The Ditty of the Lemur Father

It has been about a year since I read a pre-release draft of Bryan Caplan's Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. As the only other economist to launch into the parenting arena, his take was more than a little interesting to me. Unlike Parentonomics, Caplan's treatment was research-based. And unlike Parentonomics, it had a strong advocacy for parenting styles and parenting choices; specifically how many kids to have. So it was closer to the Freakonomics approach to popular economics than what I had attempted. 

Anyhow, now that Caplan has graced the Wall Street Journal, I see that he will soon wip up a storm of controversy similar to that of the Tiger Mother. From the few Amazon reviews, it is safe to say either people really love the book or they really hate it. Either way, ka-ching.

So what is the Caplan thesis? It is, basically, that if parents think that by parenting they are putting in costly effort now to improve the lot of their children in the future, studies don't back that up. In stable environments, nurture has little impact relative to nature. The implication Caplan wants to draw is that parents should chill -- what he calls "Serenity Parenting." However, interestingly, like the Tiger Mother, the philosophy has only partially sold itself at home. Instead, Caplan hasn't been able to quite practice what he preaches. That is why I'd suggest that the better term for Caplan is the "Lemur Father" based on my perception of lemurs as depicted by King Julien in Madagascar. (Ergo: "I don't know why the sacrifice didn't work. The science was so solid.")

Of course, in typical economists style once Caplan has convinced you that you can lower the costs of parenting by being more lemur like, he notes that you can therefore, have more kids. Why because the marginal cost of an additional kid is lower than you think. Again, the apparent trauma of having twins meant that it took 7 years to convince his wife to have another but it is clear there is even more negotiation going on.

But regardless of the level of the cost curve for parenting, it is surely the case that the marginal costs of parenting for each additional child are increasing. What is also the case is that, for many parents, they have actually assessed that marginal cost and decided that enough was enough. Families, last time I looked, were pretty much bounded. The best we can hope for is that we forecast the net negative marginal return before having the marginal child rather than after it. There are some days when I think the jury is still out on that for Child No.3. But then again, I'm not about to return her any time soon.

Caplan is, of course, all about the evidence and so there is a testable hypothesis here. Lemur Parents will have more children than other types of parents. The ultimate Lemur parents were, of course, the Gilbreths (of Cheaper by the Dozen fame). They had parenting down to a fine art and surely for Caplan minimised parenting costs. But those are isolated examples. What would a large scale study show?

Because there is a countervailing effect. You can be Lemur by choice but similarly, as it is by definition easy to be a Lemur parent, you can be Lemur by default. That is, how do I distinguish Lemur parenting from lazy parenting? The parenting behaviour will be indistinguishable but because the actual process of having a baby is hard, the lazy ones will have less nor more children. I haven't in the brief few minutes i have taken to write this post come up with a clever way of identifying the causal relationship here.

Interestingly, Caplan admits that some parenting is hard. Moreover, he wrote: "We used the Ferber method—let the kid cry for 10 minutes, briefly comfort him, repeat—to get our twins to sleep through the night." That is, of course, something we practiced to. But we didn't do it because it was easy but instead because it was hard. That said, we explicitly did it so we would have an easier time later on. So I guess there is some Lemur in us after all.

Anyhow, if you like Parentonomics you'll like this book. Read it and take some time away from parenting to see how it goes.

That Tiger Mother

Wow, it isn't hard to get attention as a parent. Engage in an extreme parenting style and hold it up as an underlying reason why the US will lose ground to China into the future.

I'm talking of course about Amy Chua -- a Yale law professor -- whose book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was ranked No.4 on the Amazon bestseller list. I bought the book for two reasons. First, if such a book is on the bestseller list then I want Parentonomics to be able to leverage off the "Customers who bought this item also bought ..." Amazon list. Second, I was pretty sure that the characterisations of Chua going around were distorted. I just didn't believe that the WSJ piece reflected what was in the book and, having now read it, I was right.

Let's begin with that shorter piece. It basically had a bold claim that Chinese mothers (very broadly construed -- and not confined even to Asia) were superior to Western mothers. There is no evidence for this presented and, instead, there is an allusion to stereotypes of superior performance of children at school and in some artistic endeavours. But while that might be a hook that gets the press interested, it isn't really what is interesting about the piece or the book. This is instead a case in point about extreme or perhaps obsessive parenting. We have seen all colours of that recently in terms of books. Most of the ones that seemed to have had a recent attention have been against strong parental involvement. There is, of course, Free-Range Kids that argues that we should have less fear and give our kids more independence. Free-Range Kids wasn't an extreme view but a reaction to extremes. But others have been different. There was one book -- whose name I have forgotten -- that basically said parents shouldn't put any effort into parenting at all!

The article plays Chua at the other extreme from these recent trends. It tries to soften the 'extreme' by alluding to a cultural parenting style. But in neither the article nor the book does that ring true. However, in contrast to the article, Chua's book is a different take on this parenting style. The article makes it seem that she did it her way, it was successful and all other parents who don't follow don't really love their children. That would make her an excellent candidate for Wife Swap.

But the book is different. Here are the first sentences:

This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. It's also about Mozart and Mendelssohn, the piano and the violin, and how we made it to Carnegie Hall.

This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones.

But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year old.

So this is not a book about success. Instead it is a book about a strategy towards parenting and, in many respect, its failure. I felt a kinship to Chua in that. This blog and Parentonomics are often characterised as advocating some form of extreme economic rationalism applied to parenting where, more often than not, it is a story about the failure of such notions. That said, Chua is not quite as clear about those failures nor does she diagnose them with the starkness that I try to do here. But if you look you can see them and learn from them.

Chua isn't a parent who shys away from effort. Frankly, you can't help but be amazed (even if you are appauled) by the sheer volume of energy she is putting into her children. It seemed unbelievable but I've learned that people outside, doing things differently, are a poor judge of what others are capable of. Chua is not taking some easy way out but she is also not regarding this as something that is purely her own deal. A judgment against parents doing things differently runs through the book even if it is tortured by mixed success.

To deal with this, let's separate out two issues as only an economist might do: (1) appropriate goals for your children and what they mean and (2) how far you are willing to go to attain those goals.

Chua is clear about the goals for her children. They are to get straight A's, become virtuoso in an appropriate area (in this case piano and violin) and they are to put in high effort into everything they do. The latter part is exemplified by Chua's rejection of birthday cards made by her kids for her. (And in reading that part, while she was harsh, it was also pretty clear that the effort put in had been weak and her kids had known that they could do and should do better). 

Those goals, on the face of them, are pretty uncontroversial. Substitute virtuoso in music for excellence in sports or mathematics and you pretty much have covered some universal parental aspirations. They are not unique to Chinese parents nor unique to Chua. Of course, there are other character goals we have. As I wrote about some time ago, we value 'independence' as core to our parenting goals. But the point is that having clear goals actually can make the job of parenting easier.

What is true, however, is that having goals also means you have faced and decided on what you are trading off. For Chua, it is pretty clear that she was trading off against play, sleep-overs and other 'leisure' activities children might engage in. Her attitude is that those things are unimportant relative to preparing for the future but there is no evidence to support that. Instead, the book is about the goals she set and how they were achieved. In that respect, if you read it as a story rather than as advocacy, it is an interesting journey.

In many respects, of course, the real issue is how far you are willing to go to achieve goals you might set. Chua is willing to go to the hilt on these goals. She is committed to them; even as the costs of achieving them grow higher and higher. Moreover, given the fact that these choices -- particularly with regard to music -- were made and committed to when Chua's children were so young, it becomes clear to the reader that this entire strategy was high risk. Indeed, in pursuing those goals, she may have had sacrificed them -- although it would generate too many spoilers to go into detail on that here.

How far is Chua willing to go? Well, she wanted her kids to be child prodigies. That means you don't have much time and must start early. It also means that you have to devote enormous effort and time in an unrelenting fashion. Chua did that and, in part because she had good material to work with, she kept going. Up to 6 hours a day of practice. Constant pressure. And only hints that her children were become self-motivated.

I can tell you right now that when faced with similar choices, this is not one that we made. When Child No.1 was three, she sat at a piano and some moron told us, "she is quite interested. You should get her lessons." So, of course, we did. Her teacher was reluctant for someone so young but our daughter paid attention and made progress so she took her on. Did I mention she was three?

Well, that lasted about two months before she lost interest. Getting her to practice was difficult. So we decided to drop it. Of course that was not before we had, in our enthusiasm, procured a piano. Our goal was to start again later. Chua would not have given up so easily.

By the way, we did start again when our daughter was six and our son started when he was five. We found a wonderful teacher, Paula Mantay, who had the goal that success was to enjoy playing. She was very hard and demanding. We liked it and the kids started to do well. After a couple of years, it just became harder and harder to get Child No.1 to practice. Then, we were at a friend's house. Their daughter, who was the same age as ours, played for us. She was much much better. Something flipped for Child No.1. She didn't want to play anymore. It turned out that her goal was to become a virtuoso and that seeing another peer playing was clear evidence. We stuck out a little longer but relented. Ms Mantay was devastated but what can you do? It is with a hint of irony that I do have to mention that the other child was Chinese-American. Our son continues playing today but we have no aspirations for him beyond enjoyment. For Child No.3, she displayed enthusiasm for lessons but when she resisted practice, we stopped them. These things are going to have to be self-motivated or bust for us.

I think that this is the reason Chua's story resonates. It is a path not travelled and we are not 100% sure that is the right choice. Every parent faces these choices. Most would dearly like for their children to excel. But in the end, most parents don't push the issue. Indeed, think of the equilibrium if we all did! Could Chua have continued to push if everyone else was doing the same? There can only be so many children who are the best. It is like musical chairs. In the end, someone misses out no matter how much you all try.

So what lessons can we take from all this. First of all, parents have to face up to the fact that if they want their children to excel that is going to take a lot. You are going to have to identify an activity. Hope your kid has the requisite skills to develop excellence there. And then put in the practice. It is interesting that only a short while ago Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers adorned the bestseller list. There is one thing I remember from that. To be the best you need to put in 10,000 hours of practice. It is not entirely clear that if kids don't start early enough they will get there. Chua embraces that as do I am sure many others. For us, it is something we will support if a child wants to go there but we are not going to insist on it.

Second, half measures are probably a waste of time. One thing that many parents can identify with is Chua's belief that something worth doing is worth doing well. We have engaged in various activities and pushed them but not in a fully committed manner. We are much more likely to encourage activities that develop creativity than hone skills. But, with the caveat about whether your child is enjoying the activity or not, I'm not sure it is worth darting around continually exposing them to new things. But I guess it is hard to conceive of how an interest can start without exposure so this area is a parenting mess.

Third, children of Yale faculty do well. Chua's kids are a case in point. Barry Nalebuff's daughter, Rachel wrote My Little Red Book before graduating high school. Ian Ayres kids co-authored a statistical paper with him. And Ray Fair and Sharon Oster's daughter, Emily, was subject of a ground-breaking psychological study as a toddler and went on to be an economic star. There is something in the air in New Haven.

Fourth, I realised that there is a difference between far-sightedness and patience. In economics, we conflate these. A person who has a high discount factor (weighs the future heavily) is also someone who will be happy to incur costs now and wait for the benefits (a definition of patience). But Chua is, at once, both far-sighted (she only cares about her children's future) and impatient (she wants that future to arrive too quickly). Much to my surprise, it turns out you can be that way.

Finally, parenting books are at their most useful when they present stories. Parents find stories an effective way of learning about choices and Chua's is a good one for that. That said, it is not a well-written book. It rambles, digresses, spends too little time pondering her husband, Jed's role in all this. It is inconsistent. Chua rails at American parents' use of 'bribery' and then does so herself without really acknowledging it. As I read the book, I had to construct my own narrative of what it means. Chua wasn't going to help. It was at once too descriptive and too ranty for that. That is a shame. I suspect it could have been more.

In the end, I was left wondering about Chua's children's happiness and will be interested should, in twenty years time, either of them turn to pen their own reflections on their childhood. But I was also wondering what happened to Chua with the normal stuff of parenting. Did she have trouble getting her kids to put on shoes quickly or to brush their teeth? Did the fact that so much was expected of them in the abnormal stuff make it plain sailing for the day-to-day stuff? Or did that same fact mean that they had a free-ride then and everything was done for them? Either way, what will this mean for their ability to act as independent adults in the future. From the book, it seems that that looks good. I wonder if other kids with this form of parenting come out so secure.

[Update: Amy Chua's colleague and economist, Ian Ayres, comments on the economics of tiger parenting - as a commitment device to learn to weigh the future.]

13 Random Words

I guess the best word for Lemony Snicket's latest book, 13 Words, is that the title isn't really accurate. While it is true that 13 words are highlighted, it is unclear why they were given prominence over the other 100 or so distinct words in the book. The story is rather bland, makes little sense and ultimately is quite depressing. My kids loved it. So if you want to read you children a book that doesn't try to have a story that is interesting, makes sense and is not depressing but that they will simultaneously love and think about, this one is pretty much it.

The Greatest Gift

In the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof lists the "best kids books ever." Now I am not sure what criterion he was using for his list but 'best' didn't seem to describe it. I think he was using a criterion of "books your kids can read so that their IQ does not drop over summer." With the list including The Hardy Boys and Little Lord Fauntleroy I can just imagine my kids, upon being handed these, going "gee wilakers, thanks Dad. That's swell" and asking me again why adults get all funny about the notion of a good book burning. If there is one thing I have learned about chapter books is, that unlike movies, TV shows and picture books, what you liked when you grow up rarely translates into a similar joy across generations. In Kristof's list Harry Potter stands out as the exception that proves the rule and is perhaps, indeed, one reason to have kids. I am about to give you a better one.

In his blog, Kristof sensibly asked his own kids what they would recommend. It should come as no surprised that none of his list that he had presumably subjected his kids too made the cut. Most were recent (that is, a decade old) but the top of the list was Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Those kids have taste.

I have reviewed some other books by Snicket before (here and here). My exuberance would not have been lost on anyone. But those were a side show to the 13 volume series that I began reading to my kids about 6 months ago.

Actually, that is not true, I began reading them 5 years ago and loved it. Sadly, my eldest at 5 years old wasn't so interested and so we stopped half way through the second book. And then I waited. And waited. And waited until finally I could convince the two eldest to sit down and listen to me read it to them. Unlike Harry Potter, these were books that had to be read aloud to a kid so given that I had several I figured it was my right to force it on them.

The forced event last only a few minutes before they saw what I saw. Pretty soon they were requesting readings over watching TV and video games. But we paced ourselves with a chapter a night for 169 nights (give or take some missed for various reasons).

This is a set of books that is pretty well impossible to review because to say too much would be to give too much away. What is more, the movie starring Jim Carey (who is perfect for the role of the villain, Count Olaf) while doing the spirit of the books justice is best consumed after reading the complete wreck. So there is no luck there. You basically have to pick up The Bad Beginning and go with it.

But I would be remiss (the word "remiss" here meaning failing in my duty as an informative parenting blogger to warn about potential harm to your children) in pointing out that some people might consider this book as causing potential harm to your children. The book involves the story of the Baudelaire orphans who become orphans before the first few pages are out which, I'm sorry to say, is by far the high point for them over the entire 13 books. (And, just in case you are thinking it, they adored their parents and life so there is no twist there).

To say that their lives were unfortunate is really to stretch the meaning of the word unfortunate away from its usually comforting nuance. Disastrous is another word that might describe their lives if it was true that the disasters were, in fact, the most painful experiences they go through. They are not. If I had to point to anything it would be the naked exposition and confrontation with the realistic bitter truths about people that will likely cause the most horror. For adults, we will recognise them in our own day-to-day experiences usually involving someone at the end of a telephone line in "billing" before the days where they were a pleasant but more empathic person who grew up in far less fortunate circumstances than yours. But for children, they are a window into the lives that follow and the perplexities they face now in understanding human behaviour will likely never retreat and they will live forever in their grip.

So consider yourselves warned but also recognise that these books, their genius and their relentless consistency will be among the more satisfying reading experiences of your parenthood. Get them now and read it out loud before it is too late. Also, ask some French person how to pronounce 'Baudelaire.' I apparently mispronounced it for 13 books.

The Element

Ken Robinson is a fantastic speaker with some challenging ideas about education. His new book, The Element, captures that speaking style to give readers, I guess the best word for it is, inspiration. The idea of the book is that everyone has their element and that they need to find it and if you think it is too late, think again. The idea is an interesting one and a hopeful one and Robinson peppers his various elements to finding your element with stories of the famous or pretty famous and how they got to be that way and were very happy about it (including himself). To me, who, frankly, has pretty much found his element, the book was not too useful but it did get me thinking about how I might help my kids find theirs. The message being: don't throw roadblocks in their way.

The biggest roadblock appears to be our educational system -- namely, its pedagogy. All the focus on reading, testing and measurable academic achievement does not really add up to finding one's element especially, if, as is likely, it can not be found by such objective means. So as a parent you question why you think these things are important and down weight them. Not that I need any help in that mind you. Here in Victoria, my two eldest kids will soon by sitting for three days (!) of tests for Grades 3 and 5 respectively. These arose out of the demands of parents to know more about what is going on with their children's education but Robinson would see it as the problem rather than a road to the solution.

I want my kids to try hard for these exams. Why? Because they are there. We are going to get some sort of report and I prefer them to be on the high end tail than the low end. And if they get there I'll put the test aside and go on. Interestingly, I'll do exactly the same thing if they don't get there. I know more about my kids and their abilities than any test can give and I will assert that knowledge and ignore the rest. So, based on that line of thought, the test is useless to me and it is likely that the 'in school' lead up to it, not to mention the tests themselves, are costly. I should be outraged and do something about it. But on the long list of things I want to fight about the 'system' this is on the low end.

The Element is a quick read and, indeed, has more in common with Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (my review of that is here) in theme although it is, somewhat ironically, more journalistic than evidence-based. I'm not sure that everyone has an element and let alone will be able to find it. But as a goal for moving on with one's life, it is not a bad idea to think that they have and they will.

An Instant Classic

It is hard to find words when you have just read a (literally) classic children's book. But I just have and it is Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead. The problem is that I don't want to describe any part of this book to you. It is a rare instance that, I, as parent and reader-out-loud did not know how the book was going to end as I read it. I did not know that it would strike so many chords. I did not know it would be so amusing. And I did not know it would be so dramatic. The next time you find yourself in a bookstore with a child, seek this book out and force your child to listen to you read it. I can't vouch for whether they will like it. You will and it still counts for any book-related parenting points you might wish to earn.

Holiday cross-over

Lemony Snicket's, The Latke who couldn't stop streaming: A Christmas Story is one of the best cross-over holiday books ever. Actually, it is the best. Lemony Snicket's writing is 'read-out-load' friendly even the big words. I learnt a new one "arrondissement" but you will have to read the book to find out what it means.

The story is about a latke (which here means potato pancake) who, thanks to having been boiled in oil (symbolic or otherwise), runs around the neighbourhood screaming at Christmas decorations looking for the source of its existential angst. Children really get into the story but it also hits upon every single inadequacy that is part of the whole Hanukah thing. It was hilarious but also a great story at the same time. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The right video camera

It seems that the modern family commits much of its activities to video. Of course, the degree to which this occurs depends entirely on the camera. What we did first is research all of the options and then got convinced by the sales person that we needed one with features; you know, like making it an old-style grainy feel should the mood take us.

After a few years, we had a bunch of tapes (as they were called in those days) and had watched none of them. It was then that I embarked on a three month project of moving those tapes to DVD using the Mac's iMovie and iDVD which had just come out. This involved careful identification of scenes, dates and accompanying music as well as some artistic work on the DVD menu. This led to a bunch of DVDs covering most of the time period up until that point -- well, except for 3 months where I was too busy working on the DVDs to actually video the kids.

Now we do look back at the DVDs but doing that became a chore a couple of years ago. At the same time, Apple upgraded iMovie to a version that didn't work well with iDVD but did work well with a hard disk camera that we purchased. So we ended up importing lots of video to the computer, not editing them, not cataloging anything and not really watching anything. What was more, the whole exercise of having a video camera when you needed it was a big problem with bigger kids.

But at long last I think I have found the perfect compromise. It is the featureless Flip Video Camera. This is a little device that you can put in you pocket and literally whip out whenever you need it. It takes one hour of footage (which is more than enough) at a good (but not great) quality. You then plug it straight into the computer (with no additional cables!), it charges and you can download the footage straight to iPhoto or, if you want to edit or share, to anything else. The end result is that we are now actually using the camera and capturing those moments. To be sure, no one will be making a feature film on this but that is the lie of the video camera industry. You just want a memory and if it comes with automatic graininess in the future, so be it. Oh yeah, it is cheap (starting at US$150 on amazon).

The frindle is mightier than the word

I know I am late to extol the virtues of this one (10 years too late) but Frindle by Andrew Clements is a gem of a book. It is about a boy who has ideas. One day, pretty much to irritate a dogmatic teacher, he comes up with the idea of replacing the word, pen, with the word, frindle. Hi-jinks ensues.

My two eldest just loved the book. The whole notion that words come from somewhere and that their value was in how people understood their meaning was a great lesson. I might even be able to explain to them one day how it is that a piece of paper can be worth something. For now, we concentrated on the words. I even left them with a lesson from Shakespeare who is credited with introducing countless words into the English language including countless. It was an olympian effort; well at least after he invented the word olympian.

It has sold over 2 million copies but is unknown and seemingly unavailable here in Australia.

In that genre

So I have been told that Parentonomics possibly falls in the genre of parenting books combined with humour, where humour and economics are interchangeable in the book publishing world. For that reason I thought I should read some recent books in that genre. This is something I haven't done for some time. Indeed, the last time was pre-children with Paul Reiser's Babyhood. I pulled that one off the shelf and it is still pretty funny. It is a book that is pre-blogging but in many respects it really reads like a collection of little posts (something I have tried to avoid when putting together Parentonomics).

Anyhow, following on the comedian angle, recently released is a book by Kevin Nealon. I used to watch him on Saturday Night Live and I think he occasionally pops up in movies. But I chose that book primarily because I was sitting at the next table to him in an LA airport lounge last year and he looked pretty much like the picture on the front of his book. Interestingly, he had bought a Sony eBook reader just as the Kindle had come out and I was puzzled about this. Maybe it was for the flight only to discover he was going to need a computer to get at those books.

His book is about his experience in pregnancy -- not his really but his wife's. He is 53 and so is older than the average parent and also, his celebrity lifestyle defined much of what he was going through. There was lots of angst about having children and feelings about life in general which gave him an excuse to recount previous non-parenting incidents with random abandon. It had its moments but there was not alot that I found easy to relate to. Nonetheless, I suspect that if you are pregnant (or close to one who is) this would be a good read.

That said Nealon's promotional videos on Amazon are fun. In this example, he shows how to save money working out how to babyproof your house. We had the same idea but we just invited over friends with toddlers. That still seems to me to be a better experiment aside from the 'interfering' parents who didn't let some things run their course.

The final book I picked up is an edited volume by Heather B. Armstrong. She picks the best of parenting bloggers and has them write about Fatherhood. But surprisingly, the chapters do not read like blog posts but really a collection of stories. One of these I have linked to before (on Star Wars), but the story by Matthew Baldwin that likens pregnancy to The Return of the King was an absolute classic (here is a taste of that). And there are some others that hit the mark. This is definitely one to take a look at the next time you are browsing.

But all in all I was assured that perhaps what I am offering is a little more unique. It is a crowded genre but I took some comfort that somehow I have emerged from the parenting experience with a distinct perspective.