What difference does "good" parenting make to kids? Not much

Magnus Linklater in his column this week referred to an article by Judith Rich Harris in Prospect magazine. She is a truly original thinker who in her books, The Nurture Assumption and No Two Alike, has turned the prevailing wisdom about how children develop their personalities on its head.

Crudely put, she doesn't believe that parents, other than through the genes they endow their offspring with, have that much effect on their child's character and personality.

Whether the home is headed by one parent or two, whether the parents are happily married or constantly rowing, whether they believe in pushing their children to succeed or leaving them to find their own way in life, whether the home is filled with books or sports equipment, whether it is orderly or messy, a city flat or a farmhouse—the research shows, counterintuitively, that none of these things makes much difference. The child who grows up in the orderly, well-run home is, on average, no more conscientious as an adult than the one who grows up in the messy one. Or rather, he or she will be more conscientious only to the extent that this characteristic is inherited.

Her argument is compelling. It should cheer up parents that their ability to f*** up their children is pretty limited (the screwing up can be left to their peer group). Therapists wouldn't like it if her thesis became the prevailing wisdom; it's easy for them to coin money from saps who want to blame their own unhappiness and failings on Mum and Dad.

Robbie Millen