Freakonomics 'By Levitt And Dubner: Perfect Parent'

Cody Goyer
Mrs. Gade
10/28/15
MWF 10:30

Freakonomics Essay #3 In this Chapter, Levitt and Dubner talk about what makes a “perfect parent”. They start the chapter off by saying that there are way more parenting experts today than ever before. Levitt and Dubner explain that fear plays a huge roll in parenting. A kid is the creation of another human being who was born helpless, so a lot of parents spend their time being scared that something will happen to their child. They use a scenario in which a set of parents won’t let their daughter go over to her friend’s house because the girl’s parents own a couple of guns. Instead, they let her go to her other friend’s house which has a pool in the back yard. The parents feel very safe about the decision
they made, which actually contradicts statistics about children’s deaths. A child is about 100 times more likely to die by drowning in a pool than they are at the hands of a gun. America’s beliefs about the dangers of guns ensures that guns are always going to more dangerous than a swimming pool. Levitt and Dubner argue that parents jump to conclusions about things that we do not have enough facts to back up. People base their parenting off of what they think they already know, and most of the time not really looking up any information. Most parents nowadays follow whatever the parenting trend is without knowing whether what they are doing is the most beneficial for their children. In chapter 5, the authors examine the correlation of between children’s academic success and their personal lives. What they found is that genetics play a huge part in a child’s academic success. Factors that played a role in academic success were: educated parents, socioeconomic status of parents, mother was over 30 at the age of birth, many books in the home, parents that are involved in the PTA, and more. Factors that did NOT play a role in academic success of children were: being intact with family, being read to frequently, family lived in a good neighborhood, spanked regularly, and more. Levitt and Dubner explain to us that one way they gathered all of this information and tied it together was by regression analysis, which is a method of sorting out relationships between variables when you have a lot of information. They also explain that correlation and causation are not the same thing. Levitt and Dubner bring the spotlight to authors of parenting books. People who write books about great parenting are not likely to write about various sides of an issue or using only one point of view. People who write books like this get very little attention in the parenting world. Because of this, experts on parenting contradict one another. Information on parenting experts runs parallel with many themes in Freakonomics. At the end of the chapter the authors give us the final rundown.
Even though genetics play a huge role in the success of children, parents still matter. Who you are, who you married, what kind of a life you live, these are all things that are going to greatly affect your children someday. If you are smart, hardworking, educated, well paid, and married to someone as fortunate as you are, chances are your kids will be just as successful as you. Who you are greatly outweighs what you do when it comes to being a parent. I think the Levitt and Dubner have really shed light on the way that parents do and should act when it comes to raising their children. Whereas most parents think that being strict is going to help their kids be successful, they have been able to prove by statistics that the common theory is not always true. Knowing now that genetics play the biggest role in the success of children may have a huge impact on the way that people raise their children from now on. People should focus on becoming who they want their children to be before they have children. If they become the person they want their kids to be before they have children, then they are a lot more likely to have successful children then those who do
not.