Freakonomics: Perfect Parenting, Part I

When I first opened the book to find the title of this chapter, my first impression was what an oxymoronic thought. That there could ever be perfect parents, or for that matter perfect children is, to me, just is not going to ever happen. In the same sense I am not a perfect child, nor am I a perfect parent and I certainly did not help produce the perfect child. This chapter covered a number of interesting subtopics. All of which, as we are discovering, hold some degree of merit in their own unique ways.

The first subtopic covered was the notion that parents are poor risk assessors. I had to agree whole hearted with the gun in the home vs the swimming pool in the back yard. After better than 27 years as a full time emergency services responder, I have experienced one accidental shooting of a child under the age of 10. On the average, I responded to an average of 4-5 child death incidents each year of my career. The majority of those deaths were directly related to traumatic injuries such as falls, pedestrian struck and motor vehicle crashes. Falls off bicycles, down steps, out of windows, into pools and even off hay wagons. Struck by vehicles backing or forward both at high and low impact speeds. Lastly were those from motor vehicle crashes. The majority of the remaining cases I responded to, the death of the child was due to parents, or parent's significant others causing traumatic injuries. SIDS deaths accounted for only 2 of the incidents I have encountered. Not one child died of a gunshot wound caused as a result of a handgun in the home. In essence, I concurred with the authors on this subject.

I loved the author's assessment of experts as well. That the "experts" consistently contradicted each other and even themselves is so true. Just in the lifetime of my child the "experts" have waffled and or flipped opinions on so many child rearing issues. In part, it's sorta of like medicine. Wait long enough and what was once considered outdated will once again come back again as valid treatment.

The neatest information though had to be with the Chicago Public School (CPS) study. Wow! What I had thought made a difference did not and what I had thought would not make a difference did. The surprising "not" factors to me were;
*Intact family
*Mother not working between birth and Kindergarten
*Parents reading to child every day
*Visiting museums and regular spankings.

Surprising "were" factors were;
*Adopted
*Many books in home
*Child's birth weight and mother's age

Overall another very interesting and thought provoking chapter. Now if the authors could only show me sources for being a better parent to teenage girls!