sold over 25 million books, and yet outside of a few Internet-forum enclaves, Objectivism is still very much outside of the mainstream.

Many people buy a book to see what all the fuss is about, not because they personally are interested in making it their personal bible.

---and yet we don't all think we're wizards.

Speak for yourself. I didnt believe in that "hogwash magick stuff"... well at first. I have a fiancé who I've been with for quite some time. We both met through our local Catholic church (no reformed church of satan here).

She's kept this little journal which she showed me a little while back. It has a list of dates and notes. The notes are about future events. Some happened years ago when she first wrote them down. Others happened differently because she changed them, and others have not happened yet. She accurately predicted a friend's ex-husband would get cancer (being treated for now), and other things.

Honestly, how many events would it take for you to believe in something like that? Personally, it would take 1 major event. There's been ~15 (major events) of them correct. (There's been about 100 minor predictions correct.)

Some would say that she has precognition. Older words for what gift she has is more accurately a Seer.

*edited for clarity, in parentheses

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