Who Matters Most, Parents or Peers?
by John Sommers-Flanagan

 

Oprah Winfrey has a book club. In her book club, she reviews and promotes what she considers to be a good read. When an author gets included in Oprah’s book club, sales are likely to soar.

Because there are obvious differences between Oprah and myself, I have decided to launch a somewhat different enterprise. I am hereby establishing the Sommers-Flanagan anti-book club. Today’s anti-book club selection is titled The Nurture Assumption. It is written by Judith Rich Harris and includes perhaps the longest subtitle in the history of publishing: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do; Parents Matter Less Than You Think and Peers Matter More.

Actually, Ms. Harris’ book would never have made my exclusive anti-book club list without significant help from the media. Newsweek magazine apparently considers The Nuture Assumption so hot that it deserved to be on its Sept. 7 cover, along with the highly misleading headline: AA New Heated Debate About How Kids Develop ... Do Parents Matter?@ They further claim that the Harris book is Abecoming the publishing phenom of the season.@

My perspective on this book and its publication is simple. In the absence of news about anything other than the President’s sex life, certain authors and media organizations try their best to create a debate or controversy to sell their product. Now in most cases, I am more than open to a little media hype and sensationalism. But in this particular case, the media has intentionally promoted the idea that, in Newsweek’s words Avirtually nothing [parents] do or say C no kind words or hugs, slaps or tirades ... C makes a smidgen of a difference to what kind of adult the child becomes. Nothing parents do will affect his behavior, mental health, ability to form relationships, sense of self-worth, intelligence, or personality.@

The fact is that Harris and Newsweek are astonishingly wrong on both of their claims. First of all, parents do matter and secondly, there is no controversy about whether parents matter. These truths are so obvious that even Harris does not believe her central thesis. Early in her text she states: AThere is no question that the adult caregivers play an important role in the baby’s life. It is from these older people that babies learn their first language, have their first experiences in forming and maintaining relationships, and get their first lessons in following rules.@ Then, she devotes nearly 400 pages to her own well-written, but Swiss cheese views of parental influence and child development research. Her personal agenda thus fulfilled, she proceeds to insult a reader’s memory by listing numerous ways in which parents can influence their children. And perhaps the most astounding aspect of this list is that it is excellentCquite out of place in a book that insists parent-child interactions have no influence on children. Her conclusions include:

1. Parents can influence their children’s choice of professional and leisure time activities.

2. Parents influence the way their children behave at home.

3. Parents supply knowledge and training that their children can take with them after they leave the home.

4. Parents can influence their child’s choice of religion.

5. Parents can influence how their children eventually run a home.

6. Parents can influence their children’s peer relationships by choosing to live in a particular neighborhood or by enrolling their child in a particular school.

I can only heartily agree with Harris’ views of how parents can influence their children.

It turns out that Harris has an axe or two to grind. First and foremost, she still harbors resentment over being Akicked out@ of Harvard’s Ph.D. program for having inadequate research potential. Second, as is often the case with family-oriented nonfiction, at times she seems to be unabashedly trying to work through her own parent-child conflicts. She states: AWith our second child we had all sorts of rules and none of them worked. Reason with her? Give me a break. Often we ended up taking the shut-your-mouth-and-do-what-you’re-told route. That didn’t work either. In the end we pretty much gave up.@

My message to parents couldn’t be more different! Never give up on your children or on yourself. Although you can bet that neither you or your children are perfect, your efforts to improve your parenting could end up making all the difference in the world to you and your children. Never underestimate your influence.

In my mind, Harris’ biggest disservice to parents is that after hundreds of pages of pretentious scientific analysis, she boils their options down to two simplistic choices:

She indicates that parents can either assume that children are powerfully influenced by every parent-child interaction and therefore parents must feel profound guilt for their many parenting mistakes or that parents really don’t matter much at all, thereby relieving parents of any sense of guilt or responsibility.

In providing these choices, Harris grossly underestimates the intelligence and conscience of most American parents. She fails to identify a third and more important choice. That is, most parents choose to take, rather than shirk, responsibility for their parenting behaviors; that parents can choose to parent the best they can, recognizing that, as humans, they will make both minor and terrible mistakes that may powerfully influence their children. And finally, rather than rationalizing away their shortcomings because of parental irrelevance, parents can choose to forgive themselves after having learned from their parenting mistakes.

In conclusion, the Sommers-Flanagan anti-book club recommends that you take the $26 that you might have used to buy The Nurture Assumption and spend it on a quality parent-child experience. The time, effort, and money you spend on your children matter more than most of us C especially Harris and Newsweek C wish to admit.

C John Sommers-Flanagan is a clinical psychologist and executive director of Families First, a parent education organization based in Missoula, Montana. He is the co-author of Tough Kids, Cool Counseling published by the American Counseling Association.