“If the ‘research’ alleges that whether you behave morally or immorally, it makes no difference, does that make immoral behaviour unobjectionable?”
– Sarah Fitz-Claridge
“We are discovering through twin studies that the environment, and more specifically the shared environment (which parents can influence), has relatively little impact on how people turn out. How does this interact with your strong claims that people are harmed and changed by coercive parenting?”
(See also: Is the purpose of taking children seriously to avoid the harm coercion would do?)
If what parents do has relatively little impact on how the children turn out, then why do children need to be coerced?
Although studies have shown that parents have no effect on children, nevertheless, children growing up in Islamist countries grow up different from British children. Now you might say that it is the peer group that makes the difference, but in that case look at children who grow up in Britain but whose parents are Islamists. Growing up in Britain, they learn to speak English in a British way and so on, but if their parents are Islamists who believe in honour killing, then this British child who looks and talks like a British child and has British friends, may well nevertheless grow up believing in honour killing and murder his sister, and he didn’t learn that from his British peer group.
People are not determined by their environment; they are not determined by their parents; but their environment and their parents are relevant because what they are determined by is their own thinking, and that is not determined by anything, but what they think about is influenced by what people do to them. And the aim ought to be for people to grow up taking whatever they want from the world’s culture, and not taking the stuff that they do not want.
If the ‘research’ alleges that whether you behave morally or immorally, it makes no difference, does that make immoral behaviour unobjectionable?
See also:
- Is the purpose of taking children seriously to avoid the harm coercion would do?
- Curious young children taking things apart
- Identifying coercion is itself a creative task
Sarah Fitz-Claridge, 2022, Taking Children Seriously FAQ: ‘Surely studies show that parents have little impact on how people turn out?’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/surely-studies-show-that-parents-have-little-impact-on-how-people-turn-out/