When girls are developed to understand these factors and how they will impact their children we may see some change. The culture needs to change and yes appropriate judgement brought to bear on single parenthood.
Girls need to be taught from a young age to value themselves and not allow men to dictate the rules of the game for them. "This is what I want: A MAN, a mature adult who knows what he wants and is willing to commit himself to his family. If you still want to play around, little boys, have at it, but you won't with me."
One question I have about the above analysis regards the characterization of "Asian" parents as "nurturing." If we narrow down "Asian" to immigrants to the U.S. from China or Taiwan, I would describe the behavior of parents as putting relentless, severe pressure on children to be "The Best" academically, vocationally and as a result of those things, economically and socially. Like all such cultures, there is a very narrow range of occupational choices that are approved routes to the above climb to the summit, and children's individual talents and preferences are secondary at most. In addition, the child's success or failure in attaining this rarified goal is viewed as a reflection on his or her family, so failure means that the whole family loses face and it is the child's fault. The expectation in Chinese and Taiwanese cultures is that children and adults perform perfectly, so mistakes or falling short of perfection commonly bring on intense feelings of shame and anxiety. In the U.S., people who function like this are regarded as obsessive-compulsive.
So, when statistics are quoted about how many hours Chinese American parents spend "helping" their kids with homework, we should take a close look at what is going on between the parents and children during those five or whatever number of hours per night. I find nothing worth emulating in a parenting model that cheats children out of their childhood and replaces it with a daily round of crushing pressure, work and criticism.
There is a vast range of options between what goes on in a culture that emphasizes academic and professional achievement and one that does not support this kind of focus or discipline at all. Let's not replace one form of social pathology with the other extreme.
Thanks for your comment. Many of us have read or heard about Amy Chua's book about "Tiger Moms." There may be a group of Asian parents who fit the profile you described in your comment. My experience, with an admittedly small sample size, is that most Asian parents care deeply about their children and do all they can to help them reach their full potential. All the Pew Research analysis about Asian families I've seen confirms this. A recent Pew documentary about Asian families who are at or below the poverty line illustrates this point as well:
You can't help but sense the genuine affection between the parents featured in this film and their young adult children.
Another thing to consider, given your opening paragraph, is that children of Chinese and Taiwanese heritage only account for 19% of Asian children 18 and younger, as of 2021, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Use this link if you want to do a deep dive:
Thank you for your response and for the links you provided. I will delve into them.
I focused my comments on Chinese and Taiwanese Americans because "Asians" consist of many cultures with many different characteristics, spread over a vast area. If I were a member of one of those cultures, I would not appreciate the fact that Americans fail to differentiate between Japan, India, Viet Nam, etc.
Why is it that my people (African Americans) need so much care and feeding to excel? Why is so much development necessary? Are the exterior barriers (systematic racism) the sole culprit in 2024 or even a culprit? I doubt it. This is a wild tangent but I see corollaries with the dialogue around underperforming black NFL quarterbacks (when it comes to the passing, not their running game). I see in ‘my community’ so many excuses like ‘oh he had to deal with a coaching carousel, bad offensive line, no wide receivers. Everything has to line up perfectly for them to excel. Always an excuse. I see the same thing in the broader discourse.
Another excellent article by Mr. Roscoe. Fact based and insightful. Last paragraph says it all. Unfortunately, politicians are not going to solve this issue. The left has to have victims and attacks meritocracy. They will scream racism anytime anyone talks about fathers or focusing on education. Too many on the right do not understand the importance of the right type of support and help to get people started in the right direction. We will see unicorns first. Pastor Corey Brooks in Chicago and Robert Woodson have it right that these things need to be addressed locally on the streets and in families to start. Help is not coming from DC or state houses. So sad that so much talent will be wasted. Mr Roscoe needs to keep writing…he may be the next Thomas Sowell of our time
Avoid societal norms of hard work, family, and frugality at your own peril. These basic laws of despair avoidance have been mischaracterized by the left as racist/patriarchal/etc. since the Moynihan report.
The percentage are helpful but I also think about this in pure numbers in the applicant pool. CDC data shows there are about 73 million children in America. About 47 million of the 73 million kids live in two parent households (highest chance of despair avoidance). Only 3.2 million of those 47 million are black.
44 million non-black kids with a good chance vs. only 3 million black kids. That is crazy.
Glenn, I am a white man of your age, brought up in Southern Rhodesia where 'white privilege' was a fact of life. We lived 'cheek by jowl' with blacks, and their families were loved a reverred as ours were to them. We held them in such high regard that it was painful to have to refuse them anything. They were loveable people. I can assure you our demise was unfair, unjust and tragic, to all of us white and black. We escaped Africa, unfortunately our beloved black friends coulod not.
Glenn, it is all in the developmental narrative, and with a little luck.
No objection here but these things have been understood for a long time, yet they have been kept entirely out of the generally psychotic public discourse. Students learn that they shouldn't trust the white man's statistics but believe in "intersectionality" instead, rather than learn what it means to check how much variance is explained by one variable or another. I couldn't get my kids to deal with any facts while they were at Berkeley, for instance. They brought home trash like The New Jim Crow for assigned reading. When young adults are taught that that's part of a quality education, rather than something to be studied as a piece of propaganda, along with Mein Kampf, we're in serious trouble. The Berkeley professors would probably get canceled if they also assigned Thomas Sowell, just for contrast. I don't blame him for being as cynical as he is, having looked helplessly at this for decades. The MSM discourse replaced "poor people" with "people of color". During the pandemic, we got daily diatribes in the press about how the POC were being killed disproportionately, and the head physician of a hospital got fired for saying that the medical profession was not providing or refusing care on the basis of race. IOW, the mainstream discourse is completely delusional. Thus the reverse discrimination will continue, while the people who benefit from the corruption will keep crying the blues of racism that hasn't had any justification for decades already. And my family and friends will continue to keep burying their heads in the sand, and cover their ears, and think I'm crazy, or mysteriously a racist, in spite of my record, which isn't compatible with that idea. It's the same denial I see in the people "on the other side", justifying the Trump candidacy. Sorry for bringing that up, too.
Re: Roscoe. If a culture is wanting, positive policy changes may help, but those policies are not sufficient to correct what is endemic in a culture. Positive correction requires something far deeper.
Significant fractions of the white and hispanic populations in the US are following the failed subpopulation of the african-american population into social collapse, just a few generations later, roughly as Julius Wilson would have predicated. Heckman noted several decades ago that the children of college educated mothers were a standard deviation about the children of high school dropouts at age 2, and this difference tended not to change much by the time the kids turned 18. As Edie DeBoer noted, the schools can't fix the issue. And they have tried really really hard. My son-in-law's route out was a stint in the Marines, but a lot of the boys we are talking about couldn't get into the service if they tried. It is really hard for single mothers to raise boys - in general boys need rather strong guidance to keep them close enough to the straight and narrow.
I prefer to think of it as the nature of cycles, that the beginning of each contains the seeds of its own destruction. The question is what comes next?
I would be remiss if I didn't mention Mark Sussman's fine work as an editor. His efforts make the final version of these posts so much better than the first draft. Thanks too to Glenn Loury for indulging my prattles.
And I would add there needs to be a post-secondary structure that builds these virtues as I don't think you can come out of the inner city/Appalachia education and community dysfunction discussed in these comments and have a chance at age 18. I've seen a few ideas to refocus the Army National Guard on training and get them out of the Global War on Terror, but not much else.
Roscoe's comments are in line with what conservatives have been shouting out as the main issues for decades and progressives close thier eyes and hold thier hands over their ears when presented these facts.
When "nature vs nurture" is invoked, it is often casually heard as a linear function of sorts -- an "either/or" scenario. I think it is important to point out the recursive relationship between nature and nurture. If a young child is denied opportunity, it not only impacts his development in real time, but also the biological *potential* for his future development. On average, such a child will have difficulty catching up to his peers despite external intervention or even his own propensity for hard work. Measuring group differences in adults is therefore an entirely different exercise than attempting to evaluate them in children. And while observed group differences are likely to be especially pronounced on the right tail of the distribution, and stir controversy as such, focusing on university demographics does very little to lead us to factors of causation.
1. David Shenk argued in his book, "The Genius in All of Us," that it's the interaction between nature and nurture that determines measured ability. Books by Malcolm Gladwell ("Outliers"), Geoff Colvin ("Talent is Overrated"), and Daniel Coyle ("The Talent Code") suggest that people of middling ability can learn to do exceptional things with the right coaching and training.
2. The gaps we see in children seem to persist into adulthood. The differences in NAEP scores for K-12 children don't vary much from differences in SAT and ACT scores or differences in MCAT and LSAT scores.
Another article with all sorts of statistics, graphs and 8 x 10 glossy photos. (this is not to belittle Mr. Roscoes' letter) The debates, conversations go on and on about periphery subjects of whatever new phrase someone deems important. Obviously I am not an "intellectual" and don't have the research power of all that are interviewed and printed here. But, getting back to the periphery subjects because, IMHO, the first and foremost subject should be What is the Root Cause of all these discussions put out in the ethers? I say the Cause is the War on Poverty. Nothing has done more harm to low income families, parents and individuals. And Nobody is talking about how to reverse this atrocity.
Obviously, not all WoP legislation has had a negative effect (or has it?) Then again, if there was a rational, common sense plan, you would have to have those same traits in a President and a majority of Congress. Ya, that's going to happen.
Is there even one person doing this kind of research and gathering data?
Glenn has written on Moynihan's essays regarding root causes which are primarily family formation and Clifton links Melissa Kearney’s book, The Two-Parent Privilege which is representative of most of the academic work. But yes, social capital is hard so you don't see much writing on solutions.
When girls are developed to understand these factors and how they will impact their children we may see some change. The culture needs to change and yes appropriate judgement brought to bear on single parenthood.
Girls need to be taught from a young age to value themselves and not allow men to dictate the rules of the game for them. "This is what I want: A MAN, a mature adult who knows what he wants and is willing to commit himself to his family. If you still want to play around, little boys, have at it, but you won't with me."
One question I have about the above analysis regards the characterization of "Asian" parents as "nurturing." If we narrow down "Asian" to immigrants to the U.S. from China or Taiwan, I would describe the behavior of parents as putting relentless, severe pressure on children to be "The Best" academically, vocationally and as a result of those things, economically and socially. Like all such cultures, there is a very narrow range of occupational choices that are approved routes to the above climb to the summit, and children's individual talents and preferences are secondary at most. In addition, the child's success or failure in attaining this rarified goal is viewed as a reflection on his or her family, so failure means that the whole family loses face and it is the child's fault. The expectation in Chinese and Taiwanese cultures is that children and adults perform perfectly, so mistakes or falling short of perfection commonly bring on intense feelings of shame and anxiety. In the U.S., people who function like this are regarded as obsessive-compulsive.
So, when statistics are quoted about how many hours Chinese American parents spend "helping" their kids with homework, we should take a close look at what is going on between the parents and children during those five or whatever number of hours per night. I find nothing worth emulating in a parenting model that cheats children out of their childhood and replaces it with a daily round of crushing pressure, work and criticism.
There is a vast range of options between what goes on in a culture that emphasizes academic and professional achievement and one that does not support this kind of focus or discipline at all. Let's not replace one form of social pathology with the other extreme.
Thanks for your comment. Many of us have read or heard about Amy Chua's book about "Tiger Moms." There may be a group of Asian parents who fit the profile you described in your comment. My experience, with an admittedly small sample size, is that most Asian parents care deeply about their children and do all they can to help them reach their full potential. All the Pew Research analysis about Asian families I've seen confirms this. A recent Pew documentary about Asian families who are at or below the poverty line illustrates this point as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLToYbKw_ho
You can't help but sense the genuine affection between the parents featured in this film and their young adult children.
Another thing to consider, given your opening paragraph, is that children of Chinese and Taiwanese heritage only account for 19% of Asian children 18 and younger, as of 2021, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Use this link if you want to do a deep dive:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_102.20.asp?current=yes
Thank you for your response and for the links you provided. I will delve into them.
I focused my comments on Chinese and Taiwanese Americans because "Asians" consist of many cultures with many different characteristics, spread over a vast area. If I were a member of one of those cultures, I would not appreciate the fact that Americans fail to differentiate between Japan, India, Viet Nam, etc.
Why is it that my people (African Americans) need so much care and feeding to excel? Why is so much development necessary? Are the exterior barriers (systematic racism) the sole culprit in 2024 or even a culprit? I doubt it. This is a wild tangent but I see corollaries with the dialogue around underperforming black NFL quarterbacks (when it comes to the passing, not their running game). I see in ‘my community’ so many excuses like ‘oh he had to deal with a coaching carousel, bad offensive line, no wide receivers. Everything has to line up perfectly for them to excel. Always an excuse. I see the same thing in the broader discourse.
Another excellent article by Mr. Roscoe. Fact based and insightful. Last paragraph says it all. Unfortunately, politicians are not going to solve this issue. The left has to have victims and attacks meritocracy. They will scream racism anytime anyone talks about fathers or focusing on education. Too many on the right do not understand the importance of the right type of support and help to get people started in the right direction. We will see unicorns first. Pastor Corey Brooks in Chicago and Robert Woodson have it right that these things need to be addressed locally on the streets and in families to start. Help is not coming from DC or state houses. So sad that so much talent will be wasted. Mr Roscoe needs to keep writing…he may be the next Thomas Sowell of our time
I'm not in Thomas Sowell's league, but I appreciate the very kind words.
Avoid societal norms of hard work, family, and frugality at your own peril. These basic laws of despair avoidance have been mischaracterized by the left as racist/patriarchal/etc. since the Moynihan report.
The percentage are helpful but I also think about this in pure numbers in the applicant pool. CDC data shows there are about 73 million children in America. About 47 million of the 73 million kids live in two parent households (highest chance of despair avoidance). Only 3.2 million of those 47 million are black.
44 million non-black kids with a good chance vs. only 3 million black kids. That is crazy.
Glenn, I am a white man of your age, brought up in Southern Rhodesia where 'white privilege' was a fact of life. We lived 'cheek by jowl' with blacks, and their families were loved a reverred as ours were to them. We held them in such high regard that it was painful to have to refuse them anything. They were loveable people. I can assure you our demise was unfair, unjust and tragic, to all of us white and black. We escaped Africa, unfortunately our beloved black friends coulod not.
Glenn, it is all in the developmental narrative, and with a little luck.
No objection here but these things have been understood for a long time, yet they have been kept entirely out of the generally psychotic public discourse. Students learn that they shouldn't trust the white man's statistics but believe in "intersectionality" instead, rather than learn what it means to check how much variance is explained by one variable or another. I couldn't get my kids to deal with any facts while they were at Berkeley, for instance. They brought home trash like The New Jim Crow for assigned reading. When young adults are taught that that's part of a quality education, rather than something to be studied as a piece of propaganda, along with Mein Kampf, we're in serious trouble. The Berkeley professors would probably get canceled if they also assigned Thomas Sowell, just for contrast. I don't blame him for being as cynical as he is, having looked helplessly at this for decades. The MSM discourse replaced "poor people" with "people of color". During the pandemic, we got daily diatribes in the press about how the POC were being killed disproportionately, and the head physician of a hospital got fired for saying that the medical profession was not providing or refusing care on the basis of race. IOW, the mainstream discourse is completely delusional. Thus the reverse discrimination will continue, while the people who benefit from the corruption will keep crying the blues of racism that hasn't had any justification for decades already. And my family and friends will continue to keep burying their heads in the sand, and cover their ears, and think I'm crazy, or mysteriously a racist, in spite of my record, which isn't compatible with that idea. It's the same denial I see in the people "on the other side", justifying the Trump candidacy. Sorry for bringing that up, too.
Re: Roscoe. If a culture is wanting, positive policy changes may help, but those policies are not sufficient to correct what is endemic in a culture. Positive correction requires something far deeper.
Significant fractions of the white and hispanic populations in the US are following the failed subpopulation of the african-american population into social collapse, just a few generations later, roughly as Julius Wilson would have predicated. Heckman noted several decades ago that the children of college educated mothers were a standard deviation about the children of high school dropouts at age 2, and this difference tended not to change much by the time the kids turned 18. As Edie DeBoer noted, the schools can't fix the issue. And they have tried really really hard. My son-in-law's route out was a stint in the Marines, but a lot of the boys we are talking about couldn't get into the service if they tried. It is really hard for single mothers to raise boys - in general boys need rather strong guidance to keep them close enough to the straight and narrow.
I'll say this, I enjoy Roscoe's posts. as much as the original
Thanks for the kind words
Remember, 60 years later and trillions of dollars spent, this is as good as it gets.
I prefer to think of it as the nature of cycles, that the beginning of each contains the seeds of its own destruction. The question is what comes next?
I would be remiss if I didn't mention Mark Sussman's fine work as an editor. His efforts make the final version of these posts so much better than the first draft. Thanks too to Glenn Loury for indulging my prattles.
Speaking of prattling, is there an e-mail address for submissions to be considered?
And I would add there needs to be a post-secondary structure that builds these virtues as I don't think you can come out of the inner city/Appalachia education and community dysfunction discussed in these comments and have a chance at age 18. I've seen a few ideas to refocus the Army National Guard on training and get them out of the Global War on Terror, but not much else.
Sorry, meant to reply to Saul.
Roscoe's comments are in line with what conservatives have been shouting out as the main issues for decades and progressives close thier eyes and hold thier hands over their ears when presented these facts.
When "nature vs nurture" is invoked, it is often casually heard as a linear function of sorts -- an "either/or" scenario. I think it is important to point out the recursive relationship between nature and nurture. If a young child is denied opportunity, it not only impacts his development in real time, but also the biological *potential* for his future development. On average, such a child will have difficulty catching up to his peers despite external intervention or even his own propensity for hard work. Measuring group differences in adults is therefore an entirely different exercise than attempting to evaluate them in children. And while observed group differences are likely to be especially pronounced on the right tail of the distribution, and stir controversy as such, focusing on university demographics does very little to lead us to factors of causation.
Thanks for your comment. Two quick responses:
1. David Shenk argued in his book, "The Genius in All of Us," that it's the interaction between nature and nurture that determines measured ability. Books by Malcolm Gladwell ("Outliers"), Geoff Colvin ("Talent is Overrated"), and Daniel Coyle ("The Talent Code") suggest that people of middling ability can learn to do exceptional things with the right coaching and training.
2. The gaps we see in children seem to persist into adulthood. The differences in NAEP scores for K-12 children don't vary much from differences in SAT and ACT scores or differences in MCAT and LSAT scores.
Another article with all sorts of statistics, graphs and 8 x 10 glossy photos. (this is not to belittle Mr. Roscoes' letter) The debates, conversations go on and on about periphery subjects of whatever new phrase someone deems important. Obviously I am not an "intellectual" and don't have the research power of all that are interviewed and printed here. But, getting back to the periphery subjects because, IMHO, the first and foremost subject should be What is the Root Cause of all these discussions put out in the ethers? I say the Cause is the War on Poverty. Nothing has done more harm to low income families, parents and individuals. And Nobody is talking about how to reverse this atrocity.
Obviously, not all WoP legislation has had a negative effect (or has it?) Then again, if there was a rational, common sense plan, you would have to have those same traits in a President and a majority of Congress. Ya, that's going to happen.
Is there even one person doing this kind of research and gathering data?
Glenn has written on Moynihan's essays regarding root causes which are primarily family formation and Clifton links Melissa Kearney’s book, The Two-Parent Privilege which is representative of most of the academic work. But yes, social capital is hard so you don't see much writing on solutions.