In a message dated 2/1/2001 1:27:33 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
This is exactly where Harris says that parents have the strongest effect on
the development of their children. As I understand her, she is arguing that
parenting style and other "in home interactions" have little effect on
development that is not distinguishable from genetic effects. To borrow an
idea from Scarr and McCartney who borrowed the idea from Plomin, the unique
characteristics of the child elicit the parental behaviors that we see as
making the child unique.
Parents' lifestyles often reflect their own peer-oriented behavior. When I
turn on the TV these days I have to laugh/barf at the constant pitching to
affluent baby boomers material goods that will proclaim their status and
accomplishment to their cohort. Most of these commericials using the music
that was once supposed to be rebellious and rejecting of establishment values.
Lately I've been speculating that in fact individuality is a kind of myth.
Our desires, values, and the "voices in our heads" are placed there by a
larger cultural ethos that we are at once embedded in and influencing. We
engaged in this discussion as if the children being raised are "space aliens"
who will be trained by a wholly different species of being, the "peers" when
in fact this peer group, just a generation younger (a nanosecond in the
history of humanity), will eventually turn in to the same kind of people that
the parents are.
We tend to think in terms of the distinctions, exaggerating them and failing
to see how much everything is also connected.
Nancy Melucci, Ph.D.
East Los Angeles College
