If you’re familiar with the behavior genetics literature, not really. Judith Rich Harris covers it in No Two Alike and Bryan Caplan does the same in Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. Who one’s biological parents are matters enormously and after that as long as children aren’t abused they basically turn out like they’re going to turn out. Children who are adopted turn out about as similar to their adoptive siblings as to strangers and as similar to biological siblings as normal whether raised together or apart.
> So that the child has also middle class future.
Greg Clark’s work on social class persistence suggests that’s wasted effort. The heritability of social class is 0.7 in every society with records amenable to tracking lineages across generations, from Sweden, England, China, Korea and many other places. The only temporary exception was during the Cultural Revolution.
> Good school also eases out situation for parent, as bad school means the parent have to re-teach, have to work around bullying and social pressures on child to be bully or not learn.
Sympathetic as I am to the idea of schools for children who want to learn, where the unusually studious or intelligent would actually be challenged, crap schools have incredibly small effects on educational attainment, as do great ones.
Great schools are schools with great students, not great teachers. Teachers can have a temporary, marginal effect but the difference between a school where the average student is ... average, and one where you need to be in the top decile to be admitted is enormous. It’s almost all selection effects, not treatment effects.
It just so happens that parents in those situations deal with them, often by moving kids elsewhere or by having to spend a lot of extra effort and money to overcome that. When you have good teacher, the extra effort and money are just not needed.
Tutors exist for a reason and yes they make difference. Some schools produce kids that are on average good at later math, other schools produce kids that just don't (same city, same socioeconic background, different leadership). Somehow one city is strong in producing young programmers while other is not.
> Greg Clark’s work on social class persistence suggests that’s wasted effort. The heritability of social class is 0.7 in every society with records amenable to tracking lineages across generations, from Sweden, England, China, Korea and many other places.
The inequality as difference between poor and rich in USA right now is getting bigger. The middle class is lowering its numbers. The society is just not the same as it used to and is not actually reproducing the exact same classes.
I did had friends from weaker schools that struggled academically in college. They needed a lot of extra tutoring and help to overcome that. Some did overcomed it, so no they were not stupid and yes it evened out, but they had it much harder and had limited options on choice of major.
The worst off were those whose high school was too easy and were shocked by the system that required them to study hard things and study a lot. Yes, some parents will avoid those schools like a plague and cluster kids in different schools. It is not because they are all stupid.
Parents can make a small short run difference through massive effort, if they really want to. It just doesn’t matter in the end.
What you can make a long term difference in is how fondly your children remember their childhood, if their parents were there, loved them, and were happy, rather than tired, stressed and angry.
The parental success being hereditary is not merely random, it is because parents put a lot of effort into making sure kids do end up the same. Intervening when things go wrong is one of ways how it happens. Changing school when peers or teachers are bad is also how it happens. If you don't care and kid don't care and you are fine with it, the kid will grow up into person that don't care when when left on own devices.
The tutor makes difference when preparing for tests that decide which school you go to. You being yourself when you actually finished the degree and you being yourself when you did not is not the same for jobs that require degree. In many jobs and societies, credentials, the degree and school and network do matter. Which is why those with resource push for those credentials.
When you don't know high school math well, you will have hard time in those STEM classes that require difficult math. They are difficult enough for students from good schools, those from bad schools were literally drawning. It makes difference between finishing it and having access to those jobs and not finishing it and not having that access. I don't know how in your school, but ours kicked a lot of people out on these.
You know who is in worst economic situation in USA right now? Students who did not managed to finish college, but do have debt.
...which is not because social class is genetic, but because the things you do while raising your child are, by and large, the things of your social class.
If you say, "Well, my child will be middle-class either way, so I don't have to worry!" and do nothing to help them...then they don't get the middle-class upbringing.
Sure, there are still aspects of "being middle-class" that come along "for free," but there's enough that requires actual effort on the parents' part that your apparent philosophy would be quite counterproductive.
I don’t know exactly what the contributors to high social class are but intelligence and conscientiousness are no doubt among them and they’re highly heritable.
There are aspects of being middle class that come for free, they’re the ones children are born with. That’s why adoptive siblings are as similar in their educational outcomes as strangers and biological siblings are far more similar.
The mechanism is genetic, not cultural. If you can disprove it there’s a lot of publications in it for you.
I'm not completely convinced, but you certainly raise some good points.
However, I do have some questions. What, exactly, is it that you say "maintains its behavior" in that way? Because from my perspective, what we have is not obviously a single thing that can be said to track across all those shifts for a given individual or family, but rather a metric that maintains a high degree of stability from generation A to generation A+1—and thus, a moderate degree of stability to generation A+2, and so on.
Furthermore, my understanding of that 0.7 number is that it's true for the US, now, not something that's static worldwide and across history.
Finally, I would note that there's probably just as much publication in conclusively proving it is genetic.
I looked this up, near me in SW London it looks like the cheapest monthly membership is £45pm, which is less than an average gym membership, up to £100pm for unlimited classes. I'd go for it if it was a big benefit to the baby.
> Good school, healthcare and do actually matter, you know. So that the child has also middle class future.
I don't know if it's how it was intended but this is a concise & scathing description of how class structures become entrenched.
Nail on the head. Virtue signal all you want, but I know that I'll be putting my money into making sure that any kids I have see a lot of these advantages.
While toddle yoga is fluff for healthy children, it is not that expensive and baby exercising can help to the ones that have mild motoric issues. It is actually often something mom does also for herself so that her time is occupied and she meets other moms (social isolation sux, being in same room whole day sux). It is also literally mom seeing problem in her own mental state and taking steps to fix it before it affects her behavior toward kids and husband. When you are socially isolated and bored, you can stay home and be depressed or find a place with people and something that makes somewhat sense to do.
Good school, healthcare and do actually matter, you know. So that the child has also middle class future. Good school also eases out situation for parent, as bad school means the parent have to re-teach, have to work around bullying and social pressures on child to be bully or not learn.
Dual earner flexible childcare is something traditional man does not appreciate. But, mom who wants ability to fend for herself too if needed and not be dependent and helpless completely appreciates a lot. If nothing else for psychological reasons - staying home is depression inducing for a lot of reasons. And when husband dies or get sick or get unemployed, yeah, it matters a lot.
> they choose to opt out of the children having status tournament
Well, social status matter to people and always mattered. How others treat you matter a lot to you.