I write a parenting advice column (or how I became famous in my neighborhood) | Hacker News Reader

I write a parenting advice column (or how I became famous in my neighborhood)

tedgioia.substack.com

87 pointsjger1576 comments

The number one rule of parenting advice is that what worked for one kid may not work for another. Pretty much the sum of what you can say about kids that works universally is making sure they have food, clothes, and shelter. Being kind and wanting the best for them is also almost always helpful. Beyond that . . . beware of blindly applying advice that worked for two children from the same genetic, environmental, and economic stock.

I don't mean that you shouldn't consider or even try whatever advice this author has. I mean that you shouldn't feel guilty if it doesn't work. If it always worked, it would be common knowledge, and you wouldn't need anyone to tell it to you on a relatively unknown Substack.

To figure out what has worked univerally for kids, I recommend the book Hunt, Gather, Parent. However, there is a gap between applying what worked universally for thousands of years to our modern world. I think the linked article is a nice attempt at bringing universals of autonomy and intrinsic motivation to the modern world.

Best bit of advice I got when becoming a new parent was from a retired teacher in my church. “When you see a class of 11 year olds it’s impossible to say who got wooden toys, who was breastfed, who had limited screen-time. But you can always tell who had a loving family.”

This is very true.

However, it's likely to be correlation rather can causation. Loving parents pass on loving genes.

I recommend Judith Rich Harris's book "The Nurture Assumption" on the topic. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption)

If one were really able to measure the impact on a human's life, then it's all about nudging small probabilities in an extremely chaotic system.

As a parent, though, I'd say that providing a loving environment in which your kids can grow up is both the factor most under your control and that will have the biggest impact. Thus, anything done through that lens is likely to help, and anything done for some other reason less so. But you can't systematise "provide a loving environment" into a series of rules, and that's what makes parenting so f**ing hard.

> However, it's likely to be correlation rather can causation. Loving parents pass on loving genes.

Emotionally neglected kids have issues even if their biological parents had great "loving genes" whatever it is.

That seems reasonable to believe. However it would be difficult to prove, because this configuration will rarely exist in reality. People whose genes bias them toward traits we think of as "loving" will tend to actually be loving, and therefore their children will not be emotionally neglected. I don't know if I could express certainty either way on this proposition.

(For anyone who thinks it's impossible for loving-ness to be genetically programmed, read about the domesticated silver fox experiment.)

A child can be genetically loving, but beaten down by a poor environment. Have you never seen someone suddenly thrive after leaving abusive parents, bosses, or partners?

No, I have not personally witnessed that. Even if I did, I don't know if I could possibly ascribe that effect to "genetic loving-ness" as a general rule. That would seem to be jumping to conclusions far more than I'm personally comfortable with.

That being said, nothing in my prior comment denied this possibility, I merely expressed uncertainty as to whether it's the primary explanation of the traits we see.

> However it would be difficult to prove, because this configuration will rarely exist in reality.

This was super normal after war, when the world was full of orphans. And specifically in UK where the kid could be taken into system easily - sometimes simple because there was only dad or parent was single.

This was super normal when mothers died often. Or when single mothers had to leave their kids with cheap caregivers to work or be in those abusive houses.

I'd advice reading a book like "The Gene Illusion" by Jay Joseph as a similar pop-science book taking the opposite position.

You can also say who had access to regular trainings and/or ability to play outside.

Regular training in what?

I could have been clearer, indeed: any spots, physical exercise.

> When you see a class of 11 year olds it’s impossible to say who got wooden toys, who was breastfed, who had limited screen-time.

I definitely can tell 11 years old with limited "screen-time" vs unlimited one.

How's that? Because it's going to be basically impossible to single out this variable in a kid. First, not all 'screen time' is the same.

You see the traits in a kid you know has unlimited screen time and ascribe that to the screen time and not the other parenting decisions that lead to those traits. For example, screen time as a babysitter, only TikTok or mobile games, never talking about their screen time, etc.

There's likely kids you don't think have unlimited screen time that actually do, but because of other parenting decisions, it doesn't result in the same traits. For example, encouraging their kid to read with their screen time (books are on kids tablets now), watch science videos, talking to their kids about what they're doing with their screen time, doing screen time with them, etc.

This is why psychology and sociology studies are so hard, because it is almost impossible to isolate a changing variable in testing.

I am like, how often are you in contact with kids?

Also, the kid who has unlimited screen time and uses majority of it for reading and educational videos is something I never met.

I have one. The second one describes my kid.

All unlimited screen time means is that I don't set a limit on it. They can decide to do other stuff and they usually do. I have a Kindle Fire they basically only use in the car, otherwise they'd rather play with friends, or do crafts. The tablet gets pretty boring when you're basically doing it alone.

I mean, I have two kids. One never touches her iPad. The other would do nothing but ipad if we let him. Kids are different.

> For example, encouraging their kid to read with their screen time (books are on kids tablets now), watch science videos, talking to their kids about what they're doing with their screen time, doing screen time with them, etc.

I totally agree with this. Simply shunning "screen time" isn't setting kids up for success, in my opinion. Modern tablets have replaced a heaping ton of stand-alone devices we used to use back in the day. They replaced books, games, TV's, etc.

In my opinion parents are in uncharted territory with modern computers. None of us grew up with a device that replaced as much as these things have. Our job as parents is to educate kids on how to leverage these amazing new devices.

Not all screen time is the same. Helping kids understand the different between gut-rot crap on youtube vs. some educational game is very important. Getting them to play on the tablet with their peers is important. Etc. These devices are gonna be a central part of their adult lives... best to set them up for success.

> Helping kids understand the different between gut-rot crap on youtube vs. some educational game is very important.

I've had a lot of frustration in this department because most of the quality edutainment games are from 15-20 years ago. We've just stopped making progress here and just gone backwards by saying 'screen time is inherently bad, limit it as much as possible'. It's harder for parents to make good choices when it's all Caillou and no Daniel Tiger for options.

Relationships > Everything Else

I don't know if we can even tell that much. I've seen kids come out of abusive, dirty, and poisonous homes that not even a cockroach would touch. They turned out both loving and generous. I've also seen kids come out of beautifully kept homes that were loved and taken care of. The same kid would steal the wheels off your car while sticking a knife in a retiree.

People are just like that. Almost completely random. That generous and loving kid could go on to become an evil jerk who scams people out of money. That thieving monster could become an amazing musician who converts to pacifism and volunteers in nursing homes. We aren't static frameworks that are formed by genetics, nurturing, or environment. We are shape shifters.

This.

My only realy piece of advice to any new parent is not to be afraid to try different things until you find whatever it is that works, and just try and observe and reflect on what works and what doesn't. Feel free to read every parenting book or website you can find, but don't assume that any of it is universally correct, but some of it will help you.

Although now I think about it, I have a few more general ones:

Try not to sacrifice the long term on the altar of the short term win too much. Sometimes you have to deal with something right now but a lot of the time it's worth taking the immediate stress/pain/sleeplessness for the long term (e.g. sleep behaviour).

Kids learn more from what you do than what you say. When I was getting burnt out, stressed and short tempered my kids got angry, aggressive and confontational. When I sorted myself out they chilled out. Apologise when you get things wrong and they will learn from that too.

Finally, avoid a lot of mummy groups online, many of them are hideously toxic and judgemental. I'm sure there are good ones out there full of supportive people doing their best, but many are also full of people who are convinced their way is the best and everyone else is either incompetant, wrong, or even evil (especially if you even hint at sleep training). As with most of the internet, the ones with strong opinions tend to be the ones who are loudest and dominate the conversation.

It is sad the push back against sleep training. Has cost my SO and I many nights. Even if it won't work the same for everyone I do wish it didn't become taboo before we even started.

Yeah, thankfully it doesn't appear to have quite the same rabid haters in the uk as in the us. We didn't stick rigidly to one particular approach, I kind of took inspiration from them and figured out something that worked for each of my kids. The end result is that they have slept really well ever since and bed times are pretty easy in our house. And to top it off we as parents have more energy because we get good sleep and have time to get things done in the evening.

> The number one rule of parenting advice is that what worked for one kid may not work for another.

Surely there is some advice that applies to all kids. humans aren't that complicated after all.

I think that's true even for kids in the same family. That in itself is a challenge though. When kid 1 gets A because it works for them, but kid 2 gets B because it works for them, inevitably jealousy and accusations of unfairness ensue.

The lines about Harvard having "outreach" programs is entirely out of touch. The problem is money. It's always money. In the U.S. we simply don't care about education. It's expensive, time consuming, and heavily unoptimized. Only those with a support system (of money) can accomplish a degree at even the most affordable universities.

Scholarships do not exist in tech. The largest tech companies give out the fewest, and they are heavily competed for. Microsoft chooses 4 women a year. Less than 0.1% of students will ever receive any sizeable scholarship, and have to depend on private loans ontop of government student loans.

Scholarships are designed against low income students. They depend on good recommendations from teachers, long perfectly written essays, and all manner of ridiculous extra requirements. People in city schools of thousands of students rarely, if ever, can get a legitimate recommendation. Students can rarely even stay after school because their parents can't afford to pick them up later. Meaning they can't participate in after school extra curriculars.

I know of multiple women that are going to drop their freshmen degree in CS because of this. Cant afford it. No support network. Nobody cares. Kind of hard to focus on studies when you have to work to even exist at a university if your parents aren't paying for it.

> In the U.S. we simply don't care about education.

The US has many of the best educational institutions in the world.

The two statements aren't mutually exclusive.

As a society, we do a shit job of ensuring everybody has access to quality education. Its starts young - poor school districts struggle to provide the services they were created to provide. Hell, even relatively wealthy school districts tend to be overcrowded, with faltering infrastructure, and are prone to leaving children behind.

This continues into post-secondary, where you need money, and lots of it, to get a degree. Sure, the flagship schools are some of the best int he world. But, take VA's flagship state schools... they average nearly $20k/year for tuition alone. And given their locations (UVA - Charlottesville, W&M - Williamsburg, VT - Blacksburg) the vast majority of students will also be paying full room & board, driving costs beyond $30k/year.

And that's just the flagship schools - there are a whole host of mediocre colleges that charge the same or more. And then there's the for-profit schools that are a case study on their own.

> As a society, we do a shit job of ensuring everybody has access to quality education.

Is there any society that does a good job with that ?

The US richly rewards education in the most important aspect - great salaries for the jobs that come after the education. Almost no countries compete with US salaries. For the best tech salaries, it's fair to say none do.

Finland?

Yes, the US rewards those that manage to get an education. Where we fail is ensuring everybody who wants a top-quality education has access. At the post-secondary level, it's largely a money problem - school is just too expensive. And whole scholarships and other funding sources do exist, a student needs a lot of guidance on obtaining that money.

> Finland?

I'm not sure Finland has any universities at all in the top 100. Nobody's getting a top-quality education in Finland. I guess that's more fair?

The University of Helsinki is top-100 in the US News rankings.

It’s just outside it in QS, but anyway… isn’t that a little bit of a weak praise? Their universities don’t compete with others in Europe, let alone the US. It’s definitely not access to top education is it?

Finnish students have better access to Harvard then American students have access to Finnish primary and secondary schools...

But given the existence of Harvard in the US rather than Finland it seems like the US primary and secondary schools are producing better results.

Praising an education system as ‘it’s good enough to let you escape somewhere else’ isn’t encouraging!

I'm not sure how you arrive at that conclusion. Harvard pre-dates our current primary/secondary education system. And it accepts only a tiny fraction of college-bound students, who are themselves a small fraction of the populace. It's one of the wealthiest, oldest, and most renowned universities in the world - it is almost completely divorced from broader educational system in the US.

Nobody is denying the US has excellent post-secondary institutions. My response was to your assertion that the existence of excellent universities proves the US cares about education.

The US excels at educating our wealthy elite, largely through access to zip-code restricted public schools or expensive private prep academies, which then grants access to institutions like Harvard, other Ivies and equivalent schools, and the flagship public state schools. We don't do so well at ensuring a baseline understanding of the world to the populace in general.

in California and New York. Salaries across the U.S. in tech jobs are far less outside of the bubble economies.

Salaries have nothing to do with education costs. There is no causal relationship. We can both fund education and have high salaries in those bubble economies. Infact the high salaries means we would have an easier time doing so, if only we taxed mega corporations.

The point of my post is that many cannot even get the funds necessary to attend a university. They cannot "just focus" on school. You have to work to afford living costs at a bare minimum.

Finland has famously good public education.

I'd add that maybe some people have been educated well enough that they realize there is more to life than working all the time. In addition to the fact that most kids generally act like their parents do.

Sure. Also, Bezos and Musk live in the U.S. That doesn't mean everyone is rich or that even the median has a standard of living comparable to many other first world countries.

The comment below the article is spot on: this guy is the tigerest of tiger parents. He just didn't care about good grades, but he devoted a lot of time and energy to his kids. As a result they experienced more of life (the humanities in particular) and developed an intrinsic drive to think and learn and perform well.

Most people associate tiger parenting with the "you must practice the piano or I will hurt you physically, emotionally, or both" mentality. The original tigress was also incredibly restrictive of who her kids could associate with. In contrast, this article just sounds like a return on a sound investment.

I'm not sure why you claim to know the mind of "most people" but another looser definition is just hands-on parenting, which can be authoritarian as in your usage, or authoritative, as in this case.

I also strongly associate the term with authoritarian parenting

The one difference with Amy Chua Tiger Parent philosophy, is that her version is "no, you WILL practice the piano and I don't care if you want to or not."

He at least gives lip service to the idea that he would not have pushed them towards something they weren't interested in.

But yeah, as long as his kid at least vocalized agreement to pursue something, he went all in Tiger Parent style with intensely pursuing that goal along with his kid.

Here's my only real parenting advice: anything you tell kids hoping to sink in, they want(or need) to see for themselves. Very frustrating, but, understandable. I've learned to stop making edicts, and instead say what I think will happen, and invite kid to test. YMMV.

Yep. From the article it sounds like Dad was above all a good role model, showing and demonstrating lots of possibilities for life.

>You must get an education, but you also should do well in school

This is a great point. It applies to the current software engineering world. One should learn engineering, but also should learn to do well in interviews.

From my experience, people often mix these two. And it often leads to frustration resulting in either not getting education due to frustration of not doing well.

Of course, we should strive to reduce the gap between those two. But we should acknowledge that reduction of that gap is a slow process with good number of external dependencies.

My parenting tip is: if you're expert at something, teach it to your children.

This is a big one. My dad always talked about how to manage people and I always listened. While he couldn't teach me much about computers, what he did teach me has been far more useful than anything I learned in school.

It's a good tip, and should come with the warning to not hesitate to back off and give up if you feel it isn't working.

Teaching what you best know regularly fails depending on your field and your kids inclinations, with no specific fault of your own or your kids.

Are Ivy league universities worth it for undergrad? I get his point that high pressure childhood and aggressive parenting isn't the best way to educate children - but then he sent his kids to Harvard where most of the people there are just like that, care more about prestige rather than learning.

If you can get in and can easily afford whatever cost you have to pay, they'll unlikely do any harm, and there's some reason to believe they'll help. High quality data on this is hard to come by, but what data I am aware of is inconclusive, and that if there is an effect of going to an elite university, it's not that large at the median. https://www.nber.org/papers/w7322

Thanks, that's an interesting paper:

> We find that students who attended more selective colleges do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended less selective colleges. However, the average tuition charged by the school is significantly related to the students’ subsequent earnings. Indeed, we find a substantial internal rate of return from attending a more costly college. Lastly, the payoff to attending an elite college appears to be greater for students from more disadvantaged family backgrounds.

Wow its a 1999 paper on 1976 grads, not sure how well the lessons continue.

As I mentioned in my original comment, solid information on this question is hard to come by. I think someone could reasonably believe a number of different things about the effects of elite colleges. But what one cannot reasonably do is be confident in those beliefs, especially a belief that the elite colleges have a strong, positive, causal effect at the median.

If you are going to school to get a job then no, not worth it, and all the “average graduate job placement and salary” statistics are not nuanced enough or telling you anything important.

If you are going to school to network with the elite, adopt their culture, and maybe parlay that into financial opportunity by mere proximity, Harvard is still one of the best bets for the last 500 (edit: ROUNDUP (385, -2)) years. They will weather this recent half-century where people associate higher education with working for other people out of necessity (and therefore consider university caste system to be the primary problem as opposed to the entire private sector).

500 years? I had to look it up. Harvard is 385 years old

huh, yeah you're right, I rounded up but also added 100 years. primary point still stands

To be fair, the concept of "more junior clubhouses for the upper echelon of society than colleges/universities" has existed long before before Havard (see Oxbridge).

You find a lot of mechanical strivers at the country’s top universities but also some of the greatest thinkers in that age bracket. Almost every really exceptional mind is going to pick Harvard over say Davidson if given the choice.

Sure everyone is going to pick Harvard over Davidson but would you pick Cornell over Georgia Tech?

Dang, you did Cornell dirty!

I think if you are good enough to get into Cornell, you are good enough to get in Georgia Tech. The rest is cost. If you are an out-of-stater, they probably end up costing about the same. My understanding is Cornell gives out a lot of financial aids.

Lol not really, I'd still choose it. The problem is I'm just another immigrant and I dont understand the fascination with rankings here, esp when I'm surrounded by tiger parents who work their kids every day to get them into Harvard. Maybe its worth it? Its difficult to tell.

Whether or not it is worth it depends on your priorities. Based on the pedigree of many of the leading political figures and business leaders, it does seem to have a measurable impact to have passed through the leading institutions. Who you know is of course more important than what you know.

But depending high high you are aiming, it may or may not be worth the tradeoffs for you.

Honestly the majority of it is Harvard selecting who they know will be rich, famous, or both. I know a girl who got into Harvard but her parents couldn't afford to send her (this was before they ramped up their financial aid), she went to state school instead, won a Marshall Scholarship, and was a tenured professor at Harvard by her early 30s.

Hell, for the longest time I didn't even think Cornell was a real Ivy.

It always ranked up (down ;) there with Dartmouth.

Then one level above you have Brown and Columbia.

Then above them you have Harvard and Yale.

And right at the top sits dear old Princeton.

And somewhere off the side in the bushes you have UPenn, which today I learned is an Ivy.

That would largely depend on expected outcome.

Do I want to be a Supreme Court Justice? Ivy League all the way.

Do I want to be a software developer? Coin flip.

Do I want to be a professional engineer (with a PE)? I go they give me the most financial assistance, as graduate school is likely to be more important and I need money for that too.

Do I have no idea? I go where I had the most enjoyable* campus tour/prospetive weekend.

* And that varies by student - party vs courses vs whatever else.

Yeah and dont underestimate party schools. Some of my happiest friends have a big network of good friends they met while having a good time in college.

Interesting, this is the second article I think I've recently read which suggests more outreach should be happening at the 10-13 year old age range to influence career paths. I had really never given it thought, but I think I agree wholeheartedly. Its during that time most kids are asking themselves what they want to be, and who their role models are.

Society says it wants more STEM grads and women in tech and all of these things, but they seem to approach students far too late in the cycle.

Thanks for sharing this. It's great writing and personally relevant as I'm currently en route to starting my own parenting journey. I didn't go to Harvard (and didn't even want to), but did enjoy much of the environment described by the author from my parents. Everyday my dad would drop me off for school and say to me: "be careful out there, it's an institution". And he is a teacher himself!

> Above all, I read to my children. I did it every night without fail, except when I had to travel. This is the single most important thing I did for their intellectual development

I second this. I'm pretty sure I'm getting a lot wrong as a parent, but I've done this and think it's done wonders. Their imaginary worlds are a mix of Tolkien, Star Wars, Harry Potter and their own creations.

Is this the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Gioia? Seems he omitted a major factor in his kids' success, which is his own educational pedigree :)

I typically tell people to not listen to advice and do what feels right.

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