studies on nature v nurture - all flawed?

[julz123]

This may be one of those things for which there isn't truly an answer.

I watched this interview with Erica Komisar, who strongly advocates for attachment theory. She suggests that an appropriate amount of time to be physically away from a child is their age - so no time for a baby, 1h for a one year old, 2h for a 2 year old etc. She cites the studies that show high cortisol in daycare children and suggests that this harms brain development- causing adhd, anxiety and depression that may not manifest into teen years (making it difficult to study). Her book is called 'Being there'.

On the other hand there are twin studies that show outcomes for identical twins raised apart are almost... identical. This suggests that parenting, within an acceptable norm (ie parents that would be selected as appropriate for adoption), doesn't matter long term. Therefore daycare v mothercare doesn't matter long term.

I understand that there are many different studies showing many different things, and all these studies seem to have flaws (eg the bowlby study is on severely neglected infants, the twin studies cannot really isolate parenting choices like daycare v not, there is 'the nurture assumption' that concludes that peer group influence children more than parents, while ignoring that parents can influence peer group)

Anyway I've read all these books and feel no closer to forming an opinion as to what is best. What is your take on it? Any studies that you believe to be most robust? I am trying to decide on things like family size and whether I should to stay home with the under 3s for the sake of their mental health or if it would be wasted toil (I do love them but would prefer to work part time, which requires travel about once a month). I'm trying to stay objective.

Here are the views from the two extremes (evolutionary psychology v psychodynamic) v evolutionary psychology

• evolutionary psychologist Dr Doug Lyle who thinks children just need their basic needs met and genes will take care of the rest

also Dr Bryan Caplan, economist, who believes genes account for about 80% of outcomes, and that even private school and neoptism wears off about age 40.

and a link to psychodynamic therapist ans Attachment theorist Erica Komisar who thinks mothers need to be there for the first 3 years

 

[ramsby194]

@julz123

She suggests that an appropriate amount of time to be physically away from a child is their age - so no time for a baby

I'm a SAH homeschooling mom, and even I think this is completely ridiculous.

 

[danieldf]

@julz123 Komisar is not an advocate for attachment theory. Attachment theory is a well established bit of psychology that makes relatively non-controversial claims (basically, that outright neglect causes lasting damage). Kosimar (who has a degree in social work, not psychology) is an advocate for attachment parenting, which borrows language from attachment theory to make claims vastly beyond anything supported by data.

As for daycare specifically, it's a complicated subject, and different studies have shown seemingly contradictory results. The quality of the daycare is definitely a big factor, as is the quality of care the kid would be receiving if not in daycare. But even the most alarming of studies show a fairly small effect at an individual level, certainly much less than the variation due to genetics.

 

[kentgladden]

@danieldf she doesn't talk about attachment parenting, she suggests 1-1 caregiving for very young children with caregivers who aren't necessarily the mother and also has appeared on podcasts suggesting child-centered custody arrangements including for very young babies.

 

[justintime25]

@danieldf I feel like OP misses over the quality of care a kid receives outside of daycare. I love my daughter and love spending time with her. But I am bored af and spend too much time on my phone around her, or too much time doing other things (she’s too young to help with cooking etc.). At daycare, she’ll have one teacher whose sole job is to care for 3-4 babies. It’s more entertaining to care for more than one and that teacher will be fired if she went on instagram during the workday. It doesn’t make me feel good about myself but I genuinely think she will get more enriching care in daycare at this stage of her life. (I think one daycare we are looking at/on the waitlist for would be considered “high quality” but the other is probably more average; I feel the same for both)

 

[reneaz]

@julz123 At the first outlook, it seems that the answer is somewhere else:
- Erica Komjsar seems to be a psychoanalyst, psychoanalysis is not a recognised science, so would not even look to what she has to say.
- regarding evolutionary psychology, it seems it is criticised a lot in the world of research from what I recall.

Is there another main theory out there? It seems to me there must be one with a lot more consensus around it just from the above.

 

[justintime25]

@julz123 My take is that we don’t live in an ideal world. Throughout human history kids have been watched by someone other than their parents, and dwelling on the unobtainable perfect will just make us depressed. And statistically speaking, most kids do not have ADHD and behavioral issues (though anecdotally, my mom stayed home with me and I have severe ADHD, she put my younger sister in daycare and she does not have ADHD).

It’s probably mostly genes and having loving, caring relationships with adults.

 

[katrina2017]

@julz123 I’ve read the nurture assumption and dozens of parenting books, but not Being There - sounds really strict and skewed and not something that’s good for any parent’s mental health!

I think the nuance is “what compared to what” bad daycare vs attentive, happy mother? Probably big a difference. Attentive happy mother vs loving nanny? Probably almost none.

I would think about the child care situation instead of just nature vs nurture. Like this article: https://criticalscience.medium.com/on-the-science-of-daycare-4d1ab4c2efb4

Personally because I had a choice and enjoyed being home, we did no outside care besides babysitters/nannies until 3. Made sense to me in what I know about attachment.

 

[veenesse]

@julz123 It can depend on the outcome that you are studying, but in much biological phenomena the answer is "both". I used to work in evolutionary biology research (note: animal studies only), and one of the things I was interested in was estimating how things like behaviour, hormones, growth etc were influenced by genes, developmental environment, current environment, etc. And almost every time there would be an effect of all these things. Quite often, different genes would also be influenced by the environment in slightly different ways. Furthermore, traits done exist in a vacuum.

Just think about stuff like human height - we know that this is highly heritable. But we also know that it is affected by nutrition. And growth can be impacted by childhood disease etc.

Basically: shit's complex. And that's for even pretty 'easy' things like height, not "mental outcomes 15 years down the line".

In your case, also consider that the happiness of the parents plays a role in family dynamics.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

 

[emmy0922]

@julz123 I think the Erica Komisar idea very extreme. Like another user pointed out, our kids have been taken care of by multiple caregivers for pretty much all of human history. Granted, the family groups were much more tight knit and everyone lived together. That said, I think it’s possible to have strong attachments with multiple caregivers.

Anecdotally, I’ve watched it happen with my daughter. First with me, then her father. At about one, she became very attached to her grandmother. And then at two she started a part time nursery program and became very attached to her lead teacher. At 3.5 I feel comfortable leaving her with any of those people for an extended period of time.

Sure, I think there is something to be said about attachment with the primary caregiver (typically the mother) in the newborn and early infant stage. I wish all families were granted the ability to stay home on leave to establish a secure bond. But once the children have gotten to the point developmentally where they are beginning to recognize themselves as a separate entity from their primary caregiver, then it’s safe to start really trying to establish healthy attachment bonds with multiple caregivers.

I think it’s important for children to know that their adults can leave and WILL come back. The time thing around age that this woman has come up with seems arbitrary but marketable. Granted, I haven’t looked into her reasoning.

This is all opinion of course. But we don’t live in this ideal world that this woman is eluding to and it can leave many new parents feeling guilty and defeated. Life is too expensive, most of us don’t have the social services nor the family network to do so.

That said, I stay home. I feel fortunate to be able to. And as for your particular situation, rather than assess the science, consider assessing yourself. Are you the type of person to regret not having spent the first three years with your kids when they’ve grown? Are you the type of person that values your career and is hoping to build it? Would taking time away to raise your young children full time dampen that? Can you leave your children part time with a caregiver you love and trust while you work? Would it be super challenging logistically for you to leave town to work?

You’ve done your research, you know some of the science. I think assessing what’s best for your particular situation is the way to go. I was a preschool teacher before having my daughter so it felt best for me to stay home. I didn’t have a career that needed tending to and we have made it work. If I were in your position, I’d probably stay home until they were old enough to go to a solid preschool program part time. I think if many parents had the option to stay home, they would. And I think the amount of kids to have is based on finances and how much you want to put your body through.

 

[continualseeker]

@julz123 Some interventions (parent training interventions) have a sizable effect on behavior problems according to randomized controlled trials. But, the long-term effects are difficult to study and inconclusive.

So there is strong scientific evidence that nurture matters for behavior problems while the kid lives at home.

Difficult-to-study areas are a playground for people who want to push this or that claim.

 

[interesting2]

@julz123 Nature vs Nurture is a false dichotomy

 

[spencerwalters83]

@interesting2 What do you mean? This is just a shorthand way of trying to understand what percent of a given trait is heritable, typically quantified through genetic studies (e.g. twin studies). You don’t have to choose just nature or just nurture for a given trait.

 

[danieldf]

@interesting2 I don't think anyone thinks it's a dichotomy? Pretty much everyone agrees it's a mixture of both, the question is the ratio.

 

[kentgladden]

@julz123 Adopted kids are overrepresented in every mental health issue including in suicide rates. Separating the child from the mother when they are preverbal is known as causing the 'primal wound'. I remember reading a nature-advocating book from the 90s or something where the author says her parents were amazing folks with amazing genes and she's super successful with her amazing genes, while her sister was adopted from people with garbage genes and turned out to be a garbage person (I'm paraphrasing, clearly) and uses that to say genes are everything. All of these books don't account for primal wound, genetic mirroring, and a whole host of other things. Adoption itself comes from very racist and classist roots. Imagine being born a twin, with a twin sibling you've known from the womb, and then not only are you both separated from the mom you've known all your life, but also from each other... how great is your life going to be when you move along with that pain unaddressed, and also everyone telling you you've to be grateful to the people who separated you from your bio family?

Adoption itself is the influencing variable, and unless it's something purely biological that they are researching, I don't feel like taking the study seriously.

Also it's a big leap to go from adoption is the same as mother care to daycare is the same as mother care. Daycare has a usually poorly paid worker, or a changing rota of poorly paid workers in charge of 4 kids each (usually more, they pad out the numbers with aides who have a different job description than teachers). Is 1-4 a better ratio than 1-1 or 1-2? Especially with the changing set of workers with whom kids can't form any secure attachments? One of the big reasons I chose not to do daycare was I wanted my child to take her naps whenever she wanted, not just at the preordained quiet times at daycare. It's impossible for a caregiver to put four kids to bed, every 2-3 hours, and it's just hard to maintain a quiet environment all through the day so kids can go to sleep when their body wants to. Sleep or the lack of it ends up having a lot of downstream effects, so it was not something for us to compromise on.

Gordon Neufeld addresses the peer influence thing in his book Hold On To Your Kids. The reason kids get more influenced by peers in the US are because teachers aren't leading the kids. Usually teachers are supposed to be individuals to whom all the children in the class can get attached to and she makes the children feel secure in their attachment. If the teacher doesn't do this job well enough, children feel insecure, attach to each other (this is different from having friends), and because they are kids, they can't handle each others' vulnerability. So vulnerability becomes bad, and kids mock each others' vulnerability, which can manifest as bullying, and kids are influenced into a sameness instead of having the space to pursue their unique interests that their friends might not be into. If parents keep their attachments with their kids strong, a lot of these effects are ameliorated, but many things can disrupt this attachment, well into teenage, and children look to peers for their attachment needs. This can be ameliorated still by strong adult presence in schools, not just physically but as mature people who can serve a lot of emotional needs of their students (including disrupting bullying in a mature way), so children don't feel the need to develop a social hierarchy in schools. Queen Bees And Wannabes, the book that Mean Girls is based on, goes into how to navigate these structures, but doesn't really analyze root causes. The Gordon Neufeld book read in confluence with Queen Bees And Wannabes paints a very compelling picture. I'm an immigrant, so my schooling experience in India was very different. Adults called the shots, and we didn't have any real bullying, not to the widespread extent as in the US anyway. I went to watch Mean Girls with a diverse group of mom friends recently and those of us from Asia were completely dumbstruck by the level of relational and other kinds of aggression that was allowed to go unchecked in American schools. One of my friends cried to her mother about the bullying, and her mother actually told her to stop being a tattletale and go deal with it herself, and she did so by being a mean girl herself.

Anyway. In my personal experience, kids are similar to parents in how they experience the world through their senses. For e.g. my husband can't stand loud noises, neither can our child. He likes roller coasters, she does too. She experiences shame as equivalent to physical pain, so do I. The parent having already successfully figured out how to deal with these sensory experiences in the real world means they can teach the child similar strategies, which makes their sensory experience less discordant to them, and they feel more comfortable in their body. For instance, I cannot deal with my child's need for rough play very well, so if my child was raised just by me, that whole part of her that is excitement-seeking would feel rejected. Similarly, my husband doesn't know how to process the high-drama emotions for my child, but it's super easy to me to soothe her and teach her how to think about those feelings. As a child, my mom and her family mostly raised me and my dad was barely present because he was working two jobs, and as a result I ended up very uncomfortable with the parts of me that were from my dad, more so for the parts that were very different from my mom. E.g. dad's an introvert, mom's an extrovert, and I was ashamed of my introvert needs because my mom's family didn't understand it. It feels like being with both mom's and dad's bio families helps kids understand themselves and be more in touch with their senses. Failing that, high-EQ caregivers who might or might not be family would help a lot, because they'd be able to sense a preverbal child's needs better and at least acknowledge and validate them even if they can't meet them. For instance, our child's nanny is such an emotionally smart woman, and while she couldn't put her finger on that our child is super sensitive to shame in particular, she found ways around it that keep her validated and comfortable while still teaching her to function in the world. Someone with less EQ as well as different sensory experiences as a primary caregiver would have more easily pathologized my child or constantly invalidated her needs even without trying.

Some other children are much less sensitive to environmental stress, and them being low needs this way could mean they can gel okay with any caregiver. I have nieces like that, and it blows my mind how much easier they are to deal with than my daughter, it's like their environment doesn't stress them out much, and at the same time, they also don't absorb so much from the environment as my kid, e.g. my kid learned the alphabet from a shape sorter, my nieces need more explicit and repeated instruction, not that learning the alphabet before age 6 means anything or is any kind of an advantage. There are pros and cons.

At the same time, mental health issues of many varieties or even stresses can make it hard for parents to notice their preverbal child's emotions or meet their needs. For instance, I had postpartum mood disorder for a bit, and was preoccupied for the first 6 months by having to fix up our new house and move, and I had mental health issues from my own family, so it took me a while to actually learn how to meet my child's emotional needs, whereas my husband took to it much more easily even though he hadn't held a baby before. My own mom has had chronic anxiety that she never got treated and which she masked as anger and activity, and she was a very frustrating parent to be with, and now she is a very frustrating grandma, and we don't feel too comfortable having her watch our kid for more than short bursts. However we much rather prefer her to be watching our child than to put her in a daycare.

So,... what does this all mean? I do feel like it's best for a child to be with their bio family, especially after spending time in the adoptee community. Mom and dad feel best suited for this, all variables being equal. But with how things are, we've to go to work, and in that case, relative care seems a good option, or a high-EQ caregiver. Daycare, just as a ratio thing seems to not be as good as 1-1 care, especially before children have learned to manage their own interactions with others. As kids grow up and are mature enough to handle group care, they still need guidance from grownups, and society needs to take the role of grownups relative to children more seriously than they do now, because peer attachment seems to cause a lot of mental health issues.

 

[justintime25]

@kentgladden Um…mean girls is a comedy.

 

[kentgladden]

@justintime25 It's a tina fey comedy, in which it's not just a comedy, it's a satire on sociocultural issues. And that doesn't take away the fact that tina fey when she wrote it, based it on this book and spent a lot of time in anti-bullying workshops to understand the interpersonal dynamics of all of this stuff.

 

[skip10]

@kentgladden Adoption comes from racist classist roots?? I’m confused. Had to stop reading, but at first I was very interested.

 

[kentgladden]

@skip10 Might hunt more resources on this topic later, but here's a start. https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/05/10/the-racialized-history-of-adoption-practice/

Read about magdalene laundries, how adoption was used to destroy native american family structure, and wartime adoptions.

 

[skip10]

@kentgladden I just don’t understand the point in mentioning it. It isn’t today. And if it is today, is the answer remove all adoption? That way everyone suffers?