> If an professional industry can be grown around child care, I think its better than having parents do infinite amount of harm to their kids.
We know that if you drink lots of alcohol while pregnant, you're going to harm your child. We also know that if you are abusive towards your children, they might end up with all sorts of psychological trauma.
But beyond that? Different parenting strategies probably have an effect on a kid's emotional and intellectual development, but the jury is still out on exactly how much of an effect and exactly what, then, the best parenting strategy is. So, doing an "infinite amount of harm" to your kids because you're somehow not a professional at raising kids? I don't think that's even possible.
-- but anyway, I very much agree with the main point of your comment; society seems to increasingly want to turn people into robots.
Kids are surprisingly resilient, and the weight of the scientific evidence we have suggests that once confounding factors like socioeconomic status are accounted for, parenting choices don't have a large impact on at least the objectively measurable aspects of outcomes (e.g. IQ, test scores, attention span).
I remember hearing a story of a mom flying on a French airline. They were liberal with the wine, but freaked out when she wanted a raw salad. Every culture is different when it comes to parenting :)
Early neglect and abuse have significant impacts on kids. Prenatal exposure to heroin is pretty gnarly too.
It's actually surprising how horrible the effects of neglect (especially during the first 24 months) is on kids. You're probably worse off as a kid if your mother didn't do drugs during pregnancy, but then is too high to consistently take care of you for the next two years.
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Also if your parent does anything to put you in the foster care system in the first 3 years of your life; the system tends to move kids around a lot, and sudden changes to the primary caregiver between 6 months and 3 years significantly increases the risk for attachment disorders.
Parents have to do a cost/benefit estimate and ask themselves rhetorically: are they social climbing through the kids "keeping up with the Jones'" and investing (or wasting) a large fraction of disposable income creating spoiled kids or creating lasting benefit? Could also be helicopter parenting meets academic overpressure, however there may be some value if subsequent schools look at, or are biased by, pedigree. That monoculture of demonstrated rarity which is a function of self-reinforcing exclusivity, i.e., just look at ASW. The likelihood of schools and other communal gatherings devolve into picky cliques is no surprise: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-psychology-of-...
We know that if you drink lots of alcohol while pregnant, you're going to harm your child. We also know that if you are abusive towards your children, they might end up with all sorts of psychological trauma.
But beyond that? Different parenting strategies probably have an effect on a kid's emotional and intellectual development, but the jury is still out on exactly how much of an effect and exactly what, then, the best parenting strategy is. So, doing an "infinite amount of harm" to your kids because you're somehow not a professional at raising kids? I don't think that's even possible.
-- but anyway, I very much agree with the main point of your comment; society seems to increasingly want to turn people into robots.