[truculation]

>Are you saying you or anyone else is equipped to be a decent parent just because you were a child and maybe had a parent?

Yes. I think that, as things stand, good parenting is largely a matter of being lucky enough to have oneself received good parenting, i.e. it's mainly a matter of tradition. This doesn't imply that one shouldn't attempt improvements here and there, some guided by science. My beef is principally with the idea that there's a scientific method to produce better people. Conceiving of people as products rather than as ends-in-themselves.

[Trundle]

Better people doesn't mean they have to be a product. Better people isn't even really how I would phrase it. More like lining your child up to have a better life.

It's something very hard to optimise for because what a good life is doesn't really have a strong definition. Is it quality of life in objective measurements? Comparative to your peers? To your upbringing? Is it having many itches and being able to scratch some of them? Having few itches and scratching them all? Is there an authenticity component ie in a hypothetical situation where you could matrix yourself and have a better life than your real one would you? Is 'meaning' a thing? Is it still meaningful if you create arbitrary need for 'meaning?

People have different measures but they pretty much all have measures.

Given that acquiring whichever mixed bag of "good life" things you believe in is almost certainly going to require certain modern life skills, I don't see any reason to attribute it to productisation of people. Just parents looking out for their kids interests.

[lopmotr]

I think you're right as shown by rich parents being more likely to have rich kids, violent parents have violent kids, poor parents, poor kids, etc. The trouble is, those violent people become parents too so they perpetuate the same problems. Without training, what's there to help whole cultures filled with poor parenting being passed on through generations?

"I want kids, but I wouldn't be a good parent so I won't have any" said nobody ever.

[asmithmd1]

Why is parenting a special skill that isn't coachable? Or do you similarly believe a: CEO coach, marriage counselor, financial advisor, high-school guidance counselor, and dog trainer are a waste of time and people availing themselves of those professionals should just ask their parents advice instead?

[pjc50]

> good parenting is largely a matter of being lucky enough to have oneself received good parenting, i.e. it's mainly a matter of tradition

a) Tradition is extremely variable across both time and space, even within the West

b) we have largely moved away from some of the nastier edges of "traditional" parenting, with good reason

c) there has to be a huge number of people who feel they don't want to replicate the upbringing they had and instead want help, who deserve decent resources

d) given that parenting resources exist, it's better to have and use scientifically tested ones than ones that replicate the prejudices of the loudest voices

[truculation]

>we have largely moved away from some of the nastier edges of "traditional" parenting, with good reason

Corporal punishment, you mean. Yes. However we've regressed in at least one way: many toddlers are now in daycare for 30+ hours per week.

>given that parenting resources exist, it's better to have and use scientifically tested ones than ones that replicate the prejudices of the loudest voices

Well, my original comment was more about how we use resources. But it seems doubtful whether we can scientifically test for how good such resources are, except in terms of narrow criteria like safety. We can't yet look into children's imaginations and measure how fired up they are; we can only try to find out what our children enjoy and help them to do more of it.

Consider the Harry Potter books. They may have done more for literacy than everything else combined since they arrived. Yet the first manuscript was rejected by many publishers, including some who no doubt had access to purportedly scientific advice.

Far better to look at what other families are doing, reading and playing with. And to read reviews online.

[adrianN]

What's the purpose of parenting and education if it's not making the best person possible out of a child?

[foldr]

Why does it need to have a purpose? Parents have a duty of care towards their children and (usually) love them. That's motivation enough. Why make it more complicated than that?

[scotty79]

Why treat and educate people about their specific problems if they have all the motivation to stay healthy?

If people are doing bad job at keeping themselves and their loved ones well, why not help them with little scientific knowledge?

Why doom them to do only as well as what they learned from their parents allows them to?

[foldr]

I didn't say anything about not using scientific knowledge.

[snowwrestler]

"Making the best person possible out of a child" is not motivation, it's the goal.

In other words, it's not the "why"--it's the "how."

What parent does not want the best for their kids? The question is, how to do that? There are informed answers to that question.

[foldr]

It seems like a weird and rather amorphous goal, since there's never any way of knowing whether or not someone is the best person they could possibly be. I certainly doubt that many parents have this goal in mind.

>There are informed answers to that question.

To an extent. There's also lots of contradictory advice that's difficult to verify.