Are modern parents obsessed with raising perfect children?
Are they missing the bigger picture? Parents can only affect their children to a limited extent.
In Do Parents Matter? anthropologists (and grandparents) Robert & Sarah LeVine investigate the diversity of parenting practices across the world – from the USA to Africa, Japan to Mexico – and come away with a reassuring conclusion: children tend to turn out to be the same well-adjusted adults all around the world no matter the parenting style.
Japanese children sleep with their parents well into primary school, women of the Hausa tribe (largely based in Nigeria) avoid verbal and eye contact with their toddlers; Western parenting frowns on both practices but Japanese children show higher than average levels of empathy while Hausa children seen quite content. The Levines’ fascinating global investigation reveals that children are influenced more by culture than by their parents.
This is the most in-depth survey of parenting practices across the world, and it has profound lessons for how parents should think about their children and families. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to parenting, free yourself from expert advice and learn to relax.
