Comments on: All shook up

By: Maggie

Maggie — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 07:52:00 +0000

I’m a cryer too. I’d love to change that trait of mine, but what are you gonna do?

I posted about that article as well. I thought it was awful the way the article essentially pitted biological parents against adoptive parents. The discussion that ensued on msnbc was disturbing.

By: Space Mom

Space Mom — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:44:00 +0000

I haven’t read the study, but it seems odd to try to use Money as a way to show who is better…

I also cry when angry. Worse, I giggle when upset. When Luna was hospitalized at 8 months old and I was helping the nurses get a blood draw BEFORE they hydrated her I was laughing so hard I was crying. Now that gets me upset that I laugh when I am really really upset..

By: SBird

SBird — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 13:09:00 +0000

Yeah, so I read the whole dang study, all 22 pages, and it makes the very point that miss cellania raises, that there are no ‘accidental adoptions’ (except the study says something like, every one who adopts wants their child). But the interesting canoworms is that even after controlling for children who were not “planned” (and so controlling for substance abusers, young, low-income, etc.), the study STILL concludes that adoptive parents are more invested than bio parents in their children. They suggest that perhaps adopting parents had to overcome obstacles to parenthood that makes them less likely to take it for granted…

and, as you guess, they do not argue that money in and of itself makes you a better parent, only that you might better the opportunities available to your kids, and–have more time available for your kids.

By: bh

bh — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:04:00 +0000

You might find some of this researcher’s work interesting.
B Sacerdote at Dartmouth

I have not read any of this stuff carefully yet, though. And the study is mainly about economic outcomes, which is crude.

Here’s the abstract for one of the papers— “The Nature And Nurture of Economic Outcomes”

“This paper uses data on adopted children to examine the relative importance of biology and environment in determining educational and labor market outcomes. I employ three long-term panel data sets which contain information on adopted children, their adoptive parents, and their biological parents. In at least two of the three data sets, the mechanism for assigning children to adoptive parents is fairly random and does not match children to adoptive parents based on health, race, or ability. I find that adoptive parents’ education and income have a modest impact on child test scores but a large impact on college attendance, marital status, and earnings. In contrast with existing work on IQ scores, I do not find that the influence of adoptive parents declines with child age.”

By: Miss Cellania

Miss Cellania — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:30:00 +0000

Oh boy, this happens all the time. There is a statistical anomoly that any study like this should correct. The fact is that a lot of biological parents are accidental. There are no accidental adoptions.

Its not that adoptive prents are better, but as a group they may skew a better average because the bio parent group includes folks who weren’t ready or willing to be parents.

If the people who did these studies disqualified all families in which the children were not “planned”, I bet the results would show bio and adaoptive families are very close in most measurements. See, such a move would eliminate the youngest (and supposedly the less competent) parents. It would eliminate most substance abusers, and probably some low-income parents. What you’d have left is a population of bio parents who are a lot like adoptive parents.