Begley, S. (1998, September 7). Parenting: Parents matter less according to a controversial new book. Newsweek, pp. 53-59. Critique of Judith Harris’ The Nurture Assumption.

OVERVIEW

Begley sees this book taking shape as much from Harris own rather unique childhood and parenting than from the 750 scientific references she used to write it. Harris grew up as an only child, a rambunctious tom-boy whose parents wanted her to be a little lady. She and her husband had one daughter, Nomi, and adopted another, Elaine. Both received the same attention and benefits; yet one became a model student, the other was a rebellious child and dropped out of high school.

While raising the girls, Harris was became very sick (a mysterious illness, part lupus and part systemic sclerosis). Elaine was 6 and Nomi 10 when Harris was confined to bed. Years earlier she had been thrown out of a Harvard graduate program in psychology. While ill, she began editing college psychology textbooks. From this study she developed her thesis: that parents matter little in the socialization of their children.

All the studies supposedly found parents to have a critical influence on children, but Harris didn’t believe they proved their point. Armed with alternative studies and conclusions, she wrote a paper that won a $500 prize from the American Psychological Association. The Nurture Assumption is developed from this paper which shook the psychological and educational world.

John Bruer, president of the James S. McDonell Foundation (funding education programs) praises her book as "a needed corrective to this belief that early experiences between the child and parents have a deterministic, lifelong effect. MIT linguist Steven Pinker goes further: The Nurture Assumption will come to be seen as the turning point in the history of psychology."

Most experts see it differently. Harvard’s Jerome Kagan complains: "I am embarrassed for psychology." And Temple University psychologist, Frank Farley, declares:

She is all wrong. She’s taking an extreme position based on a limited set of data. Her thesis is absurd on its face, but consider what might happen if parents believe this stuff! Will it free some to mistreat their kids, since ‘it doesn’t matter?’ Will it tell parents who are tired after a long day that they needn’t bother even paying any attention to their kids since ‘it doesn’t matter?’

Wendy Williams, psychologist at Cornell University adds:

...there are many, many good studies that show parents can affect how children turn out in both cognitive abilities and behavior. By taking an extreme position, Harris does a tremendous disservice.

The writer of this article explains how behavioral genetics (which studies Harris has drawn on) shows a great variation on the degree to which children are what they become because of heredity (genes or nature) and environment. What Harris has done is to allow parents their genetic contribution but to take them out of the environmental influence. She argues rightly that "parents can’t mold their child like Play-Doh...(But) to reach her parents-don’t-matter conclusion, Harris first demolishes some truly lousy studies that have become part of the scientific canon."

If genetics and outside the home influences make the child, then parents need not take the blame nor can they take the credit for the way kids turn out.

But studies on parenting styles and "intervention studies" show that changing the way parents treat their children have significant effects on the behavior of young people.

This article continues with celebrity quotations on the influence of their parents (Frank McCourt, Jamie Lee Curtis, Newt Gingrich, Chastity Bono, Michael Jordan, and Will Smith, Cokie Roberts, Rosie O’Donnell, and Mia Farrow). Their testimonies are impressive.

Please see the Harris book review and Kagan article review within this topic.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. What is your opinion in this important debate? Can you see any good points that Judith Harris is making?
2. What do you see as the (positive and negative) influence of your parents on you?
3. How influential do you think you will be in the lives of your children...or on those you teach and work with?
4. What general advice would you give young parents?

IMPLICATIONS

1. The family (in its various forms) has always been considered a building block of society, and it will continue to be seen as critical for the health of communities.
2. This debate can sharpen our ideas about parenting and the complex influences of community, schools, media, and peers.

Dean Borgman cCYS