Do Parents Matter?: Why Japanese Babies Sleep Soundly, Mexican Siblings Don’t Fight, and American Families Should Just Relax Cover
Podcast Mentions

Do Parents Matter? Why Japanese Babies Sleep Soundly, Mexican Siblings Don’t Fight, and American Families Should Just Relax

Robert A. LeVine

When it comes to parenting, more isn't always better-but it is always more tiring In Japan, a boy sleeps in his parents' bed until age ten, but still shows independence in all other areas of his life. In rural India, toilet training begins one month after infants are born and is accomplished with l...

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Modern Wisdom

Gladwell summarized that Harris argued parental influence on children's outcomes is far smaller than commonly believed.

"

There was a great book written that I wrote about at the time, 30 years ago, it was written by, called Do Parents Matter by Judith Harris. And she basically summed up all of the evidence about what im...

— Episode: #1029 - Malcolm Gladwell - How to Convin...

Episode: #1029 - Malcolm Gladwell - How to Convince the Wor...

Gladwell summarized that Harris argued parental influence on children's outcomes is far smaller than commonly believed.

"

There was a great book written that I wrote about at the time, 30 years ago, it was written by, called Do Parents Matter by Judith Harris. And she basically summed up all of the evidence about what impact parental child raising has.

The answer is, the evidence says not a lot. Basically, if you're feeding your kid and they have a roof over their heads and you're not terrifying them every night, it doesn't matter what you do.

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