Highlights from Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan
Highlights from this book
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If your child is virtually destined to become a normal adult, however, you should rethink that groan—especially if you’re happy with the way you and your spouse turned out. Odds are, your kids will painlessly inherit your brains, success, charm, and modesty.
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Half a century from now, your children will remember how you treated them. If you showed them kindness, they probably won’t forget. If you habitually lost your temper, they probably won’t forget that, either. Out of all the wishes on the Parental Wish List, “good memories” are one of the few that clearly depend upon how you raise your child. Don’t forget it.
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Twin and adoption research on young children’s intelligence always finds nurture effects. The younger the child, the more parents matter. A team of prominent behavioral geneticists looked at major adoption studies of IQ. They found moderate nurture effects for children, versus none for adults. Suppose an adoptee grows up in a family with a biological child in the 80th percentile of IQ. During his childhood, we should expect the adoptee to have a higher IQ than 58 percent of his peers. Nurture effects were largest for the youngest kids under observation, four- to six-year-olds. An average child of this age raised in a high-IQ home will typically test higher than 63 percent of his peers. Not bad—but it doesn’t last. The Colorado Adoption Project provides an especially vivid illustration of fade-out. Nurture effects were already visible when the children were one to two years old and peaked when they were three to four years old. Toddlers adopted by parents in the 80th percentile of IQ scored about 7 percentage points higher than average. By the time the adoptees were age seven, however, two-thirds of this nurture effect was gone. By twelve, nothing was left. As the researchers bluntly concluded, “Adopted children resemble their adoptive parents slightly in early childhood but not at all in middle childhood or adolescence.”
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When people learn about twin and adoption research, they often object, “If this is true, how come parents haven’t figured it out for themselves?” At least part of the answer is that parents’ firsthand observation is directly misleading. When they try to mold their kids, the short-run effects are obvious to the naked eye. It is tempting to assume that these short-run effects add up—and explain why children turn into their parents. Without twin and adoption methods, we would never have discovered that the “obvious” effects of parenting are mostly a plausible, powerful illusion.
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When parents reflect on the science of nature and nurture, they need to keep this moral in mind. Do not be alarmed when twin and adoption studies conclude that your children’s future is outside your control. They’re not saying that your children will do poorly. They’re saying that your children will probably turn out fine, whether or not you’re a great parent. If anything, the truth should come as a great relief. If I thought that my sons’ future depended primarily on my actions, I’d fret, “We should be reading another book,” every time we sat down to watch The Simpsons.
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Shouldn’t parents worry that if they add another member to the family, the children they already have won’t have the support they need to succeed? Not really. Yes, the Korean adoption study provides solid evidence that kids who grow up in bigger families are slightly less successful. If you have another baby, expect the children you already have to complete six fewer weeks of education and earn 4 percent less income. Compared to the value of having another brother or sister, however, the downside is tiny. Compared to the value of being that brother or sister, the downside isn’t worth mentioning.
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With the important exception of babies, children are the safest people in the United States. My seven-year-olds may look vulnerable, but they are almost twelve times as safe as I am, and over 100 times as safe as their grandparents. The twins’ annual chance of death is 16.3 out of 100,000, which means their chance of staying alive is 99.9837 percent.
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One careful study of elder care found that each additional child substantially cut the chance of ending up in a nursing home.
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Avoiding petty interference is one thing, but it hurts to stand idly by when you believe that your grandchildren’s welfare is in danger. Just keep matters in perspective. If your grandchildren’s parents are severely abusing them, don’t just speak up; take action. Otherwise, think twice before intervening. Keep thoughts like “You’re raising him wrong” and “You’re spoiling him rotten” to yourself. Remember the central lesson of twin and adoption research: Even if your kids are moderately bad parents, your grandchildren will probably still turn out fine. Before you speak up, ask yourself: Would adoption agencies consider your grandkids’ parents fit to adopt? If so, correcting their deviations from your ideal of parenting is imprudent.
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Another diplomatic way to reward fertility is to set up trusts for your grandchildren—and make your children the trustees. The parents will eventually use the trust to pay for expenses like college that otherwise would have come out of their own pockets. You’re effectively giving more to the children who gave more to you. Yet officially, you’re treating your children equally.
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Pushy, inconsiderate, loud, mean, and miserly people are bad at being selfish. While they’re acting on selfish impulses, they fail to carefully weigh how other people will respond to their behavior. They’re like restaurants with bad food and bad service. Once word gets around, no one wants anything to do with them.
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In the United States, one cycle of in vitro fertilization costs about $12,000—and that’s when the mother uses her own egg and carries her own baby. It sounds expensive, yet it’s infinitely cheaper than it used to be. In 1970, in vitro was beyond the reach of billionaires, for the technology did not exist. The surprising lesson is that innovation reduces the true price of babies by turning what money can’t buy into what money can buy.
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Selfishly speaking, surrogacy is more than another fertility treatment. It’s practically magic: Women no longer have to choose between pregnancy and childlessness. And while many women treasure their pregnancies, the experience definitely gets mixed reviews. If you love kids but dread pregnancy, surrogacy is a historic opportunity to painlessly create life.