In the chapter on “What Makes a Perfect Parent?” Levitt and Dubner claim that “it is isn’t so much a matter of what you do as a parent; it’s who you are”.
What do they mean by this and do you agree?
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
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4 comments:
I completely disagree with the statement 'it isn’t so much a matter of what you do as a parent; it’s who you are". If everyone held this opinion, we would have many more kids roaming this earth with no direction, no guidance, and not going anywhere in life. Granted, there is the exception that a student will persevere through his hardships due to the lack of parenting and make something great out of himself.
Arthur Miller has an interesting take on how much parenting matters. For example take Bernard and his father, Charley from Arthur Miller's play The Death of a Salesman. The main character, Willy cares for his children, and they turn out to be in today's standards, fairly unsuccessful, while the wealthy businessman Charley essentially lets his son go, and Bernard turns out to be a successful trial lawyer.
Every individual decides who he wants to be. Albeit, where he grew up can have a major affect on that decision. The authors are wrong to tell parents that it doesn't matter what they do as parents. They are role models! Of course it matters what they do!
In fact, what we do is more often than not a reflection of who we are(there are exceptions to that last statement).
For example, if A discovers that B is always lying about something, then A will come to the conclusion that B is a liar. (there are exceptions).
The point is that we learn about people from the things that they do or don't do.
An abused child's abuser tells him that he loves him. The child then walks away with a warped understanding of love and a tendency to hurt others as he has been hurt.
No...parents should do their best to be great parents, and know that what their child sees his parent doing will have the greatest affect on him.
I believe the context that the statement is meant to be taken in is not whether you do or do not do anything in the job of parenting, you should pass on the knowledge that you know; but to attempt to manipulate the experiences of your child's life to protect the child from your views of what is good and bad in the world does not always mean the the child will share your views just because you are controlling the models used for the child's social learning.
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