A lot. This would probably be the most common answer to the question. Simply stated, parents matter a great deal for the success of their children. But... what is it, what really matters, who the parents are or what parents do? Or both? The answer doesn’t seem so obvious in this case. Who the parents are (in terms of social class, education and shared values, for instance) seems clearly important. What parents do, judging by the number of books on child-rearing techniques, seems to matter a lot too. Well, not really. Statistical analysis suggests the opposite.

A good friend of mine lent me ‘Freakonomics’, an untypical book which she almost literally devoured. At first sight, I found the title and the cover attractive, but the subtitle ‘A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything’ too pretentious. Now, after having read the book, I think it fits the contents (although I still find it a wee bit pretentious). The book analyzes data about the world around us and comes up with surprising (and sometimes shocking) answers to innocent questions. I will give too examples from the book.

The first example is an answer to the next question: What mainly caused the sudden decrease of criminality in the US in the early 90s? Steven Levitt’s analysis ruled out commonly believed factors like a strong economy, innovative policing strategies, increased number of police, tougher gun-control laws, and others. He found that the most important factor by far was the legalization of abortion. By preventing unwanted children being born, the rate of crime began to plummet. Although astonishing and controversial, data prove it to be true. The book deeply discusses this issue.

Coming back to parenting, the clever analysis of Levitt & Dubner suggests that the effort of overbearing parents doesn’t pay of. They say that, as a parent, it does not matter much what you do, but who you are. If the government would provide free books to every family with little children or free access to museums, the kids would not improve performance at primary school on average. In fact, generally speaking, the number of books at home or visits to museums is an indicator of the parents’ education and how much they care about the education of their children. Hence, although the number of books at home is correlated to higher test scores of the children, there is no causality relationship. From the book: “By the time most people pick up a parenting book, it is far too late. Most of the things that matter were decided long ago—who you are, whom you married, what kind of life you lead. If you are smart, hardworking, well educated, well paid, and married to someone equally fortunate, then your children are more likely to succeed. (Nor does it hurt, in all likelihood, to be honest, thoughtful, loving, and curious about the world.) But it isn’t so much a matter of what you do as a parent; it’s who you are.”