Parents, Under Attack Again...

I am reading Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point. It is a very interesting book, not Christian in any way, but still interesting just the same. Gladwell's premise is that little things are the tipping points to wide scale epidemics and pandemics.


In one section, Gladwell talks about the teen smoking epidemic, and the very real and sad fact that more teens than ever before are smoking. He goes on to offer two possible strategies for stopping the spread of smoking: the first is to prevent the influential teens from smoking so others will not follow this pattern. The other strategy is to convince teens to emulate adults and not their peers on issues like these. Now, here comes the interesting tidbit; Gladwell goes on to say that this is more difficult because parents "simply do not wield that kind of influence over children."


Now, that is a loaded statement! Gladwell goes on to quote from the Judith Harris book, The Nurture Assumption, that "the evidence for this belief is sorely lacking." Yet, the evidence to support this claim provided by Gladwell was also, sorely lacking.


The major study, referenced by Gladwell, is the Colorado Adoption Project. The study measured two groups of children, the first group was composed of children given up for adoption at birth and placed in homes immediately, and the other group was composed of children born and raised by their parents. The results were predictable: the biological children were similar to their parents in intellectual ability and personality, but the adopted children were not. Gladwell goes on to write that the adopted children "are no more similar in personality or intellectual skill to the people who raised them , fed them, clothed them, read to them, taught them and loved them for sixteen years than they are to any two adults taken at random off the street." Gladwell continues to write about these results as "extraordinary" but are they, really?


Let's look at the information provided by Gladwell. We do not know the actual results of the tests; all we know is that, according to his information, the results were not similar. What does that mean? Were the student abilities lower or were they higher than their adopted parents? Gladwell goes on to say that "if nurture matters so much, then why did the adopted kids not resemble their adopted parents at all?" And, the italics are his, for added effect.


The term "similar" can mean many things. It is defined as having characteristics in common, strictly comparable, and alike in substance or essentials. How does this transfer to this study? Were the parents doctors and the kids drop outs? How many kids in their teen years have similar intellectual abilities or personalities to their parents, who are adults? I am the son of a mother and a father who only attended high school, yet I have several college degrees; does this mean that I am not similar in intellectual ability and personality to my parents according to this study? There are so many questions here that must be answered before one jumps to the very serious conclusion that parents "simply do not wield that kind of influence over children."


The study size for this particular test project was 254 for each study group, hardly an adequate size to broadcast any results to the general population. The term "similar" is a weighty term used in a very serious way, yet it is never defined and explained. As a Christian, we must stand and demand intellectual honesty in areas like these, especially when parents and the influence they have on their own children are under attack. The argument Gladwell is making and Harris and others are supporting is this: peers have more influence than parents.


I will agree that when students enter middle school peers do wield great power over other peers, but only if parents are disengaged and allow peer influence to supersede theirs. Gladwell writes later in the section that "our environment plays - as big if not bigger - a role as heredity in shaping personality and intelligence." But, again, there is a slight of hand at work here. At the end of this section on the epidemic of teen smoking, Galdwell writes this: "The children of smokers are more than twice as likely to smoke as children of nonsmokers." What?


As we read books, articles and studies, we must read with the Christian worldview as our foundation and use scripture as our filter. The Tipping Point is a well written book that is very interesting. Malcolm Gladwell is a talented author who looks at the world in a very different way. In some instances in this book, I truly was inspired by the way he looked at the world, and by the way he was able to identify trends and use them to explain more of the world. Is that not what each and everyone of us should be doing? But, as we explain the world, we should be open to questions about our explanations. When we are open to this we will continue to draw closer to the truth; when we are closed... the truth becomes even more distant. Blessings!