Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

450 J HOW THE MIND WORKSanything their parents foist on them. Weary parents know they are nomatch for a child's peers, and rightly obsess over the best neighborhood inwhich to bring their children up. Many successful people immigrated tothis country as children and were not handicapped in the least by culturallyinept parents who never learned the language or customs. As aresearcher of language development I have always been struck by the wayin which children rapidly pick up the language (especially the accent) oftheir peers, though they spend more time with their parents.Why aren't children putty in parents' hands? Like Trivers and Harris, Isuspect it is because children's genetic interests overlap only partly withtheir parents'. Children take their calories and protection from their parents,because their parents are the only ones willing to provide them, butthey get their information from the best sources they can find and forgetheir strategies for dealing with life themselves. Their own parents maynot be the wisest and most knowledgeable adults around, and worse, therules at home are often stacked against the children in favor of their bornand unborn siblings. And as far as reproduction is concerned, the homeis a dead end. The child will have to compete for mates, and before thatfor the status necessary to find and keep them, in other arenas, whichplay by different rules. The child had better master them.The conflict of interest between parents and offspring is unacknowledgedin our public discourse about children. In most times and places, theadvantage has been to the parents, and they have wielded their power ascruel tyrants. This century has seen the tables turn. Child-welfare expertsflood the bookstores with parenting manuals and the government with policyadvice. All politicians paint themselves as friends of children and theiropponents as enemies. Childrearing manuals used to advise mothers onhow to make it through the day. With Dr. Spock, the spotlight fell on thechild and the mother became a nonperson, there only to create mentalhealth in the child and to take the blame if the child turned out bad.The child-welfare revolution was one of the great liberation movementsof all time, but like all realignments of power, it can go too far.Feminist social critics have argued that mothers' interests have beenerased by the child-care gurus. In discussing her book The Myths ofMotherhood, Shari Thurer notes: