Note: This is part 6 of a series on morality and ethics. Here are the other parts: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 7 (plus additional posts on hypocrisy and free will). The entire series makes up the fourth chapter of my book, The Triple Path, which can be downloaded for free here in PDF and eReader formats or purchased at all major book retailers (in print and eReader formats).

 

There are two places where you should most focus efforts to live morally: on yourself, and then on your family. There are two reasons for this: 1) this is where your personal accountability is greatest and 2) this is where you will have the most impact. Each of us was given life by our parents. If we were fortunate to have good parents, we owe it to them to do just as well or better with our own children. If we experienced the misfortune of having bad parents, then we owe it to society and to ourselves to do a better job than our parents did to make things better for the next generation.

The most lasting contribution most of us can make to humanity’s future, and the greatest long-term influence we can have. is through the children we leave behind. In all that we do apart from our family life, few of us will make lasting contributions of great magnitude to the future of humanity. After you die, more than likely only a few people will remember your contributions or life’s story. After a few generations, almost no one will remember. Virtually none of us will be remembered in history books or encyclopedias. The vast majority of even the famous people of today will be barely remembered in 100 years, relegated to footnotes in books that nobody reads. Many will be completely forgotten in 1,000 years. If we live well and make an impact for good in our descendants’ lives, however, there is a good chance we will be well-remembered for some time at least by them. And even when our descendants have forgotten us, part of us will very literally continue to live on in them through the DNA we have left behind in them, and hopefully also through the wisdom and traditions we taught to our children and grandchildren that got passed down through the generations.

Because our greatest impact on the future is through our children, we should put a proportionate amount of time and effort into them, but not in the way that most people would think. Things like dance lessons or piano practice, private school tuition and tutors, extra homework, or sports practices are not the most important places to direct our efforts. In the balance between nature and nurture, many of us vastly overestimate the power of nurture to shape children.

There are three main factors that determine how a child will turn out: heredity, the home environment, and non-home environment (which just means all other environmental factors not common to all the children in the family). A large and growing body of research examining a variety of life outcomes shows that the home environment is the least important factor.1

The home environment is also referred to as the shared environment, and includes all environmental factors that siblings reared in the same household share in common. Researchers can assess the relative influence of heredity and environment by examining the differences in how identical twins, fraternal twins, biological siblings, and adopted children turn out.

We know that biological siblings and fraternal twins share about fifty percent of their DNA, identical twins share essentially one hundred percent, and adopted siblings share no more DNA than would two complete strangers. Researchers can look at how these different kinds of siblings turn out on a variety of different measures, compared with how much DNA they share, to figure out how much of their life outcomes and personal characteristics can be attributed to heredity, how much can be attributed to their shared environment of being raised in the same household, and how much is attributable to other factors (such as random chance and differing environments outside the home). Over and over, the studies have conclusively shown that the least important variable is the home environment. Newer studies have examined this question in a completely different way by looking directly at the genotypes of unrelated people, and they also confirm that important human traits are highly heritable.2 In other words, parents’ influence is the weakest determinant of how their children turn out.

Genetics is by far the biggest determinant of how kids will turn out. Adopted siblings who are raised together in the same home, but who have different biological parents, are almost as different from each other when they grow up as complete strangers, while twins and biological siblings reared apart are almost as similar to each other in adulthood as twins and biological siblings who were reared together by their parents. As one study explained, “[o]n multiple measures of personality and temperament, occupational and leisure-time interests, and social attitudes, [identical] twins reared apart are about as similar as are [identical] twins reared together”.3

Heredity is strongly related to a variety of outcomes: personality, intelligence, and mental illness; antisocial behavior (including criminality, delinquency, aggression, and diagnoses of anti-social personality and conduct disorders); psychopathology such as conduct, oppositional defiant, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity problems; depression and anxiety; risk aversion and altruism; lifetime income, educational attainment, and psychological aptitude; job stability, levels of independence/self-reliance, and levels of conscientiousness/reliability; body mass index levels, weight, obesity, and consumption levels of healthy and unhealthy foods; political and social attitudes (including about issues such as gay rights and immigration); and even moral traits, such as levels of honesty. The non-home environment also affects each of these to a lesser extent, and the home environment has the least influence.

Judith Harris, a research psychologist who specialized in the study of these nature/nurture issues summarized what the research shows:

two people reared in the same home by the same parents were not noticeably more alike [in personality] than two people picked at random from the population, once you deducted the similarities due to shared genes . . . . Siblings are alike in personality only to the extent that they share genes; if they do not share genes (if they are adoptive siblings or stepsiblings) they aren’t alike at all. Growing up together—going on the same trips to the museum or the ballpark, coming home to the same city apartment or house in the suburbs, living for 18 years with the same parent or parents—does not make them more alike. . . . In stark contrast to the here-today-gone-tomorrow results so common in psychological research, [these] behavioral genetic results have been resoundingly consistent. Despite differences in the ways personality is measured (standard personality tests, judgments by parents or teachers, direct observations of behavior, etc.), and differences in the kinds of subject pairs who participate (adoptive siblings, biological siblings or half-siblings, identical and fraternal twins, reared together or apart), the conclusions are almost invariably the same. Siblings are alike only to the extent that they share genes. Genes make biological siblings more alike in personality; growing up together does not. . . . Regardless of what is measured and how it is mea­sured, the results are almost invariably the same: genetic factors account for 40 to 60 percent of the variance; shared home environment accounts for little or none.”4

What this means is that when you look at outside influences, genetics and biology, and how you parent your child, the least important force to shape who your child will become is your parenting.

This does not mean that parenting is unimportant. The studies on heritability and environment look at normal families in the developed world. This means that children in these studies had a certain minimum level of care—their basic physical needs were met (they had food, clothing, shelter, etc.) and they did not have abusive parents.

Parenting is thus very important, but not in the way that most people think. Good parenting is obviously better than bad parenting. Mostly, though, this is because bad parenting can have such disastrous effects. Abuse can have significant lifelong negative impacts on children. Your parenting can thus have major beneficial effects on your children, but those major effects come from not being a bad parent. You might also be able to have an effect on some aspects of your children’s non-home environment and their friends based on where you choose to live and the school you send your child, but the effect is likely minor—if parents could exert much influence in this way, it would most likely show up in the research as being part of the effect of the home environment, since circumstances of children that can be influenced by parents generally show up as being an effect of the home environment.

While the effect of the home environment is small, it is not nonexistent. Good parenting can have effects at the margins. If your child is on the edge of taking one path or another, the home environment’s small effect could be enough to put your child on the right path. Parents thus need to love their children and show them affection, take care of them, teach them spiritual and moral truths, teach them basic manners and social norms, and give them access to an education.

Furthermore, parenting does have a significant effect on important, foundational issues we have already discussed—on issues of religion, culture, and tradition.

Children’s political party5 and religious denomination6 are largely determined by environment and are likely to match their parents’. Parenting also has a significant effect on children’s level of religiosity.7 Parents can also have a significant effect on their children’s use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs, on juvenile delinquency, and on when daughters start having sex.8 Parents also have a significant effect on children’s occupational interests, but genetic influences are greater.9

There is plenty to stress about when you are a parent, but it is important to remember that many of the things we think are important for a child’s future success will not actually make much of a difference. On many big issues (income, IQ, level of happiness, personality traits) your parenting will not make much of a difference. You can make a difference, though, by working to pass on your values, religion, culture, and traditions.

You can also have an effect on many other smaller aspects of your children’s lives that can add value and make for a richer life—for example, most adults who play a musical instrument learned because their parents made them learn as children. When approaching parenting decisions, such as deciding activities for your children, remember that much of what you do (so long as you are not abusive) will only affect the smaller aspects of your children’s lives. You should make those decisions based on what will likely add the most value to your child’s future life, for the lowest cost (not just in money, but also in time and aggravation). When making such decisions, you could try asking yourself the following four questions to help decide what would be worthwhile:

1. Does my child enjoy it?
2. Do I enjoy it?
3. What are the potential long-run benefits?10
4. What are the potential long-run harms?

Parenting will not do much to change your child’s intellectual achievements, salary, or personality as an adult. Most of the benefits of good parenting (both for children and parents) come from the personal relationships you build with your children, the kind of family you create, and the values, religion, culture, and traditions you pass down. Beyond this, there is little you can do to give your children some kind of great extra advantage later in life. (other than also giving them good genes).

The other thing you can create through your parenting is a greater sense of meaning in your life and that of your children. There is probably no better way for most of us to learn about self-sacrifice, love, and empathy than by becoming a parent. Most of us are born with a tendency toward thinking that the world revolves around ourself. There is no quicker way to start on the road toward abandoning this poisonous attitude and to start learning about sacrifice and selflessness than by becoming completely responsible for the life and well-being of a helpless baby, a baby who has no understanding of your needs or desires or schedule, who needs almost constant attention, and whose care and well-being require that you rearrange your own life to fit his or her needs. It can be exhausting, but there is almost nothing more rewarding.

The strongest evidence for the positive impact of becoming a parent is that almost all parents would still become parents if they had to choose all over again, and most of those who never end up becoming parents regret it. When asked if they would still have children if they had to do it over again, ninety one-percent of parents they would. Another poll found that seventy-one percent of childless adults over age forty said that if they could do things over again, they would have had children.11 A study of parents in several European countries found that parents generally agreed that watching children grow up is one of life’s greatest joys. Eighty-seven percent of parents in the United States rate parenting as providing a great deal or a lot of fulfillment. Mothers with children living at home as well as those with grown children who have moved away both report higher life satisfaction than childless women. Parents feel greater meaning in their lives than non-parents, and they report feeling greater meaning when taking care of their children than when doing other daily tasks.12 Parents experience more daily positive emotions than non-parents, and they experience more positive emotions when they are with their children than when they are not. Men living with their children have higher rates of happiness than childless men and than fathers living apart from their children.13 A study from Poland showed that women’s happiness levels go up following the birth of their first child, and that there are also happiness gains for second, third, and subsequent children. There were similar patterns for men, but the happiness levels did not increase as much.14 A study of the brains of middle-aged women found a positive relationship between the number of times a woman had given birth and having a “younger-looking” brain.15

Like anything, there are of course also downsides to having children. Having children is related to a slight decrease in marital satisfaction and to increases in personal and marital stress.16 Parents feel significant worry about their children’s welfare. They report feeling more negative feelings associated with anxiety than do non-parents and also more feelings of anger. Being a parent is also associated with sleep deprivation and greater fatigue. Having children in the home is associated with higher levels of financial stress. Parents of higher socioeconomic status report feeling less meaning when taking care of children than those of lower status, and having more education is associated with more negative views toward mo­therhood among women and with finding less value and fulfillment in parenthood among men and women. Working mothers with children have higher levels of worry than those without children.17

Contradicting the Polish study mentioned above, a survey in the United States showed that having a first child decreased happiness levels a small amount (each subsequent child also decreased happiness, but not by much).18 These negative effects were most pronounced when children were young and weakened as children got older. Indeed, another study has shown that having older children is associated with greater feelings of closeness and connectedness.19 Furthermore, the idea that having children, by itself, causes lower happiness is questionable, because the studies showing lower happiness levels have also failed to control for the marital status of the parents. It appears that what causes unhappiness is not having children per se, but having children outside of wedlock. Unmarried people who become parents, especially fathers, end up with higher rates of depression. In fact, one study showed that married women who became mothers actually had lower rates of depression than their childless counterparts, whereas unmarried mothers had higher rates of depression than their childless counterparts.20 Another study showed that never-married parents had more depression and lower happiness and self-esteem than married parents. Similarly, married parents had higher or similar levels of well-being as married non-parents, but single parents had lower well-being than single non-parents. Some studies have also shown that biological parents have lower levels of depression and unhappiness as compared to adoptive parents, step-parents, and non-parents.21

Beyond just the negative effects of singe-parenthood on the parents, it has big negatives effects on children too. Other than abuse, one of the worst things that parents can do to negatively influence their children is to divorce or get pregnant outside of marriage. Some of the negative outcomes observed in children of divorced or single parents are behavioral prob­lems, emotional problems, substance abuse, aggression, criminality, higher rates of injury and illness in childhood, early mortality, school problems, lower levels of achievement, and lower levels of social adjustment. Whether a divorced parent stays single or remarries makes little difference to these outcomes, and the children of never-married women fare even worse than those of divorced parents (children of widowed parents do just fine).22

Just like most other behaviors and life events, propensity for divorce appears to have a genetic component—the heritability of getting divorced is between twenty-nine and fifty-three percent.23 This means that between twenty-nine and fifty-three percent of the variation in someone’s likelihood of getting divorced can be attributed to heredity, and not to any environmental facts in that person’s life. Some of the bad outcomes observed in children of divorced parents are likely also genetic: the personality traits that make someone more likely to get divorced (such as disagreeableness, for example) are heritable. Children of divorced couples would thus be likely to inherit those same negative traits, but some of the negative outcomes experienced by children of divorced parents, such as behavioral problems and substance abuse (and very possibly others), appear to be caused largely by the divorce itself, and not by genetic factors.24 This means that one aspect of good parenting is being committed to waiting until marriage to have children and to lifelong monogamy thereafter.

The behaviors associated with traditional sexual morality are among the factors that increase the probability of a stable, enduring marriage. Among women who get married, those who delay their first sexual encounter until at least age 18 have much low­er divorce rates after ten years of marriage: twenty-seven percent, versus forty-seven percent for those who have sex before age 18. Women who have sex before marriage, even if it is only with their future husband, have higher divorce rates than women who wait until marriage. Women who have multiple sexual partners before age 18 have higher divorce rates than women who do not have multiple partners before 18.25 Similarly, people who live together before marriage (and especially if before getting engaged) are more likely to have lower quality relationships and are more likely to divorce. As with the research about the effect of divorce on children, it is possible that some other factor makes a woman both more likely to have sex as an adolescent and also to get divorced later in life. Researchers, however, have applied statistical techniques to attempt to infer causality, and the results indicate that having sex at an early age itself makes women more likely to get divorced.26

Beyond just the positive effect of marriages on children, strong lasting marriages are also good for married individuals and for society. Being married has a strong positive relationship with happiness.27 Young men are much more prone to violent and cri­minal behavior than women, and getting married and having children decreases these criminal tendencies.28 Traditional norms of sexual morality encourage men to marry and have children, thus decreasing their criminality and encouraging them to become contributing members of society.

A wide range of parenting styles fits within the kind of non-abusive parenting that will avoid harm to children and let them develop as they otherwise would to their full potential. There is thus a lot of room to choose the parenting style that works best for you and your children. In our family, what we have found works best for us is attachment parenting, which focuses on building strong bonds between parent and child. If you are interested, a more complete defense and introduction to attachment parenting (and also a generally all-around good parenting advice book for new parents) is The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two by Dr. William Sears, Martha Sears, Dr. Robert Sears, and Dr. James Sears.

To bring this discussion back to where we started, if our parenting does not have much effect on the big outcomes for our children, like intelligence and income, I hope you now understand why I still claim that our parenting can leave a mark on the world for the better.

First, if you are a good, decent person who is contributing to society, your biological children will likely turn out that way too. So, you can contribute to future society by focusing on having more biological children (what you can reasonably provide for, both physically and emotionally) and less on micromanaging the minutiae of your children’s upbringing (unless you and your children like minutiae, so long you do not let it tire you out and sour you on having more children!).

Second, your parenting will leave a big mark on the world because parents have a huge influence on passing on our values, religion, culture, and traditions.

The research shows that parenting is hard work. It is associated with more stress, but for married couples, it is also associated with fulfillment, meaning in life, and happiness, especially for biological parents. So, when weighing the number of children to have, consider all of these factors, and the potential costs and benefits. More importantly, consider that greatest of personal benefits that will come to the new person whom you will be creating—the gift of existence. Also consider the benefits your future child might bring to society and to your community.

When deciding whether to have another child, remember that your parenting style (within the bounds of normal, non-abusive first-world parenting styles) will have little effect on many of the ways your child will turn out, so you can relax a little from the normal worries about your child’s future and whether you are doing enough, or doing it right. Then, finally, consider whether you have the financial and emotional resources to support another child, and decide whether having another is right for your situation. For middle class, intelligent, productive parents who are married and contri­buting to society (and thus likely to have a positive experience raising children and to produce children who will contribute to society), my opinion is that the optimal number will usually be somewhere between three and six children.

Conversely, if you are not a decent person and not contri­buting to society, your children will most likely be like you, so you should not have children (or have very few), to minimize your negative impact on future generations. Also, if you are not married, you should not have children—it will lead to negative outcomes in your own life and also in your children’s.

 

 

Footnotes

1. See Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, 2011 (particularly chapter 19); Judith Rich Harris, The Nurture Assumption, 2009; see also Kenneth S. Kendler and Jessica H. Baker. “Genetic influences on measures of the environment: a systematic review”, Psychological Medicine, Vol. 37 No. 5, May 2007, p. 617; Thomas J. Bouchard Jr., “Genetic and environmental influences on adult intelligence and special mental abilities”, Human Biology, Vol. 70, No. 2, April 1998, pp. 257-79; Alexander Weiss, et. al., “Happiness is a per­son­al(ity) thing: the genetics of personality and well-being in a representative sample”, Psychological Science, Vol. 19 No. 3, March 2008, pp. 205-10.

2. G. Davies et. al., “Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is highly heritable and polygenic”, Molecular Psychiatry, Vol. 16, No. 10, October 2011, pp. 996-1005.

3. Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr, et. al., “Sources of human psychological differences: the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart”, Science, Vol. 250, No. 4978, pp. 223-8.

4. Judith Rich Harris, “Why Can’t Birth Order Account for the Differences Between Siblings?”, 2001, http://judithrichharris.info/tna/birth -order/sibdiff.htm.

5. Peter K. Hatemi and Rose McDermott, “The genetics of politics: discovery, challenges, and progress”, Trends in Genetics, Vol. 28, No. 10, October 2012, pp. 525-533. Political orientation (conservative or liberal), however, has a strong heritable component and is less likely to be affected by parenting. See also Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr. (see footnote 27, page 66).

6. Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr. (see footnote above).

7. Same (though genetic influences have a slightly larger effect).

8. Bryan Caplan, “The Breeders’ Cup”, The Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2010,

9. Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr. (see footnote above).

10. The first three questions are from Brian Caplan, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, 2011.

11. Brian Caplan (see footnote above).

12. Kostadin Kushlev, Exploring Parental Well-being: Is Childcare Associated with Parental Well-Being and What Factors Can Enhance It, Masters Thesis, Reed College, 2008, pp. 7-8, 10-12, 26.

13. S. Katherine Nelson and Kostadin Kushlev, “The Pains and Pleasures of Parenting: When, Why, and How Is Parenthood Associat­ed With More or Less Well-Being?”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 140, No. 3, May 2014, pp. 846-895, pp. 876, 880.

14. Anna Baranowska and Anna Matysiak, “Does parenthood increase happiness? Evidence for Poland”, in Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vol. 9, Reproductive decision-making, pp. 307-325, 2011.

15. Ann-Marie G. de Lange, et. al., “Population-based neuroimaging reveals traces of childbirth in the maternal brain”, PNAS, October 29, 2019.

16. Kostadin Kushlev (see footnote 55) at 2-3; S. Katherine Nelson and Kostadin Kushlev (see footnote above) at 852 and 877.

17. S. Katherine Nelson and Kostadin Kushlev (see footnote above) at 877-78 and 882-83.

18. Brian Caplan (see footnote above).

19. S. Katherine Nelson and Kostadin Kushlev (see footnote above) at 880.

20. Kei M. Nomaguchi and Melissa A. Milkie, “Costs and Rewards of Children: The Effects of Becoming a Parent on Adults’ Lives”, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 65, No. 2, May 2003, pp. 356-374.

21. S. Katherine Nelson and Kostadin Kushlev (see footnote 56) at 881, 883.

22. Thomas G. O’Connor, et. al., “Are Associations Between Parental Divorce and Children’s Adjustment Genetically Mediated? An Adoption Study”, Developmental Psychology, Vol. 36, No. 4, July 2000, pp. 429-37; Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, 2012, Chapter 15.

23. Kenneth S. Kendler and Jessica H. Baker. “Genetic influences on measures of the environment: a systematic review”, Psychological Medicine, Vol. 37, No. 5, 2007, p. 617.

24. Thomas G. O’Connor, et. al. (see footnote above); Brian M. D’Ono­frio, et. al., “A children of twins study of parental divorce and offspring psychopathology”, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 48, No. 7, 2007, pp. 667-675.

25. Anthony Paik, “Adolescent Sexuality and the Risk of Marital Dissolution”, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 73, No. 2, April 2011, pp. 472-485.

26. Casey E. Copen, et. al., “First Marriages in the United States: Data From the 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth”, National Health Statistics Reports, No. 49, March 22, 2012; Scott M. Stanley and Galena K. Rhoades, “The Timing of Cohabitation and Engagement: Impact on First and Second Marriages”, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 72, No. 4, August 2010, pp. 906-918; Galena K. Rhoades, et. al., “The pre-engagement cohabitation effect: a replication and extension of previous findings”, Journal of Family Psychology, Vol. 23, No. 1, February 2009, pp. 107-11; David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, “Should We Live Together? What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation before Marriage, A Comprehensive Review of Recent Research”, The National Marriage Project: The Next Generation Series, 1999.

27. Charles Murray (see footnote above), Chapter 15.

28. John Wright, Handbook of Crime Correlates, 2009; Robert J. Sampson, et. al., “Does Marriage Reduce Crime? A Counterfactual Approach To Within-Individual Causal Effects”, Criminology, Vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 465-508; Kathryn Edin, et. al.. “Fatherhood and Incarceration As Potential Turning Points in the Criminal Careers of Unskilled Men”, pp. 46-75, in Mary Patillo, et. al., (eds.), Imprisoning America: The Social Effects of Mass Incarceration, 2004.