Piffle! Parents exert the prime influence

Published in The Orlando Sentinel, August 26, 1998

The nature vs. nurture debate has taken a new twist. Neither heredity nor parents play the lead roles in child-rearing. It's the peers, stupid.

So says Judith Rich Harris, author of a new book, The Nurture Assumption. Parents can stop banging their heads against the wall, quit worrying whether Little Johnny will climb the bell tower someday or load his book bag with Grandpa's grenade collection. No matter what you do at home, his peers ultimately will determine whether he takes aim at a medical career or a teacher's temple.

Parents don't have ``any important long-term effects on the development of their child's personality,'' says Harris. As they say in the 'hood, ``bull pate.''

Harris' thesis is based in part on the fact that siblings from the same home often behave differently. One kid becomes a star student and athlete; the other a juvenile delinquent. Same home, same parents, same shared environment. So how else to explain the difference?

The answer, says Harris, can be found in the ``nonshared environment'' outside the home -- the individual kid's success on the playground, his image among his peer group, her agility on the monkey bars.

No one would disagree that peers play a huge role in how children feel about themselves and how they behave. But to say, as Harris does, that ``parents count zilch'' is tantamount to saying, why bother coming home for dinner? Peers matter, yes, but when it comes to how kids respond to their peers, parents count zillions.

As usual, my opinion isn't scientific. I still subscribe to the notion that parents can raise a child without a Ph.D., which in my day, incidentally, stood for ``pile it higher and deeper.'' But I've been a kid, and I've been a parent. Parenting matters.

That's not to say that kids raised in good homes don't sometimes go Kaczynski or that kids raised in bad homes don't often perform miraculously. Individuals come in a variety of shapes and personalities. Exceptions happen, and rules almost always get broken.

Which is why pop psychology theories about how to raise the perfect kid are as useless as Harris' claim is silly. There's no magic formula for raising good kids, just as there's no simple explanation for why some do well and others don't. My best guess comes down to four words my father always said as I walked out the door: ``Remember who you are.''

Behind those words were years of pre-peer lessons taught with heaps of praise and parcels of punishment. I knew exactly what he meant -- honesty, loyalty and the self-worth that comes from earning others' respect. Note, not a word about self-esteem.

Nobody cared about kids' self-esteem in the maligned '50s and overrated '60s. They cared about kids' behavior and manners. ``Sir'' was every dad's name.

A call home from a teacher put a chill in your bones. If you cheated, used profanity or used drugs, you were in for it. You might as well tattoo your forehead with a T for traitor.

``Remember who you are'' meant you were somebody -- a person loved, cared about, invested in. You were a repository of expectations for people you didn't want to disappoint. Peers were other people you liked and whose admiration you sought but who had less power -- and skinnier belts -- than the folks back home.

If peers make the difference today, as Harris contends, there's a reason for it. It's not that parents ``count zilch,'' but that they've sacrificed their roles to their children's peers. Parents still count zillions, but first you have to be a parent.

Kathleen Parker's column is distributed by Tribune Media Services. Her column also appears Sunday online and in the Sentinel's Insight section. Mail: The Orlando Sentinel, MP-6, P.O. Box 2833, Orlando, Fla. 32802-2833. E-mail: [email protected]

[Posted 08/25/98 4:01 PM EST]