It's only a few months since Amy Chua shocked the world with her Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
Successful parents are lazy, says new book
It's only a few months since Amy Chua shocked the world with her Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
In this book, she described the extreme discipline she imposed on her children to ensure they were successful. When one daughter only came second in maths, she had to do 2,000 sums before going to bed to ensure it never happened again.
And now comes the backlash, as Bryan Caplan's book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Children, argues that parents make no difference to how their children turn out as adults.
Children, says Caplan, are not clay to be shaped, but more like flexible plastic that bends under pressure and then pops right back as soon as the pressure goes away.
Using the results of studies of twins separated at birth, he claims the future of a child is determined exclusively by their genes. These are hereditarySomething which is passed from parent to child. and can't be changed by any amount of pushy parenting.
He also argues that parents should have more children. They limit themselves at the moment, he says, so they can invest more in the children they have.
But this investment serves no purpose, while there are social benefits to a higher population. More people means more ideas, which are the foundation of modern economic growth.
At the heart of this discussion is the relationship between nature and nurture in the formation of humans. What makes us who we are? Is it the genes we are born with or our experiences as we grow?
Caplan is at one end of the debate, believing that everything is down to nature - even our teeth. But as the journalist Cassandra Jardine points out, a child she knows has terrible teeth not because of her genes - but because she's always drinking fizzy drinks.
Psychologists also question his conclusions. "This goes against common sense," says child psychologist Richard Woolfson. "If a parent comes to me with a child who won't eat or who bites, I can change that behaviour by altering the way the parents behave."
But after this, as Caplan says, parents who try too hard to mould their children may simply be passing on stress. Is it better to relax and pass on happiness instead?
Neuroscience, the study of the brain, has made tremendous advances in the last decade, with big implications for the nature/nurture debate.
The human is the only mammal whose brain continues to form after birth. The hard wiring of this remarkable organ takes place between the ages of 0 - 4 and is hugely dependent on parental nurture at this stage.
Hereditary - Something which is passed from parent to child.
Successful parents are lazy, says new book

Glossary
Hereditary - Something which is passed from parent to child.