My View: Stephanie Smith

HOW many of us could claim to be a serene parent? How many of us would want to be one? After all, what has serenity – a laid-back approach to overseeing our children’s upbringing – got to do with modern parenting of the middle-class variety? That way lies regrettable under-achievement. Spare the over-protective, over-ambitious, over-controlling parental prodding rod, and your child will be spoiled. For ever more, you can torture yourself that, with a little more pushing, cajoling, even bullying, she or he could have achieved those 15 A*s and would now be on track for the glittering career that would have reflected so glowingly on your own excellent parenting skills and all-round good-eggedness.

Full-on, education-centred parenting is jolly hard work, but it’s worth it in the end. Or is it? Not according to parenting guru Dr Bryan Caplan, who urges parents to stop trying to control every aspect of their child’s life. Instead, he says parents should “cut themselves some slack”, and adopt a relaxed, fun approach to bringing up children, dubbed “serenity parenting”.

He says, “investment parenting” – pushing music lessons and educational games – doesn’t make any difference. It has a temporary effect, because children are malleable when young, but they will revert to type eventually.

Dr Caplan, of George Mason University, in the US, points to academic research on twins and adopted children, which found that parenting has a slight to zero long-term effect on success in later life. A child’s intelligence can be increased by parental interaction when they are young but, by 12, it’s made no difference.

This is disturbing news for pushy mothers everywhere, especially those who have given up careers to provide full-time secretarial and taxi services, additional home schooling and home-baked fairy cakes on Bring a Bun to School day. But they are in themselves proving Dr Caplan’s point – no matter how much you are pushed, if you are destined to be an at-home mother, that’s what you will be. Don’t kid yourself that you’re doing it for your children; chances are, your daughters will turn out to be just like you anyway. All that pushing, and for what? Then again, this is welcome, conscience-salving news for lazy parents and working mothers who have been too tired, too stressed and too absent to spend hours supervising homework and taking children to music lessons.

Dr Caplan advises: “Quit fretting over how much TV your kids watch. Don’t force them to do a million activities they hate. Accept that your children’s lives are shaped mostly by their genes and their own choices, not by the sacrifices you make.”

Is he right? Probably, to an extent. But he is forgetting that it’s also in our genes to try our best for our children, and to feel guilt when we fail, even if our efforts get them nowhere. So cut all parents some slack.