Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion NYT opinion: No (rich) child left behind

HK re: cultural approaches to parenting, I will say that I have even observed extensively a subset of that religiously inspired authoritarian parenting style among educated professionals who reject some of the other choices commonly associated with it (i.e. traditional gender roles, homeschooling for religious purposes). There is A LOT of judgement around children unquestioningly obeying their parents and corporal punishment. I wonder what the long-term effects of this style of parenting will be on kids who have access to the other experiences referenced in the NYT article.

Charles Murray (co-author of The Bell Curve) argues in favor of the point. In fact, I first learned about the potential of adoption to increase IQ in his books.

But SES clearly matters for the portion of your statement I bolded. Low SES often means attending bad schools with limited resources. Low SES often means limited time with parents due to more immediate survival needs. Low SES often means living in an environment not conducive to the support of learning.

As I said in another thread, achievement is an intersection of ability, opportunity, and effort. SES is a dominant influence on the middle one.

OK. So I suppose I will confine my objections then to Bostonian's position in this and other past threads. I read Murray's book years ago and did not remember the details. Thank you for clarifying.

Due to a number of complaints about the context of this thread, and that it seems to be going off track, we have decided to close it for now.

After looking at this thread again, I may have locked it a bit early. Please feel free to continue the discussion, and please remain respectful in the conversation.

I would say this describes my father and one of his brothers, both of whom I would guess to be HG+ and most likely PG. Both raised in a very working class family with neither parent having completed highschool - but both parents stable, loving, attentive, supportive, etc. Three of the children have continued on to happy "normal" lives with only mild upward mobility in terms of education or SES. My Father graduated highschool 10th in the state, top in the state in one subject and was offered a full scholarship to an overseas university (which he was unable to take up due to health issues). His brother is internationally respected in his niche field and currently a professor at a local university. Neither my father or uncle ever had financial gain as a priority, so neither of them changed their economic status terribly much, but their social circumstances are very different from their siblings (or were different, in the case of my father).

While as stated above, I do object to calling a household with an income > 165K rich - once the 'R' word becomes 'high earners' then a different pattern emerges in my mind, at least.

'Higher earners' applies to those that are presumably in the occupations where the combination of luck and innate intelligence have brought them to a certain level - thus giving credence to the argument that hereditary factors are coming into play for their offspring.

However, the picture is obviously complicated by cultural factors, too. Those imbued with the a cultural ethos in which hard work and effort are valued tend to do better. And they do better regardless of race which is quite obviously hereditary.

The fact that high intelligence is found at all income levels (see Genius Denied) lends further weight to the argument that cultural factors play a large part in determining whether or not a child with high intelligence reaches his/her potential. It is simply untrue to say and the children of low earning households will automatically be stupid, right?

I think that more than anything else it comes down to parental values. 'High earners' tend to be people that have been to college and naturally expect the same from their children. I do not really understand why responsible parents that actively engage their children so that they can reach their potentials have to be pilloried.

I can tell you all that we in our household are not 'rich' and that we only have one child specifically because we will not be able to afford to put more than one through a decent college and we do not want to raise servants indentured to financial institutions (lenders). We also tend to spend money on supplementary books, trips to museums, hikes etc (things that do not cost an inordinate amount of money btw) instead of the latest electronic gizmo/hand held game platform or fashions.

Yes, that is untrue, but the children of low-earning parents do score lower *on average* on IQ and achievement tests, and fewer of them than children of high-earning parents score in the gifted range.

My daughter relayed specific questions from the WISC that I know, for a fact, she knew the answers to because she happened to be in the room, (or the car) while I was listening to NPR. That has nothing to do with innate intelligence. A child of a housekeeper (I know many of them personally due to my husband's line of work) who is working 12 hr. days to put food on the table is probably not choosing to listen to NPR while his mother is at work.