Stop Blaming Your Parents for Your Problems, or Blaming Yourself for Your Child’s Problems
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In mid-April, 2021, a 19-year-old former employee entered a FedEx facility in Indianapolis and opened fire, killing 8 people before pointing the gun at himself. His family later issued an apology and explained that they tried to get him the help he needed. Tragedies like that always prompt us to wonder the causes behind the horrendous, unforgivable behavior; besides mental illness, many question the perpetrators’ early experience — in other words: “What kind of parents produce this kind of evil people?” I’m sure even if people don’t ask, their parents most likely will ask themselves: “What did I do wrong?”
Whenever people accomplish something amazing, many suggest the parents be the force behind the achievement. For example, Michael Jordan’s mother is always credited to be one important factor in his success. Don’t you see many award recipients thank their parents (seems mostly mothers)?
No wonder there are so many parenting books and experts. We all want our children to be happy and successful (though sometimes they can be two different goals). We sincerely believe that parents play at least the most significant role in the equation, if not the only role.
That’s why I know that what I’m going to say will be a surprise to many; some might find it upsetting even. But it seems research indicates that no matter children turn out “good” or “bad,” parents should take less credit.
Because if you’re a parent, your parenting probably isn’t as influential on your kids as you want to believe. At least you don’t have as much control you think you have.
Genes vs. parenting (or more precisely, environment)
You might wonder: yeah, right. For one thing: how do you study parenting scientifically? There are way too many factors involved, and children in many cases don’t express themselves very well (that’s why I have all the admiration and respect for developmental psychologists — their research designs are so complicated and the data are so huge, just thinking about it makes me want to scream).
But we do have a special, powerful method that derives from the help of nature: twins.
So the idea is: there are two kinds of twins, right? Identical (monozygotic, to be precise) twins, and fraternal (dizygotic) twins. Identical twins have 100% identical genes and fraternal 50% (like regular siblings, but they share the womb at the same time).
Now think about it: suppose I want to know if genes or environment (parenting, peers, etc.) is more important on our intelligence levels, I can compare identical vs. fraternal twins, can’t I? If genes are an important factor, we’ll expect the intelligence between identical twins to be very similar (after all, they have the same genes), but not as much among fraternal twins. If, on the other hand, environment is more critical, then we shouldn’t see a similarity between identical twins.
This is the idea of heritability research.
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In her TED talk, Why Most Parenting Advice is Wrong, Dr. Yuko Munakata at the University of Colorado Boulder made her message very clear: you can NOT predict how a child will turn out, even if you employ the best advice from top experts.
She cited a huge, comprehensive study published in 2015 that examined over 14 MILLION pairs of twins across 39 countries on more than 17,000 factors. Goodness… can you imagine the size of this study? This is called “meta-analysis,” they combine all the related studies and see if there are significant trends. And in this case, indeed there are:
First, for all the factors investigated, they are all heritable. To loosely translate it: genes are a crucial factor in how children turn out to be. For example, identical twins adopted by different families, in many outcomes like personality traits or body weights, are similar to their BIOLOGICAL parents instead of the adopted parents.
Second, though genes are important, they’re NOT the only factor — environment does play a role too. However, and this is a vital point: growing up in the same household does NOT lead to the same outcome on children. In other words, one type of parenting does not necessarily lead to similar outcomes.
This, in fact, shouldn’t be a surprise. Think about your brother(s) and/or sister(s): are they similar to you? Probably not, because you might react to what your parents say differently from your sibling(s); your genes and unique experiences all might contribute to the differences.
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For example, Dr. Munakata explained:
One child might find it helpful when her mother provides structure, her sister might find it’s stifling; one child might think his parents are caring when they ask questions about his friends, his brother might think they’re being nosy.
If our assumption that good parenting always breeds great children were correct, shouldn’t we expect one best style of parenting leads to similar outcomes? But that’s simply NOT the case. Even identical twins raised in the same family can be different.
So what do these pieces of evidence tell us?
First, our genes probably play a very significant role in how we turn out; more significant than we want to admit. Second, parenting might play a role in how we turn out — but it can be a positive influence, or negative, we can’t predict. Because what is important is NOT what happen to you — but how you INTERPRET the experience.
Plus, do keep in mind that parenting is NOT the only environmental force; for example, peer influence is extremely strong on children too. One distinct piece of evidence is children of immigrants: when they are little they might speak their native languages at home, but once they enter schools, many only speak English. When my 3 kids were pre-schoolers they only spoke Mandarin Chinese, but after they were in elementary, in less than a year I had to force them to speak their mother tongue.
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Are parents “off the hook?”
Dr. Munakata concluded:
First, know that parents matter… second, know that how parents matter is complex and difficult to predict. For anyone who has ever been a parent: stop blaming yourself as if you are in control of your child’s path. You have influence, but you don’t have control.
For anyone who has ever been a child: stop blaming your parents. At least for the idea that you are defined by them.
Therefore, first, we can NOT ignore the impact of genes and other environmental factors, for example, peers. And second, yes, parenting can still be influential, but it’s more difficult than predicting the weather. You simply can’t guarantee what parenting crates what outcomes in children.
But wait, does that mean parents are “off the hook?” Cause no matter how hard we try, we can’t control the outcomes, why bother?
And does that even mean even abuse or neglect isn’t a big deal?
Okay, first of all, abuse and neglect are not the “parenting” we’re talking about. When the environment becomes extreme (for example, extreme poverty and/or unsafe/unclean communities; and in fact, living in very affluent families is an extreme environment too), environmental forces can “override” genes. We learn about that from Harry Harlow’s monkey experiments and the babies in orphanages/war zone. So NO, abusive or neglectful parents are totally NOT off the hook.
Second, though indeed parents probably should take less credit, the impact is still there. If you sincerely care and love your children, chances are they’ll feel and remember it. “Skills” of parenting probably don’t matter that much; the memories shared together do.
So… don’t be too proud or sad about your children’s outcomes. They simply have to walk their own walk. And don’t blame your parents for how you turn out (of course, unless what you’ve experienced is abuse and/or neglect) — cause chances are, you are your own navigator.
About the author
Mark is a professor of psychology at a small university in southern New Mexico. He like playing musical instruments, basketball, and writing stories.
Source: medium.com
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