Scott Alexander

Scott writes, After many trials, tribulations, false starts, grabs, shrieks and attacks of opportunity, I finally made it to the part on how fun and easy this all was.

Kaplan's main argument is 1.

We spend much more time and effort on parenting than our parents and grandparents because we think the extra effort will make our kids better, happier, and more successful.

2.

But behavioral genetics finds that parenting doesn't make much difference to later life outcomes.

It's mostly either genes or inscrutable random seeds plus noise.

3.

So you can relax.

Don't run yourself ragged rushing your kids to gymnastics classes they don't even like.

Four, if you ask parents whether they're happy, you get different answers depending on what exact framing you use.

It's kind of a toss-up.

But people who understand and internalize the points above will have a better time than average.

So for them, kids are probably a great bet.

I buy the behavioral genetics.

I buy the ambiguous happiness results.

But how long do parents really spend on childcare?

And how easily can those numbers be cut?

How long do parents really spend on childcare?

Kaplan's most striking statistic is that fathers now spend more time with their kids than mothers did in 1960.

Not because gender roles have changed, but because both parents' workload has been growing in tandem.