[bboylen]

While I certainly agree with the author that it matters how you raise your kids, I think his rebuttal doesn't really respond to what the people he is disagreeing with are getting at.

We all agree you should give loving attention to your newborn and read to your kids, but its the helicoptering and obscene optimization that modern parents are prone to that I have found people are pushing back on.

All the studies he cites seem to focus on direct attention and behavior modeling as the key parental inputs. Maybe parents should just focus on being present/loving/educative and forget about the piano lessons and prestigious private schools.

[standardUser]

For the vast, vast majority of parents, there is no threat of being able to afford private school or piano lessons, so let's remember when we have conversations like this that we're talking about 10-20% of families and ignoring the rest.