References for this ramble:
Initial Condition
Early Childhood Brain Development and Workforce Development
AAP Resources
Lick Your Rats
Ok. I have reading alot of the stuff above re my day job. When i hit the papers re the rats & mice though, i then thought about the following.
What is the "survival value" of what we normally deem, "bad parenting?
My thought path on this is a good example of of number of things:
We make moral judgments, the rest of nature does not.
Evolution via natural selection is not teleological.
Sensitivity to initial conditions.
Increasing the quality of a workforce, reducing crime and reduction of some
healthcare costs, may be both complex and expensive, in a pecuniary based economy model.
A sketch, (assuming you have read the stuff above, me lazy)
Rodent model
If "high contact" & non-violent to offspring parent, then
In baby serotonin high, cortisol re-uptake high.
Offspring grow to be calm, curious, friendly
If "low contact" &/or violent environment of parent, then
In baby serotonin low, cortisol re-uptake low.
Offspring grow to be hypervigilant and aggressive
Generally
If you add in the stuff known about human brain development...
How a child is parented is highly dependent on the environment.
From the "selfish gene" POV, with human moral overlay aside, "good" parenting is a continuum with placement along it tied to the genes & environment of the parent.
For example, if in a male dominant vertical dominance human hierarchy, it could be argued that an optimum "selfish gene" strategy for a phenotype would be:
If female; breed early and confuse paternity *
If male; hyper-vigilance and aggression
In my day job, One of things i teach is the importance of early brain development/high contact parenting to workforce development. But, here is an interesting ethical question. In a time of increasing economic disparity, economic stratification and socio-economic simplification, what is "good" parenting, for who?
* 1999: Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection. New York: Pantheon. Published in UK as Mother Nature: Natural selection and
the female of the species. London: Chatto and Windus);. ISBN 0-679-44265-0.
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