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I feel like this article is good, on the verge of great, then makes cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Like the

I feel like this article is good, on the verge of great, then makes cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? The rest is spot on. I became a parent before I was ready, and man, they are little sponges. They learn everything you do, everything you say, embarrassingly so. My 5 year old would lay on the couch to 'rest her back' like me. She'd say weird country sayings I learned from my own Dad, like 'kneehigh to a cricket.' I had a habit of saying 'dicking with' to mean 'messing with' until she got scolded by a teacher at the ripe old age of 7. The hardest part for parents today seems to be putting their phone down. It's what the kid and Mom have fought about forever, then applied to me. It's so easy to lose yourself in your social media, work, reading, etc. and kids are super receptive to it. But not as that effort, but as having a parent who stares at their phone unattentively. Our kid made her own 'phone' out of cardboard as a child, pretending to read and chat on it. That struck me deeply. I never had social media, but as a voracious reader still find myself falling into the trap. Kids notice. Kids today have it harder because of that. My parents didn't have the Internet, they created the world we lived in and tailored it to us. I think that's incredibly rare today. Now she's 13, knows it all, and doesn't want to be picked up anymore. And I tell you, I wish I never had a smartphone at all.

motorest 2y ago
> I feel like this article is good, on the verge of great, then makes cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Is it really for no real reason, though? > Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? You might not be aware, but different cultural backgrounds do result in different life experiences. You might have even noticed that that's the whole point of the article. What you try to downplay as "race or location" is actually different social environments and contexts where kids grow. They are used as concrete examples lending support for the hypothesis. It is a behavioral issue that is determined by each one's experience living in a specific social circle with specific social norms.
- silisili 2y ago
  I reject that premise. It's completely fine to point out societal norms. Neither were particularly offensive. But assuming a Japanese child will have patience where an American will not is the same weird thought that leads to weird guys wanting Japanese wives for 'obedience.' I'm not at all against pointing out or even flexing cultural differences, but they don't matter at all when raising a child(other than of course, if you teach your child by that example.) I have a math brain. I've been teaching her math since she could speak, mainly because she seemed to want to impress me and it's how she would get my attention. Should she instead be bad at math because the Chinese value that more? Should I have stuck to teaching her big macs and bald eagles instead?
  - rusk 2y ago
    It’s all social conditioning. You are socially conditioning your child to be good at math. Good for you. It would be very hard for me to group you together with others and formulate a trend. As we zoom out and evaluate the aggregate picture your outlier datapoint is swallowed up and culture becomes the dominant mediator. You can reject all you want but your [personal, anecdotal] data point is irrelevant. It takes a village to raise a child. [rejecting an analysis because you disagree with the premise is unscientific - this analysis exposes a trend - it does not make a prediction - but gives pointers for further analysis]
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    > I'm not at all against pointing out or even flexing cultural differences, but they don't matter at all when raising a child(other than of course, if you teach your child by that example.) Except they do matter, unless you're going to "raise" a child by locking them in the apartment until they turn 18. Otherwise, as soon as they go to kindergarten[0], it's entirely out of your hands. They say[1] that minimum viable reproductive unit for homo sapiens is a village. And the corollary to that is, the village will find our child, whether you want it or not, and they will have as much say in their mindset and values as you do. You can influence that, but only so much, and not everywhere all at once[2]. (Also obligatory reminder/disclaimer that group-level statistics are not indicative of any individual's character; individual variance in-group is greater than variance between groups, etc.) EDIT: > Should she instead be bad at math because the Chinese value that more? Should I have stuck to teaching her big macs and bald eagles instead? No, you do you - and I respect you for passing on your interest in maths to your daughter, and I hope it'll stick. The point is, whatever the culture you're embedded in, she will be exposed to its tropes in aggregate. It doesn't mean she'll turn into a stereotype; no one ever does (see the disclaimer above); it's just that when someone doesn't like some aspects of their culture, "shopping for a village" that isn't reputed for those traits is one of the historically tried and true methods of reducing the risk. EDIT2: To add another personal anecdote, there was a defining moment in my life early on, that I'm certain changed my entire life's trajectory. In my primary school, I ended up in a class with some rather unruly, mischievous kids, under a walking pathology of a teacher; by the time I was 12 and it was time to switch to secondary school, I already picked up on some of the bad behaviors. My mom went through some extraordinary effort to get me placed in a math-profile class[3], despite me not showing much aptitude or interest in sciences, just so I get away from the rascals. It paid off. I may have started as the dumbest kid in the group, but this group wasn't into mischief, and instead was supportive to intellectual pursuits; I ended up befriending a bunch of nerds, and quickly becoming the nerdiest of them all. I can't imagine that happening if I stayed with my primary-school crowd. In fact, they'd probably bully my fledgling interest in programming out of me, so I pretty much owe my entire career and the shape of my life to that one choice by my mom, to move me to a different "village". -- [0] - And maybe earlier, if they go to daycare, or you're socially active and they tag along; and no later than when they go to school - unless, again, zip-ties and a radiator are a major part of the upbringing approach. [1] - Well, someone on HN says that; I think they may have even coined it. Either way, it's true. [2] - I grew up in a Christian offshoot that's a borderline cult. I can tell first-hand that, no matter how hard they try, even a strong fundamentalist culture that works hard on staying true to its values and pretty much defines themselves in opposition to "the world", can only do so much to resist the local culture in which people are embedded. And, when they try too hard, they just end up bleeding members. [3] - A brief moment in time in Poland where we had 3-school system and profile classes in the secondary school.
qingcharles 2y ago
I always wonder how many of the sayings I inherited from my father he inherited from my grandfather that died before I was born. It's like a kind of genetic memory.
- andrepd 2y ago
  It's the original meaning of "meme"
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    I'd characterize modern popular usage as... hmmm... "formulaic in-joke."
  - cassepipe 2y ago
    It took me some time to understand you meant it came from memetic
- cassepipe 2y ago
  Except it's not genetic ? So I guess a cultural memory, sometimes referred to as "Memory"
  - lupire 2y ago
    It's memetic memory, also called "culture"
- roenxi 2y ago
  It isn't as reliable as something that goes generation to generation transmission, but I think some things skip every other generation; like an organised grandparent leading to a disorganised parent who never had to think about it. Then an organised child because they learned to cover for the parent.
- silisili 2y ago
  I have a ton myself that my Dad would say but couldn't explain, so I don't use them as much. Two notable examples... 'What do you want, a Dewey button?' as a sarcastic way of saying 'who cares.' He didn't know why. Google says it's probably related to Thomas Dewey. 'Kitty bar the door.' An expression to mean he was going to go all out. He didn't know who kitty was or why he said it. I still have no idea its real etymology.
andrepd 2y ago
> Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? But of course it does. In fact the rest of your comment is about how kids absorb the environment they grow up in!
Terr_ 2y ago
The good news is that most kids very good at modeling themselves after the adults they see, without specific prompting to do so. The bad news is that they can be too good: It's hard to change yourself if you don't want them to learn something. ("Do what I say, not what I do.")
- silisili 2y ago
  Spot on. A child will take every annoying habit you don't even know that you have, and put it on full display. It's quite humbling.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Sometimes you can get a child to not get into your bad habits, but only if they are really bad. I know a women who never drinks because her parents were alcoholics and she doesn't want to follow their path. (her mother went to rehab for it, when she got back the first thing her husband did was pour her two shots and ordered her to drink). Most of the time you are right though, kids see and follow their parents.
Miraltar 2y ago
The article doesn't talk about race or location at all, it talks about culture
xanderlewis 2y ago
> Our kid made her own 'phone' out of cardboard as a child, pretending to read and chat on it. I did that, but a cardboard laptop!
Ygg2 2y ago
> cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? You have two kids, one ate ten boxes of marshmallows yesterday, the other didn't eat for two days. Which one is going to wait more for marshmallows? It's pointing that the Marshmallow test was flawed. Which doesn't surprise me (most social experiments are very flawed). Basically, when you account for socioeconomic factors, the correlation goes away, or so I heard. Rich kids are more successful in life than poor kids, who knew?
bloak 2y ago
> She'd say weird country sayings I learned from my own Dad, like 'kneehigh to a cricket.' It's also fun when it happens in the other direction: child invents a totally new word, parents think it's funny and copy it, it becomes a word used only within that family, but perhaps it stays around long enough for some of the grandchildren to pick it up. But everyone has to pay attention not to use it outside the home because outsiders would be very confused by it. We have a few words like that.
- darkwater 2y ago
  And when you are a bi-lingual family, you can bring that to the Nth power :)
desunit 2y ago
I didn't mention race in the post, but culture. I think culture has a significant effect on a person, and to prove my point, I'd refer to the book The Culture Map, which was a revelation for me and explained a lot of things I had noticed while working in a multicultural environment. Genetic factors typically account for about 50% of individual differences in traits like personality, cognition, and psychopathology, leaving the other 50% to environmental influences.
- patrickwalton 2y ago
  Do you have a source for 50% attribution? Studies I've seen suggest single-digit genetic attribution.
  - desunit 2y ago
    Yes, I do. See the following study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3147063/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3147063/ Personality: ~40-50% genetic influence Cognition (IQ): ~50% genetic influence in adulthood Schizophrenia: <50% concordance in identical twins Psychopathology: Varies, but mostly <50% genetic influence
netcan 2y ago
Well written comment... compliments the article well. I think you inserting the objections to the culture/country part yourself. I don't think they are present in the actual article. The central idea here is that children are shaped by their environment, the people around them and those people's behaviour. They sponge up behaviours of their parents, peers and such. But... it's not all mimicry and habits. It's also a response to incentives in their life. That's the writer's point about trust... and the marshmello test. Does the child live in a world where trust and patience pay off... or a world where you get what you can while you can? The socio-economic correlation to patience in the marshmello test is a proxy... demonstrating his point.
- desunit 2y ago
  I think you’ve raised a great topic, and it could serve as the foundation for another post. One study found that the environment plays the most significant role here, especially the nonshared environment (outside siblings/family). This challenges the traditional view that growing up in the same household has a major influence on personality and intelligence. Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3147063/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3147063/
exe34 2y ago
> Our kid made her own 'phone' out of cardboard as a child, pretending to read and chat on it. That struck me deeply. as a child of the 80s in an emotionally barren household with domestic violence, I also built myself a whole computer lab out of cardboard boxes at the age of 5 to mimic my father!
- lupire 2y ago
  Do you think those two facts are related or just coincidence?
  - exe34 2y ago
    No, I think children will imitate their parents either way!
vanderZwan 2y ago
> Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? Ignoring the fact that you inserted a narrative that wasn't present in the article, YES OF COURSE THIS HAS A MAJOR IMPACT. I'm a half-Dutch, half-Chinese man who spent the first years of my life in Ghana being blissfully happy and welcomed in the local community, and then the rest of my childhood being miserable in a Dutch village because I was excluded from that local community, all because I was "the local ethnic minority". And I'm half-Asian, with parents from a higher-education background who had a good income. I only had to deal with "diet racism" compared to pretty much any other ethnic minority/social background in the Netherlands. I've lived this and the fact that people like you keep insisting that my life experiences do not exist because they did not experience it is infuriating. Anyway, fair points about the phone being a serious issue. But for goodness sake stop pretending that race and socio-economic background has no impact just because it makes you a little uncomfortable.
- helboi4 2y ago
  Honestly, yes this guy's comment screams white guy growing up in a white culture. Like... do you really think your culture is a default and you would've been like you are without your outside influence? Your culture is very specific and no more default than any other.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    Hegemony lets you become the “default”. I can use the US dollar to pay for anything I want, anywhere, even if it’s not an official local currency. Try that with any other currency. That’s one small example of why we can indeed call “west” the “default” no matter how much this pisses off anti-colonialism types.
    - helboi4 2y ago
      bro, that's not what I mean. What I mean is this guy really thinks his culture did not effect him. Trust me, if you went to Japan and acted exactly as your American upbringing tells you to, you will fuck up the entire social contract there and people will think you're wierd af. Your culture is not a blank canvas. Your culture is something that affects how you are and this guy seems to think otherwise because he is blind to the strong characteristics of his culture, viewing it as default.
lr4444lr 2y ago
This is a beautiful comment, but take a step back here: parenting today is more child centric than it has ever been in the USA, with parents spending more raw hours with their kids (because they are spending less time independently with each other or extended family) and more direct paternal involvement to boot. I do not mean to minimize the scourge of adult phone overuse or the importance of being sensitive to a child's emotional world, but kids today overall get a ton of time with their parents, and parents are exhausted. EDIT: and the kids are not all right.
- demosthanos 2y ago
  I've caught myself using my smartphone as a socially acceptable way to create distance from my children and get time to myself. Having noticed that trend I'm trying to do better at setting boundaries in healthy ways. If it were socially acceptable to just tell your kids that you need some "you" time, I wonder how less prevalent smartphone usage among parents would be.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
wvh 2y ago
Wholeheartedly agree. Can't teach kids to eat broccoli if you don't eat it yourself, they're just too perceptive. I don't like phones myself, but sadly enough, it is becoming hard to keep up with society (e.g. sports groups) or even outright not accepted to be "offline" anymore. It becomes a tricky balancing act to teach your own pre-teens to deal with being left out versus fighting the dopamine goblin. I don't think technology is bad, nor food for that matter, but we really as a society have to overcome our monkey brains. We ought to be better informed about how our brains work, especially as parents responsible for developing brains; and we ought to have basic neurology taught in schools to give the new generation a fighting chance against the rapid pace of technological advancement.
- Cheezmeister 2y ago
  Incidentally, Fighting the Dopamine Goblin is the title of my next EP. For real though, the DG is the perfect personification. Don't overfeed it, it'll only get meaner.
  - wvh 2y ago
    Hopefully it's a prog record with songs of at least 20 minutes.
aqueueaqueue 2y ago
Is it better if the phone is a book and you read alot. That might be something to encourage? I guess it is still an isolated activity from the kid, but at least the message is "read books" over "stare at addictive device". You can also talk about the book with your kids and they see different covers each day and may be curious (and may pick it up)
- bluGill 2y ago
  What different does it make? My kids are rarely allowed screens, but they read in excess. They often get into trouble at school because after we go to bed thinking they are asleep they read a book - then the lack of sleep shows up in their behavior.
  - aqueueaqueue 2y ago
    A screen is way more addictive because of the other distractions and apps.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Does it matter? They are addicted to paper books in ways that is harmful to other parts of their life.
guilamu 2y ago
The race or location of the parent absolutely determines their childhood. This has been studied for decades, and it's called Practice theory. It emerged in the late 20th century and was first outlined in the work of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu [1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_theory
- fastball 2y ago
  That seems to be more about culture, which is separate from race or location.
  - guilamu 2y ago
    Nope : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitus_(sociology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitus_(sociology)
    - fastball 2y ago
      I don't understand the point you are trying to make.
jedimastert 2y ago
> Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? This seems like a dishonest characterization of some of the points in the article. Unfortunately, we do live in a society. A childhood is not just determined by the house the child lives in, but the community the child lives in as well, and the parents are also affected by the community they grew up in, which affects the way they parent.
rayiner 2y ago
> then makes cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? Cultures differ significantly in how they raise their children. My dad grew up in a Bangladeshi village. He has this story where a cousin was sick and asked for lobster (which back then was a widely available food in the villages). His parents told him they’d make it for him the next morning, but he died overnight. My dad always invokes that story when I try to impose limits on my kids. When my brother and I were growing up, they put a lot of expectations on us academically, but no gratuitous self denial in terms of food or toys or anything like that. By contrast my wife is an old stock American WASP. She has a very different parenting style than my parents. She makes my kids wait for everything and tells them everything they want is too expensive (even though we could easily afford anything they want).
lolinder 2y ago
I'm going to quote the paragraph you're responding to so that those just reading the comments can see what it actually says: > The marshmallow test also doesn’t account for cultural differences. In some cultures, waiting is baked into daily life. Think about Japan, where kids are often taught to wait quietly for meals or gifts. Compare that to the US, where instant gratification is practically a way of life. These cultural norms shape how kids approach situations like the marshmallow test. It’s not just about personality; it’s about the world they live in. That's it. That's the entire quote about the effect of culture. I see no mention of race or location—I see an argument that "the world they live in" affects children's ability to wait, and that culture is an important aspect of the world that kids live in. Given that this is the actual text you're responding to, I'm not actually sure you disagree with them, because you go on to point out that smartphones are a dangerous component of modern culture.
- the__alchemist 2y ago
  Culture comparisons are a notoriously touchy topic. For some people, the topic itself is a taboo. I believe that's why the poster you're replying to had that reaction. For others, it's a topic to discuss and learn from.
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    It is important that we stop taking people who treat this topic as a taboo seriously at all This modern mentality of "all cultures are equal and valid and none are superior to any other" is just ridiculous Culture is something we are always looking to improve on. In this way, we are comparing our existing culture against hypothetical future cultures and deciding that one of them is more desirable If we can compare a real culture with a hypothetical culture, then we can certainly compare two real cultures using similar criteria
    - guhidalg 2y ago
      Yes but these comparisons of real cultures become very gross very fast. Japanese culture is orderly, neat, autonomous and their children are taught to wait at an early age. That's awesome! We should emulate Japan, clearly their culture is superior. Nevermind the salary-man trope, misogyny, Hikikomori, and rigidity that comes with it. Instead of thinking about cultures in terms of ranking, try to understand the history of why a culture is a certain way and appreciate why other cultures are not like that.
mannykannot 2y ago
Race is not mentioned in the article. Ironically, you are doing the very thing, here, which you claim spoils it. The mention of culture is not out of place in the article, as the marshmallow test (which features quite prominently in it, including in its actual title) does have different outcomes in different cultures, and, in addition, it is hardly controversial to suppose that the way children are brought up is an important factor in establishing and maintaining a culture's cohesion.
Aurornis 2y ago
> The hardest part for parents today seems to be putting their phone down. > And I tell you, I wish I never had a smartphone at all. Being self-aware of phone use is 80% of the battle. I also read a lot on my phone. Most of my screen time is in the books app. Early on I decided to leave the phone on the charger in the mornings and evenings before the kids are in bed. Problem solved. The biggest trap I see in my circle is the mental gymnastics of blaming everyone else for their own excessive phone use. It becomes easier to overuse a phone when they blame the algorithm or the companies for “making” them use the phone more than they want. Some people read stories about apps being made to be addictive and feel relieved because it offloads responsibility away from their decision making. In the addiction treatment world it’s acknowledged that if someone can’t control their own behavior then they need even more controls and accountability, not to cede all responsibility for their actions to the addictive thing they’re drawn to. That usually means making decisions to shape their environment to keep them away from addictive behaviors, but for some reason many people see headlines about “the algorithm” and addictive apps and decide it’s futile to resist. Making the decision to leave my phone on the charger during kid time was one of the higher ROI decisions I’ve made in my life. I used a smart watch to get any urgent notifications if I really needed them.
bluGill 2y ago
> I became a parent before I was ready Me too, and I was almost 40 before I had my first. Worse, the affects of age is already showing in my body and so physically I'm less prepared than when I was 20. For others reading this, you will never be ready. However it is still worth it. I encourage you take the plunge, and don't wait to long. You will never be ready. (of course not having kids is the right choice for some of you, I'll let you judge your own reasoning - if it is just fear go for it, but there are plenty of good reasons not to)
- silisili 2y ago
  Yeah, I wasn't and didn't mean to imply I was too young, late 20s, just wasn't emotionally prepared or 'mature' enough I felt like, at first. Maybe that's normal for everyone. I don't know how 18 year olds do it! > For others reading this, you will never be ready That's probably a sage takeaway. Thanks, it's comforting to hear others experience similar thoughts.
ryandrake 2y ago
> The hardest part for parents today seems to be putting their phone down. Kids are great at detecting hypocrisy. You can't tell them to not be addicted to their phone when you yourself are addicted to your phone. You have to set a good example. I'm not much of an "idle scroller" but I try to limit my phone use to after the kid is in bed. When I visibly use my phone in front of her, I make it a point to show that I'm using it as a tool to do something, and then I put it away when that something is done. If they see you sitting on the couch all evening mindlessly scrolling Instagram, they're going to think that's OK. Just like past kids saw their parents sitting on their couch all evenings watching TV.
pertymcpert 2y ago
> Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? That has a huge impact btw. If you don't think so you're insane. - Someone who grew up in 2 different continents.
7thaccount 2y ago
>"Now she's 13, knows it all, and doesn't want to be picked up anymore. And I tell you, I wish I never had a smartphone at all." Geez this hits hard. I've been pretty aware of it though, so I try to spend as much time with my daughter as possible without smothering her. I tell my wife almost daily that she's going to regret not getting off her smartphone and spending more time with her when she could. I'm not some soothsayer, but it seems pretty obvious to me.
pmarreck 2y ago
> Like the race or location If all you have is a racism hammer, everything looks like a racist screed I guess. The only point I saw made is that cultures matter. There should be nothing wrong with that. You're reading malevolence into it. Stop that, please.
- silisili 2y ago
  I've really tried to stop replying to every bait reply, because I don't think long arguments are productive or that we'll reach a middle ground. But this for some reason struck a nerve. I never claimed racism at all? "It's not racism, it's culture" is literally a white supremacist talking point. To be clear, I'm not accusing you of that. My claim is that you can't make country wide generalizations, and yes, attempting to do so by culture is doing so by race. I'd bet if I brought up how foreigners in Japan score on tests, you'd then claim it's not real Japanese. Because you meant ethnic Japanese people. But that's way, way harder in the US. Is it white culture, that doesn't really exist? Would you be surprised to learn that most people born in the US today are not white? Is 'American culture' the hispanic immigrant family getting by in Fresno? Or is the the Indian spelling bee winner from Virginia? Or is it the white farmer kid from Nebraska? Or the black inner city kid in Chicago? At some point you have to pick one, they have little 'culture' in common. But I'm not asking anyone to pick one, or defending any race. I'm saying such generalizations are stupid. Culture pretty heavily implies race, perhaps not location, unless one pretends to be race blind.
  - pmarreck 2y ago
    OK. > "It's not racism, it's culture" is literally a white supremacist talking point I was not aware of this, and I always thought (independently, without consuming whatever white-supremacist propaganda might have mentioned this) that it made more sense to realize that cultural differences are really what is at play most of the time when people conflate them with racial differences. Cultural differences also make more sense to frame things in since they are mutable.

motorest 2y ago

> I feel like this article is good, on the verge of great, then makes cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Is it really for no real reason, though? > Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? You might not be aware, but different cultural backgrounds do result in different life experiences. You might have even noticed that that's the whole point of the article. What you try to downplay as "race or location" is actually different social environments and contexts where kids grow. They are used as concrete examples lending support for the hypothesis. It is a behavioral issue that is determined by each one's experience living in a specific social circle with specific social norms.

silisili 2y ago
I reject that premise. It's completely fine to point out societal norms. Neither were particularly offensive. But assuming a Japanese child will have patience where an American will not is the same weird thought that leads to weird guys wanting Japanese wives for 'obedience.' I'm not at all against pointing out or even flexing cultural differences, but they don't matter at all when raising a child(other than of course, if you teach your child by that example.) I have a math brain. I've been teaching her math since she could speak, mainly because she seemed to want to impress me and it's how she would get my attention. Should she instead be bad at math because the Chinese value that more? Should I have stuck to teaching her big macs and bald eagles instead?
- rusk 2y ago
  It’s all social conditioning. You are socially conditioning your child to be good at math. Good for you. It would be very hard for me to group you together with others and formulate a trend. As we zoom out and evaluate the aggregate picture your outlier datapoint is swallowed up and culture becomes the dominant mediator. You can reject all you want but your [personal, anecdotal] data point is irrelevant. It takes a village to raise a child. [rejecting an analysis because you disagree with the premise is unscientific - this analysis exposes a trend - it does not make a prediction - but gives pointers for further analysis]
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > I'm not at all against pointing out or even flexing cultural differences, but they don't matter at all when raising a child(other than of course, if you teach your child by that example.) Except they do matter, unless you're going to "raise" a child by locking them in the apartment until they turn 18. Otherwise, as soon as they go to kindergarten[0], it's entirely out of your hands. They say[1] that minimum viable reproductive unit for homo sapiens is a village. And the corollary to that is, the village will find our child, whether you want it or not, and they will have as much say in their mindset and values as you do. You can influence that, but only so much, and not everywhere all at once[2]. (Also obligatory reminder/disclaimer that group-level statistics are not indicative of any individual's character; individual variance in-group is greater than variance between groups, etc.) EDIT: > Should she instead be bad at math because the Chinese value that more? Should I have stuck to teaching her big macs and bald eagles instead? No, you do you - and I respect you for passing on your interest in maths to your daughter, and I hope it'll stick. The point is, whatever the culture you're embedded in, she will be exposed to its tropes in aggregate. It doesn't mean she'll turn into a stereotype; no one ever does (see the disclaimer above); it's just that when someone doesn't like some aspects of their culture, "shopping for a village" that isn't reputed for those traits is one of the historically tried and true methods of reducing the risk. EDIT2: To add another personal anecdote, there was a defining moment in my life early on, that I'm certain changed my entire life's trajectory. In my primary school, I ended up in a class with some rather unruly, mischievous kids, under a walking pathology of a teacher; by the time I was 12 and it was time to switch to secondary school, I already picked up on some of the bad behaviors. My mom went through some extraordinary effort to get me placed in a math-profile class[3], despite me not showing much aptitude or interest in sciences, just so I get away from the rascals. It paid off. I may have started as the dumbest kid in the group, but this group wasn't into mischief, and instead was supportive to intellectual pursuits; I ended up befriending a bunch of nerds, and quickly becoming the nerdiest of them all. I can't imagine that happening if I stayed with my primary-school crowd. In fact, they'd probably bully my fledgling interest in programming out of me, so I pretty much owe my entire career and the shape of my life to that one choice by my mom, to move me to a different "village". -- [0] - And maybe earlier, if they go to daycare, or you're socially active and they tag along; and no later than when they go to school - unless, again, zip-ties and a radiator are a major part of the upbringing approach. [1] - Well, someone on HN says that; I think they may have even coined it. Either way, it's true. [2] - I grew up in a Christian offshoot that's a borderline cult. I can tell first-hand that, no matter how hard they try, even a strong fundamentalist culture that works hard on staying true to its values and pretty much defines themselves in opposition to "the world", can only do so much to resist the local culture in which people are embedded. And, when they try too hard, they just end up bleeding members. [3] - A brief moment in time in Poland where we had 3-school system and profile classes in the secondary school.

qingcharles 2y ago

I always wonder how many of the sayings I inherited from my father he inherited from my grandfather that died before I was born. It's like a kind of genetic memory.

andrepd 2y ago
It's the original meaning of "meme"
- Terr_ 2y ago
  I'd characterize modern popular usage as... hmmm... "formulaic in-joke."
- cassepipe 2y ago
  It took me some time to understand you meant it came from memetic
cassepipe 2y ago
Except it's not genetic ? So I guess a cultural memory, sometimes referred to as "Memory"
- lupire 2y ago
  It's memetic memory, also called "culture"
roenxi 2y ago
It isn't as reliable as something that goes generation to generation transmission, but I think some things skip every other generation; like an organised grandparent leading to a disorganised parent who never had to think about it. Then an organised child because they learned to cover for the parent.
silisili 2y ago
I have a ton myself that my Dad would say but couldn't explain, so I don't use them as much. Two notable examples... 'What do you want, a Dewey button?' as a sarcastic way of saying 'who cares.' He didn't know why. Google says it's probably related to Thomas Dewey. 'Kitty bar the door.' An expression to mean he was going to go all out. He didn't know who kitty was or why he said it. I still have no idea its real etymology.

andrepd 2y ago

> Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? But of course it does. In fact the rest of your comment is about how kids absorb the environment they grow up in!

Terr_ 2y ago

The good news is that most kids very good at modeling themselves after the adults they see, without specific prompting to do so. The bad news is that they can be too good: It's hard to change yourself if you don't want them to learn something. ("Do what I say, not what I do.")

silisili 2y ago
Spot on. A child will take every annoying habit you don't even know that you have, and put it on full display. It's quite humbling.
- bluGill 2y ago
  Sometimes you can get a child to not get into your bad habits, but only if they are really bad. I know a women who never drinks because her parents were alcoholics and she doesn't want to follow their path. (her mother went to rehab for it, when she got back the first thing her husband did was pour her two shots and ordered her to drink). Most of the time you are right though, kids see and follow their parents.

Miraltar 2y ago

The article doesn't talk about race or location at all, it talks about culture

xanderlewis 2y ago

> Our kid made her own 'phone' out of cardboard as a child, pretending to read and chat on it. I did that, but a cardboard laptop!

Ygg2 2y ago

> cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? You have two kids, one ate ten boxes of marshmallows yesterday, the other didn't eat for two days. Which one is going to wait more for marshmallows? It's pointing that the Marshmallow test was flawed. Which doesn't surprise me (most social experiments are very flawed). Basically, when you account for socioeconomic factors, the correlation goes away, or so I heard. Rich kids are more successful in life than poor kids, who knew?

bloak 2y ago

> She'd say weird country sayings I learned from my own Dad, like 'kneehigh to a cricket.' It's also fun when it happens in the other direction: child invents a totally new word, parents think it's funny and copy it, it becomes a word used only within that family, but perhaps it stays around long enough for some of the grandchildren to pick it up. But everyone has to pay attention not to use it outside the home because outsiders would be very confused by it. We have a few words like that.

darkwater 2y ago
And when you are a bi-lingual family, you can bring that to the Nth power :)

desunit 2y ago

I didn't mention race in the post, but culture. I think culture has a significant effect on a person, and to prove my point, I'd refer to the book The Culture Map, which was a revelation for me and explained a lot of things I had noticed while working in a multicultural environment. Genetic factors typically account for about 50% of individual differences in traits like personality, cognition, and psychopathology, leaving the other 50% to environmental influences.

patrickwalton 2y ago
Do you have a source for 50% attribution? Studies I've seen suggest single-digit genetic attribution.
- desunit 2y ago
  Yes, I do. See the following study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3147063/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3147063/ Personality: ~40-50% genetic influence Cognition (IQ): ~50% genetic influence in adulthood Schizophrenia: <50% concordance in identical twins Psychopathology: Varies, but mostly <50% genetic influence

netcan 2y ago

Well written comment... compliments the article well. I think you inserting the objections to the culture/country part yourself. I don't think they are present in the actual article. The central idea here is that children are shaped by their environment, the people around them and those people's behaviour. They sponge up behaviours of their parents, peers and such. But... it's not all mimicry and habits. It's also a response to incentives in their life. That's the writer's point about trust... and the marshmello test. Does the child live in a world where trust and patience pay off... or a world where you get what you can while you can? The socio-economic correlation to patience in the marshmello test is a proxy... demonstrating his point.

desunit 2y ago
I think you’ve raised a great topic, and it could serve as the foundation for another post. One study found that the environment plays the most significant role here, especially the nonshared environment (outside siblings/family). This challenges the traditional view that growing up in the same household has a major influence on personality and intelligence. Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3147063/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3147063/

exe34 2y ago

> Our kid made her own 'phone' out of cardboard as a child, pretending to read and chat on it. That struck me deeply. as a child of the 80s in an emotionally barren household with domestic violence, I also built myself a whole computer lab out of cardboard boxes at the age of 5 to mimic my father!

lupire 2y ago
Do you think those two facts are related or just coincidence?
- exe34 2y ago
  No, I think children will imitate their parents either way!

vanderZwan 2y ago

> Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? Ignoring the fact that you inserted a narrative that wasn't present in the article, YES OF COURSE THIS HAS A MAJOR IMPACT. I'm a half-Dutch, half-Chinese man who spent the first years of my life in Ghana being blissfully happy and welcomed in the local community, and then the rest of my childhood being miserable in a Dutch village because I was excluded from that local community, all because I was "the local ethnic minority". And I'm half-Asian, with parents from a higher-education background who had a good income. I only had to deal with "diet racism" compared to pretty much any other ethnic minority/social background in the Netherlands. I've lived this and the fact that people like you keep insisting that my life experiences do not exist because they did not experience it is infuriating. Anyway, fair points about the phone being a serious issue. But for goodness sake stop pretending that race and socio-economic background has no impact just because it makes you a little uncomfortable.

helboi4 2y ago
Honestly, yes this guy's comment screams white guy growing up in a white culture. Like... do you really think your culture is a default and you would've been like you are without your outside influence? Your culture is very specific and no more default than any other.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  Hegemony lets you become the “default”. I can use the US dollar to pay for anything I want, anywhere, even if it’s not an official local currency. Try that with any other currency. That’s one small example of why we can indeed call “west” the “default” no matter how much this pisses off anti-colonialism types.
  - helboi4 2y ago
    bro, that's not what I mean. What I mean is this guy really thinks his culture did not effect him. Trust me, if you went to Japan and acted exactly as your American upbringing tells you to, you will fuck up the entire social contract there and people will think you're wierd af. Your culture is not a blank canvas. Your culture is something that affects how you are and this guy seems to think otherwise because he is blind to the strong characteristics of his culture, viewing it as default.

lr4444lr 2y ago

This is a beautiful comment, but take a step back here: parenting today is more child centric than it has ever been in the USA, with parents spending more raw hours with their kids (because they are spending less time independently with each other or extended family) and more direct paternal involvement to boot. I do not mean to minimize the scourge of adult phone overuse or the importance of being sensitive to a child's emotional world, but kids today overall get a ton of time with their parents, and parents are exhausted. EDIT: and the kids are not all right.

demosthanos 2y ago
I've caught myself using my smartphone as a socially acceptable way to create distance from my children and get time to myself. Having noticed that trend I'm trying to do better at setting boundaries in healthy ways. If it were socially acceptable to just tell your kids that you need some "you" time, I wonder how less prevalent smartphone usage among parents would be.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

wvh 2y ago

Wholeheartedly agree. Can't teach kids to eat broccoli if you don't eat it yourself, they're just too perceptive. I don't like phones myself, but sadly enough, it is becoming hard to keep up with society (e.g. sports groups) or even outright not accepted to be "offline" anymore. It becomes a tricky balancing act to teach your own pre-teens to deal with being left out versus fighting the dopamine goblin. I don't think technology is bad, nor food for that matter, but we really as a society have to overcome our monkey brains. We ought to be better informed about how our brains work, especially as parents responsible for developing brains; and we ought to have basic neurology taught in schools to give the new generation a fighting chance against the rapid pace of technological advancement.

Cheezmeister 2y ago
Incidentally, Fighting the Dopamine Goblin is the title of my next EP. For real though, the DG is the perfect personification. Don't overfeed it, it'll only get meaner.
- wvh 2y ago
  Hopefully it's a prog record with songs of at least 20 minutes.

aqueueaqueue 2y ago

Is it better if the phone is a book and you read alot. That might be something to encourage? I guess it is still an isolated activity from the kid, but at least the message is "read books" over "stare at addictive device". You can also talk about the book with your kids and they see different covers each day and may be curious (and may pick it up)

bluGill 2y ago
What different does it make? My kids are rarely allowed screens, but they read in excess. They often get into trouble at school because after we go to bed thinking they are asleep they read a book - then the lack of sleep shows up in their behavior.
- aqueueaqueue 2y ago
  A screen is way more addictive because of the other distractions and apps.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Does it matter? They are addicted to paper books in ways that is harmful to other parts of their life.

guilamu 2y ago

The race or location of the parent absolutely determines their childhood. This has been studied for decades, and it's called Practice theory. It emerged in the late 20th century and was first outlined in the work of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu [1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_theory

fastball 2y ago
That seems to be more about culture, which is separate from race or location.
- guilamu 2y ago
  Nope : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitus_(sociology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitus_(sociology)
  - fastball 2y ago
    I don't understand the point you are trying to make.

jedimastert 2y ago

> Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? This seems like a dishonest characterization of some of the points in the article. Unfortunately, we do live in a society. A childhood is not just determined by the house the child lives in, but the community the child lives in as well, and the parents are also affected by the community they grew up in, which affects the way they parent.

rayiner 2y ago

> then makes cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? Cultures differ significantly in how they raise their children. My dad grew up in a Bangladeshi village. He has this story where a cousin was sick and asked for lobster (which back then was a widely available food in the villages). His parents told him they’d make it for him the next morning, but he died overnight. My dad always invokes that story when I try to impose limits on my kids. When my brother and I were growing up, they put a lot of expectations on us academically, but no gratuitous self denial in terms of food or toys or anything like that. By contrast my wife is an old stock American WASP. She has a very different parenting style than my parents. She makes my kids wait for everything and tells them everything they want is too expensive (even though we could easily afford anything they want).

lolinder 2y ago

I'm going to quote the paragraph you're responding to so that those just reading the comments can see what it actually says: > The marshmallow test also doesn’t account for cultural differences. In some cultures, waiting is baked into daily life. Think about Japan, where kids are often taught to wait quietly for meals or gifts. Compare that to the US, where instant gratification is practically a way of life. These cultural norms shape how kids approach situations like the marshmallow test. It’s not just about personality; it’s about the world they live in. That's it. That's the entire quote about the effect of culture. I see no mention of race or location—I see an argument that "the world they live in" affects children's ability to wait, and that culture is an important aspect of the world that kids live in. Given that this is the actual text you're responding to, I'm not actually sure you disagree with them, because you go on to point out that smartphones are a dangerous component of modern culture.

the__alchemist 2y ago
Culture comparisons are a notoriously touchy topic. For some people, the topic itself is a taboo. I believe that's why the poster you're replying to had that reaction. For others, it's a topic to discuss and learn from.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  It is important that we stop taking people who treat this topic as a taboo seriously at all This modern mentality of "all cultures are equal and valid and none are superior to any other" is just ridiculous Culture is something we are always looking to improve on. In this way, we are comparing our existing culture against hypothetical future cultures and deciding that one of them is more desirable If we can compare a real culture with a hypothetical culture, then we can certainly compare two real cultures using similar criteria
  - guhidalg 2y ago
    Yes but these comparisons of real cultures become very gross very fast. Japanese culture is orderly, neat, autonomous and their children are taught to wait at an early age. That's awesome! We should emulate Japan, clearly their culture is superior. Nevermind the salary-man trope, misogyny, Hikikomori, and rigidity that comes with it. Instead of thinking about cultures in terms of ranking, try to understand the history of why a culture is a certain way and appreciate why other cultures are not like that.

mannykannot 2y ago

Race is not mentioned in the article. Ironically, you are doing the very thing, here, which you claim spoils it. The mention of culture is not out of place in the article, as the marshmallow test (which features quite prominently in it, including in its actual title) does have different outcomes in different cultures, and, in addition, it is hardly controversial to suppose that the way children are brought up is an important factor in establishing and maintaining a culture's cohesion.

Aurornis 2y ago

> The hardest part for parents today seems to be putting their phone down. > And I tell you, I wish I never had a smartphone at all. Being self-aware of phone use is 80% of the battle. I also read a lot on my phone. Most of my screen time is in the books app. Early on I decided to leave the phone on the charger in the mornings and evenings before the kids are in bed. Problem solved. The biggest trap I see in my circle is the mental gymnastics of blaming everyone else for their own excessive phone use. It becomes easier to overuse a phone when they blame the algorithm or the companies for “making” them use the phone more than they want. Some people read stories about apps being made to be addictive and feel relieved because it offloads responsibility away from their decision making. In the addiction treatment world it’s acknowledged that if someone can’t control their own behavior then they need even more controls and accountability, not to cede all responsibility for their actions to the addictive thing they’re drawn to. That usually means making decisions to shape their environment to keep them away from addictive behaviors, but for some reason many people see headlines about “the algorithm” and addictive apps and decide it’s futile to resist. Making the decision to leave my phone on the charger during kid time was one of the higher ROI decisions I’ve made in my life. I used a smart watch to get any urgent notifications if I really needed them.

bluGill 2y ago

> I became a parent before I was ready Me too, and I was almost 40 before I had my first. Worse, the affects of age is already showing in my body and so physically I'm less prepared than when I was 20. For others reading this, you will never be ready. However it is still worth it. I encourage you take the plunge, and don't wait to long. You will never be ready. (of course not having kids is the right choice for some of you, I'll let you judge your own reasoning - if it is just fear go for it, but there are plenty of good reasons not to)

silisili 2y ago
Yeah, I wasn't and didn't mean to imply I was too young, late 20s, just wasn't emotionally prepared or 'mature' enough I felt like, at first. Maybe that's normal for everyone. I don't know how 18 year olds do it! > For others reading this, you will never be ready That's probably a sage takeaway. Thanks, it's comforting to hear others experience similar thoughts.

ryandrake 2y ago

> The hardest part for parents today seems to be putting their phone down. Kids are great at detecting hypocrisy. You can't tell them to not be addicted to their phone when you yourself are addicted to your phone. You have to set a good example. I'm not much of an "idle scroller" but I try to limit my phone use to after the kid is in bed. When I visibly use my phone in front of her, I make it a point to show that I'm using it as a tool to do something, and then I put it away when that something is done. If they see you sitting on the couch all evening mindlessly scrolling Instagram, they're going to think that's OK. Just like past kids saw their parents sitting on their couch all evenings watching TV.

pertymcpert 2y ago

> Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? That has a huge impact btw. If you don't think so you're insane. - Someone who grew up in 2 different continents.

7thaccount 2y ago

>"Now she's 13, knows it all, and doesn't want to be picked up anymore. And I tell you, I wish I never had a smartphone at all." Geez this hits hard. I've been pretty aware of it though, so I try to spend as much time with my daughter as possible without smothering her. I tell my wife almost daily that she's going to regret not getting off her smartphone and spending more time with her when she could. I'm not some soothsayer, but it seems pretty obvious to me.

pmarreck 2y ago

> Like the race or location If all you have is a racism hammer, everything looks like a racist screed I guess. The only point I saw made is that cultures matter. There should be nothing wrong with that. You're reading malevolence into it. Stop that, please.

silisili 2y ago
I've really tried to stop replying to every bait reply, because I don't think long arguments are productive or that we'll reach a middle ground. But this for some reason struck a nerve. I never claimed racism at all? "It's not racism, it's culture" is literally a white supremacist talking point. To be clear, I'm not accusing you of that. My claim is that you can't make country wide generalizations, and yes, attempting to do so by culture is doing so by race. I'd bet if I brought up how foreigners in Japan score on tests, you'd then claim it's not real Japanese. Because you meant ethnic Japanese people. But that's way, way harder in the US. Is it white culture, that doesn't really exist? Would you be surprised to learn that most people born in the US today are not white? Is 'American culture' the hispanic immigrant family getting by in Fresno? Or is the the Indian spelling bee winner from Virginia? Or is it the white farmer kid from Nebraska? Or the black inner city kid in Chicago? At some point you have to pick one, they have little 'culture' in common. But I'm not asking anyone to pick one, or defending any race. I'm saying such generalizations are stupid. Culture pretty heavily implies race, perhaps not location, unless one pretends to be race blind.
- pmarreck 2y ago
  OK. > "It's not racism, it's culture" is literally a white supremacist talking point I was not aware of this, and I always thought (independently, without consuming whatever white-supremacist propaganda might have mentioned this) that it made more sense to realize that cultural differences are really what is at play most of the time when people conflate them with racial differences. Cultural differences also make more sense to frame things in since they are mutable.