8 ms·

That is literal survivorship bias there. I know multiple stories of deeply unhappy/unstable foster children, no matter how much stability, love & care they were

That is literal survivorship bias there. I know multiple stories of deeply unhappy/unstable foster children, no matter how much stability, love & care they were given ( I knew some of those foster parents ).

gogopuppygogo 6y ago
I knew two kids adopted as infants who were born addicted to drugs. The family that adopted them was wealthy. They poured enormous amounts of time and resources into raising those kids. One turned it all around and works for Google, the other ram away and hasn’t been heard from in 20 years. Same birth mother, born two years apart, she was an addict.
- kevincox 6y ago
  I think it is a fairly safe assumption that raising children has aspects of a chaotic system. Small changes to upbringing can cause large impact on the result. Of course not all "inputs" have this chaotic nature, and there are lots of inputs that aren't under direct control of the parents. There are just so many variables that it is hard to tease out patterns.
  - mikepurvis 6y ago
    Fair, but as far as controlled experiments are possible in this kind of thing, it doesn't get much better than two kids with a shared birth parent and the same adoptive parents/environment. Anyway, you're not wrong about the chaotic environment that is child rearing— the other side of this coin is sets of identical twins with differing sexualities, eg: https://kinseyinstitute.org/news-events/news/2019-07-26-twins-sexual-orientation.php https://kinseyinstitute.org/news-events/news/2019-07-26-twin...
    - kevincox 6y ago
      No, it doesn't get much better than that scenario. But something as simple as which other kids are sat next to them in school can completely change their childhood. Observations like these are the best we have, and should not be ignored, but there are just so many variables that can never bet (ethically) controlled.
      - erik_landerholm 6y ago
        100% agree. I think because it’s hard enough to discern between what I would call first order (dna caused personality traits) and second order (immediate family and early childhood experiences) contributions to personality and what experiences a child had, that most people ignore third order, friends, bad luck, basically everything else. Then, you throw in luck ...I mean who knows why anyone does anything bad or good. I’m not religious, but the saying often attributed to Christ saying, “forgive them, they know not what they do,” is probably totally, 100% accurate. I would add we don’t really know why they do what they do either. Christians want that to mean specifically about the crucifixion, but I believe whoever wrote that down was trying to say something more general about human experience. I know from personal experience, just how much which kids you sit next to from 1st-5th grade, as they are often the same in the US, can influence your life in extreme ways. All this says to me, we should probably go easier on everyone, even the “worst” of us...
        adolph 6y ago
        Even within organisms starting with identical “first order” characteristics the opportunity for variation is fascinating. Here is a podcast on the topic I found illuminating, it is with the author of a recent book The Hidden Half http://www.econtalk.org/michael-blastland-on-the-hidden-half/ http://www.econtalk.org/michael-blastland-on-the-hidden-half...
    - jariel 6y ago
      This is actually incorrect reasoning. The amount of variation in the human condition would completely negate any conclusions from a sample size of two, however close the conditions. It's also really easy to explain how one kid does well and the other doesn't, look at any life situation. One kid falls in with bad friends, one does not, one has a hobby that takes them somewhere, one does not, one gets a DUI the other does not, one has an amazing Hockey coach, the other does not, one takes a risk and wants to be a rock start, the other does not etc. etc..
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Fair, but as far as controlled experiments are possible in this kind of thing, it doesn't get much better than two kids Actually, controlled experiments on this could be a lot better than N = 2, and the small-N problem dwarfs the positive features of the experiment here.
- birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago
  1. The other could still be successful. 2. Same mother doesn't mean same fathers. Success comes down to IQ. One kid could have been lucky while the other drew the short stick.
  - Quarrelsome 6y ago
    > Success comes down to IQ I think it arguably more likely that acceptance into the education system comes down to IQ due to antiquated practices in attempting to derive intelligence. Being within the education system is the sunny uplands to networking and generally better opportunities. Its possible that almost every child has the potential of a "good enough" IQ and that nurture reigns supreme over the supporting cast of genetics. To separate the two within nurture there remains environmental factors such as an interpreted narrative of favouritism which can lead to downward spirals.
  - i_haz_rabies 6y ago
    Success comes down to a hell of a lot more than IQ.
  - Swenrekcah 6y ago
    While success and IQ are almost certainly correlated, it is not possible to make a statement like that. You can just as well say that success comes down to height, or country of birth, or combined wealth of uncles. There are so many other factors at play.
  - lazyasciiart 6y ago
    Plenty of smart people have died in childhood for reasons completely out of their control, which makes them pretty unsuccessful by any metric.
- worker767424 6y ago
  A family friend is single and infertile. She's spent a lot of money on some sort of adopt-a-chinese scheme. Someone in her family did the same, and the kid had various medical issues. I honestly think she'd have been better off with a surrogate and a sperm donor. I definitely respect people who adopt, but they risk of just adopting someone else's problem is too high for me.
  - impartial-word 6y ago
    A relative adopted a child and the social worker advised against international adoptions for this problem. Eventually they adopted a 100% healthy local child after 5-6 years of legal nightmare as it's pretty complex navigate through all requirements plus wait your turn.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    If you adopt a health foreign baby it is because the baby was kidnapped from his loving parents and then a corrupt judge signed off on it. The above isn't always true, but if you didn't investigate the agency deeply you should assume it is. This is why international adoptions are so hard, many counties have caught on and given up on giving the few kids who do need real homes help.
    - jtbayly 6y ago
      > the few kids who do need real homes You have to be kidding me. Do you know how many kids are literal orphans in sub-saharan Africa?
      - bluGill 6y ago
        No. I know that most counties won't let you adopt those orphans though because of how hard it is to be sure they really are.
      - lazyasciiart 6y ago
        Did you know that UNICEF defines "orphan" as a child with at least one dead parent? Globally there are estimated to be about 15 million "double orphans", and 90% of them live with extended family. Of those that don't, frequently there is extended family or at least known families of their own culture/ethnicity/country who could take them in if given financial support - which is not only cheaper than adopting them from the US, but doesn't cut their ties to home. Aside from that, more than 90% are over the age of 5. Almost none are actually babies, and of course children orphaned at birth may have inherited AIDS or have other health issues due to whatever killed their parents. Adopting a healthy foreign baby from the US is more likely than not to involve some form of human rights violation just to make them available to you. https://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/orphan-crisis-sub-saharan-africa2 https://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/orphan-crisis-sub-sahara... https://www.unicef.org/media/orphans https://www.unicef.org/media/orphans
- baldfat 6y ago
  I adopted three kids from the same biological mother. Two of them are making more then me at Amazon and for the Department of Defense. Sadly my younger son passed from Bone Cancer. They were drug impacted, but its weird how research goes in cycles. Crack babies were going to ruin America's capacity for caring for all these children. Then it was said that Alcohol is the only drug that effects babies in the womb. It was called the "Crack Baby Myth" but now things are changing again.
  - ketzo 6y ago
    Just wanna say I'm sorry for your loss. It's wonderful you were able to give your kids a chance at a better life.
batch12 6y ago
I was far from stable and far from happy. It wasn't until later that I realized the benefits that the people around me provided. With that said-- with some exceptions of course-- none of the kids want to be foster children. Especially those that understand that they are disposable. Kids are smart and know when they will just be shuffled around or placed in a group home. When I was fortunate enough to placed with my brother, we would act out -- looking back it was almost as a way to confirm that nobody really cared. It's easier to shit on everyone around you when you think everything is a temporary situation.
- treeman79 6y ago
  That’s what my adopted daughter and her older sibling would do. They were taken young. But older sibling started crap every place they got sent. Not the sort of stuff that can be ignored. Finally they were separated in the system. At first we were like “that’s horrible” Now. We just wish it had been done a lot sooner. Some people are hell bent on self destruction, and will take everyone down with them. It took 7 years for our adopted daughter to finally realize and know we actually do love her.
Supermancho 6y ago
I'm not sure that's survivorship bias, since you can measure when dependents (or emancipated dependents) drop off from their support systems. The measure isn't just those that report back "I'm doing fine" but those that are tracked. There are a number of organizations that track these statistics, although I feel like the nordic countries seem to follow the strictest rigour. It's a null hypothesis to show that foster children (who are more likely to have mental disorders - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3922948/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3922948/, et al) do better with caring parental figures. They can only degenerate without stability.
jariel 6y ago
Just because you have an anecdote that illustrates something doesn't negate the broader conclusion. Frankly, the original statement that 'it only takes one or two' should be rather obvious, it's called 'parenting' and it usually implies a couple of people who have a bond with a child. That said, we all know every kind of person from every walk of life who ended up being in every kind of scenario. There's a lot of randomness in humans. That doesn't take away from the fact that a couple of 'good parents' and a decent community + school is almost assuredly the best path.
lostcolony 6y ago
Yes...but he's not making the claim that "100% of foster kids who get (some small number of adults caring about them) will be successful", he's saying that "the minimum I've observed for foster kids to be successful is (some small number of adults caring about them)". The latter claim is perfectly valid to make when 100% of survivors have trait X; you are correct in implying that it would be invalid to say having trait X will guarantee a survivor.
- the-dude 6y ago
  > points to the idea that it takes a surprisingly small number of emotionally stable adults to help kids get through chaotic circumstances. I am not a native speaker, but to me he clearly suggests with takes that it should be possible for every case.
  - samatman 6y ago
    That doesn't follow. Consider the idiom it takes two to tango. Now, one of the two could be a quadriplegic, or a dog, or maybe they both come from a severe religious cult which has forbidden dancing and just can't bring themselves to do it. That's fine; the meaning is that two are necessary, not that two are sufficient.
    - the-dude 6y ago
      Again, not a native speaker, but this sounds far out. It takes two to tango is about the tango going to happen, not the minimal required circumstances for it to happen if all other stars align.
      - talentedcoin 6y ago
        No, parent is correct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_takes_two_to_tango https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_takes_two_to_tango The meaning of this expression has been extended to include any situation in which the two partners are by definition understood to be essential (...).
      - 6y ago
dghlsakjg 6y ago
Every successful foster child has a stable adult in their life != every foster child with a stable adult in their life is successful. The first sentence is saying that a stable adult is one necessary component. The second sentence is saying that the stable adult is the only necessary component. They are totally different claims with very similar wording.
dang 6y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25822824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25822824.

gogopuppygogo 6y ago

I knew two kids adopted as infants who were born addicted to drugs. The family that adopted them was wealthy. They poured enormous amounts of time and resources into raising those kids. One turned it all around and works for Google, the other ram away and hasn’t been heard from in 20 years. Same birth mother, born two years apart, she was an addict.

kevincox 6y ago
I think it is a fairly safe assumption that raising children has aspects of a chaotic system. Small changes to upbringing can cause large impact on the result. Of course not all "inputs" have this chaotic nature, and there are lots of inputs that aren't under direct control of the parents. There are just so many variables that it is hard to tease out patterns.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  Fair, but as far as controlled experiments are possible in this kind of thing, it doesn't get much better than two kids with a shared birth parent and the same adoptive parents/environment. Anyway, you're not wrong about the chaotic environment that is child rearing— the other side of this coin is sets of identical twins with differing sexualities, eg: https://kinseyinstitute.org/news-events/news/2019-07-26-twins-sexual-orientation.php https://kinseyinstitute.org/news-events/news/2019-07-26-twin...
  - kevincox 6y ago
    No, it doesn't get much better than that scenario. But something as simple as which other kids are sat next to them in school can completely change their childhood. Observations like these are the best we have, and should not be ignored, but there are just so many variables that can never bet (ethically) controlled.
    - erik_landerholm 6y ago
      100% agree. I think because it’s hard enough to discern between what I would call first order (dna caused personality traits) and second order (immediate family and early childhood experiences) contributions to personality and what experiences a child had, that most people ignore third order, friends, bad luck, basically everything else. Then, you throw in luck ...I mean who knows why anyone does anything bad or good. I’m not religious, but the saying often attributed to Christ saying, “forgive them, they know not what they do,” is probably totally, 100% accurate. I would add we don’t really know why they do what they do either. Christians want that to mean specifically about the crucifixion, but I believe whoever wrote that down was trying to say something more general about human experience. I know from personal experience, just how much which kids you sit next to from 1st-5th grade, as they are often the same in the US, can influence your life in extreme ways. All this says to me, we should probably go easier on everyone, even the “worst” of us...
      - adolph 6y ago
        Even within organisms starting with identical “first order” characteristics the opportunity for variation is fascinating. Here is a podcast on the topic I found illuminating, it is with the author of a recent book The Hidden Half http://www.econtalk.org/michael-blastland-on-the-hidden-half/ http://www.econtalk.org/michael-blastland-on-the-hidden-half...
  - jariel 6y ago
    This is actually incorrect reasoning. The amount of variation in the human condition would completely negate any conclusions from a sample size of two, however close the conditions. It's also really easy to explain how one kid does well and the other doesn't, look at any life situation. One kid falls in with bad friends, one does not, one has a hobby that takes them somewhere, one does not, one gets a DUI the other does not, one has an amazing Hockey coach, the other does not, one takes a risk and wants to be a rock start, the other does not etc. etc..
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Fair, but as far as controlled experiments are possible in this kind of thing, it doesn't get much better than two kids Actually, controlled experiments on this could be a lot better than N = 2, and the small-N problem dwarfs the positive features of the experiment here.
birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago
1. The other could still be successful. 2. Same mother doesn't mean same fathers. Success comes down to IQ. One kid could have been lucky while the other drew the short stick.
- Quarrelsome 6y ago
  > Success comes down to IQ I think it arguably more likely that acceptance into the education system comes down to IQ due to antiquated practices in attempting to derive intelligence. Being within the education system is the sunny uplands to networking and generally better opportunities. Its possible that almost every child has the potential of a "good enough" IQ and that nurture reigns supreme over the supporting cast of genetics. To separate the two within nurture there remains environmental factors such as an interpreted narrative of favouritism which can lead to downward spirals.
- i_haz_rabies 6y ago
  Success comes down to a hell of a lot more than IQ.
- Swenrekcah 6y ago
  While success and IQ are almost certainly correlated, it is not possible to make a statement like that. You can just as well say that success comes down to height, or country of birth, or combined wealth of uncles. There are so many other factors at play.
- lazyasciiart 6y ago
  Plenty of smart people have died in childhood for reasons completely out of their control, which makes them pretty unsuccessful by any metric.
worker767424 6y ago
A family friend is single and infertile. She's spent a lot of money on some sort of adopt-a-chinese scheme. Someone in her family did the same, and the kid had various medical issues. I honestly think she'd have been better off with a surrogate and a sperm donor. I definitely respect people who adopt, but they risk of just adopting someone else's problem is too high for me.
- impartial-word 6y ago
  A relative adopted a child and the social worker advised against international adoptions for this problem. Eventually they adopted a 100% healthy local child after 5-6 years of legal nightmare as it's pretty complex navigate through all requirements plus wait your turn.
- bluGill 6y ago
  If you adopt a health foreign baby it is because the baby was kidnapped from his loving parents and then a corrupt judge signed off on it. The above isn't always true, but if you didn't investigate the agency deeply you should assume it is. This is why international adoptions are so hard, many counties have caught on and given up on giving the few kids who do need real homes help.
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    > the few kids who do need real homes You have to be kidding me. Do you know how many kids are literal orphans in sub-saharan Africa?
    - bluGill 6y ago
      No. I know that most counties won't let you adopt those orphans though because of how hard it is to be sure they really are.
    - lazyasciiart 6y ago
      Did you know that UNICEF defines "orphan" as a child with at least one dead parent? Globally there are estimated to be about 15 million "double orphans", and 90% of them live with extended family. Of those that don't, frequently there is extended family or at least known families of their own culture/ethnicity/country who could take them in if given financial support - which is not only cheaper than adopting them from the US, but doesn't cut their ties to home. Aside from that, more than 90% are over the age of 5. Almost none are actually babies, and of course children orphaned at birth may have inherited AIDS or have other health issues due to whatever killed their parents. Adopting a healthy foreign baby from the US is more likely than not to involve some form of human rights violation just to make them available to you. https://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/orphan-crisis-sub-saharan-africa2 https://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/orphan-crisis-sub-sahara... https://www.unicef.org/media/orphans https://www.unicef.org/media/orphans
baldfat 6y ago
I adopted three kids from the same biological mother. Two of them are making more then me at Amazon and for the Department of Defense. Sadly my younger son passed from Bone Cancer. They were drug impacted, but its weird how research goes in cycles. Crack babies were going to ruin America's capacity for caring for all these children. Then it was said that Alcohol is the only drug that effects babies in the womb. It was called the "Crack Baby Myth" but now things are changing again.
- ketzo 6y ago
  Just wanna say I'm sorry for your loss. It's wonderful you were able to give your kids a chance at a better life.

batch12 6y ago

I was far from stable and far from happy. It wasn't until later that I realized the benefits that the people around me provided. With that said-- with some exceptions of course-- none of the kids want to be foster children. Especially those that understand that they are disposable. Kids are smart and know when they will just be shuffled around or placed in a group home. When I was fortunate enough to placed with my brother, we would act out -- looking back it was almost as a way to confirm that nobody really cared. It's easier to shit on everyone around you when you think everything is a temporary situation.

treeman79 6y ago
That’s what my adopted daughter and her older sibling would do. They were taken young. But older sibling started crap every place they got sent. Not the sort of stuff that can be ignored. Finally they were separated in the system. At first we were like “that’s horrible” Now. We just wish it had been done a lot sooner. Some people are hell bent on self destruction, and will take everyone down with them. It took 7 years for our adopted daughter to finally realize and know we actually do love her.

Supermancho 6y ago

I'm not sure that's survivorship bias, since you can measure when dependents (or emancipated dependents) drop off from their support systems. The measure isn't just those that report back "I'm doing fine" but those that are tracked. There are a number of organizations that track these statistics, although I feel like the nordic countries seem to follow the strictest rigour. It's a null hypothesis to show that foster children (who are more likely to have mental disorders - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3922948/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3922948/, et al) do better with caring parental figures. They can only degenerate without stability.

jariel 6y ago

Just because you have an anecdote that illustrates something doesn't negate the broader conclusion. Frankly, the original statement that 'it only takes one or two' should be rather obvious, it's called 'parenting' and it usually implies a couple of people who have a bond with a child. That said, we all know every kind of person from every walk of life who ended up being in every kind of scenario. There's a lot of randomness in humans. That doesn't take away from the fact that a couple of 'good parents' and a decent community + school is almost assuredly the best path.

lostcolony 6y ago

Yes...but he's not making the claim that "100% of foster kids who get (some small number of adults caring about them) will be successful", he's saying that "the minimum I've observed for foster kids to be successful is (some small number of adults caring about them)". The latter claim is perfectly valid to make when 100% of survivors have trait X; you are correct in implying that it would be invalid to say having trait X will guarantee a survivor.

the-dude 6y ago
> points to the idea that it takes a surprisingly small number of emotionally stable adults to help kids get through chaotic circumstances. I am not a native speaker, but to me he clearly suggests with takes that it should be possible for every case.
- samatman 6y ago
  That doesn't follow. Consider the idiom it takes two to tango. Now, one of the two could be a quadriplegic, or a dog, or maybe they both come from a severe religious cult which has forbidden dancing and just can't bring themselves to do it. That's fine; the meaning is that two are necessary, not that two are sufficient.
  - the-dude 6y ago
    Again, not a native speaker, but this sounds far out. It takes two to tango is about the tango going to happen, not the minimal required circumstances for it to happen if all other stars align.
    - talentedcoin 6y ago
      No, parent is correct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_takes_two_to_tango https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_takes_two_to_tango The meaning of this expression has been extended to include any situation in which the two partners are by definition understood to be essential (...).
    - 6y ago

dghlsakjg 6y ago

Every successful foster child has a stable adult in their life != every foster child with a stable adult in their life is successful. The first sentence is saying that a stable adult is one necessary component. The second sentence is saying that the stable adult is the only necessary component. They are totally different claims with very similar wording.

dang 6y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25822824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25822824.