Time Matters

As a childless twenty-something, I've been really enjoying the Corner's weeks-long debate over whether or not parenting matters. In the "cranky bugger" corner, with the impressively hiked-up grandpa shorts, has been John Derbyshire, who's argued that parenting matters very, very little, and peer influences, genetics, and culture are the real determinants. His primary assailant has been Jonah Goldberg, a proud parent determined to prove he matters. And occasionally ducking into the ring to slam either Derbyshire or Jonah with a folding chair has been Charles Murray, the wise old man of strange rightwing social science arguments.

Despite a lot of harping over the evidence, none of the participants seems particularly quick with the social science data. Partially, that's because there's depressingly little on the role of fathers, which seems to be the obsession of all the participants. Derbyshire has wildly overstated the consensus of the scientific community on any number of points, and is tangled deep in the weeds of correlation/causation failures. What the datam at this point, actually seems to imply is that parenting is a sadly unpredictable process and it remains unclear what "good parenting" actually is -- in the last couple of decades the experts have advised everything from sparing the rod to spoiling the child to unleashing the belt. Even worse, genetic differences in temperament make it likely that various kids will need different types of parenting to thrive. So a good parent for Jane may be harmful to Joe. We all know, after all, a stable family with one high achiever and one ne'er-do-well. Actually, we probably know more than one.

But largely, the Cornerites are talking about the margins -- how closely can they make their children fit their ideal. Emotionally, Jonah's right there with 20th-century behaviorist John Watson who said, "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select." Derbyshire is more a Francis Galton type -- "There is no doubt that nature prevails enormously over nurture." The question is excellent parenting, not good parenting.

That's because good parenting is well understood to make a difference. Language skills are formed early, and children exposed to a large vocabulary, a lot of verbal interaction, and frequent stimulation do far better on later testing. In 1995, two social scientists recorded the number of utterances children were exposed to during the day -- the average was 325, but the range was from 100 to 800. The greater their exposure, the better the child did.

Of course, what largely determines that is not merely the parent's tendency to chatter, but the amount of time they -- or some other caregiver -- spends with a child per day. That's the real dividing line: time. The well-off can either spend it with the children themselves or hire someone else to fill the gap. Single mothers and working families all too often can't. For that reason, the Corner's discussion has been a rather upper-class discourse conducted by folks who're worried that all their advantages will eventually produce diminishing returns. That so many lower on the income ladder can hardly hope to be good, much less excellent, parents has scarcely entered the conversation.

A good example is that flextime -- that dream of being able to schedule work around family -- is available to 62 percent of workers making more than $72,000, while only 31 percent of those making less than $28,000 enjoy similar options. Daily flextime, the more useful variety, is available to only 13 percent of workers making less than $28,000.

Meanwhile, the Family and Medical Leave Act covers only half the private sector workforce and offers unpaid leave only. So not only do many parents lack the option, many others can't afford it. As for paid leave, only 30 percent of workers below the poverty line get more than a week a year. At 200 percent above the poverty line, that number swells to 76 percent. So insofar as you believe parents matter at all, a fair number of them lack the time to actually do much parenting (and let's not even get into those working double shifts to support a family). And this policy, let's not forget, is literally killing children. All the data suggests a stay-at-home parent during the first year of life is incredibly important. A massive study by the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation found that extending paid job-protected maternity leave to 10 weeks, as many European countries have done, reduces post-neonatal child mortality by 3.7 to 4.5 percent. Another study, this one localized to America, confirmed the positive impacts of paid family leave, but found unpaid leave laws lacked the same effects, presumably because many can't, or don't, use them.

So important as parents may or may not be when it comes to getting their kids interested in classical music, I'd think we could all agree that their presence in the home is something worth supporting. Except that "we," by which I mean the right, does not support laws that would allow for precisely that. While some thinkers are moving towards a more pro-family, progressive-style conception of conservatism -- and conversations with Jonah make me think he's one of them -- it's nevertheless a bit self-indulgent to spend weeks agonizing over your impact on the margins without mentioning how constrained many parents -- particularly single parents -- are from having any impact at all. But hey, if the National Review wants to make amends and start championing real paid leave, wage subsidies, and flextime laws, I'm happy to make common cause.

If folks are interested, we can wonk out more on some of this, and I may have some related articles in the coming weeks. For now, those who want to do some solo study could do worse than to start with Jane Waldfogel's overview of the social science research, What Children Need.

Crossposted at Tapped