We’ve kicked around the parenting issue before on The Corner, me taking the deterministic view that, within certain gross extremes, parenting style probably doesn’t matter much to the finished product (i.e., adult human being). Judith Rich Harris popularized this view in The Nurture Assumption (1998), but the evidence had been building for decades. In this past weekend’s edition of the Wall Street Journal, the human-science folk limped up to explain it once more:

Parents also strive to turn their children into smart and happy adults, but behavioral geneticists find little or no evidence that their effort pays off.… Behavioral geneticists also find that the effect of upbringing on morals is quite superficial. Parents have a strong effect on which religion and political party their kids identify with, but little on their adult behavior or outlook.

Hazlitt pretty much got it right: Most of what you are was there when you were born. The rest is lagniappe. And sure, I know you don’t like it: but Mother Nature — unlike, one hopes, your actual mother — doesn’t care what you like. And you can at least put some positive demographic spin on that WSJ piece. Have more kids, but don’t fuss over them so much. Parents may not have much control over quality, but they are still the complete masters of quantity.