YouSaid · the spoken record

Megan McArdle

lines on the record: 37
first: 2017-09-05
most recent: 2017-09-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, so here's the thing I don't really necessarily know the extent to which good or bad parent is going to improve or not improve how their child performs long term at their life. But what I am very confident about, and I think probably no parent would disagree, is that the way that parents interact with their children is going to affect the day-to-day interactions between the parent and the child, which is going to affect the parent and the child's relationship at the very least for the rest of their life. If you have positive interactions with your kids that are mutually rewarding for both of you, it's going to make the experience of being a parent better for you, and it's going to make the experience of being a kid better for your child. And so even if at the end of the day it doesn't or does or doesn't affect the adult that your child becomes, there's still reason to focus on how to figure out how to have positive, mutually rewarding interactions with your kids.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it gives us also a mission to fulfill. Otherwise, well, we have fulfilled it in the first day by bringing out scrums and then we can relax. I think there are so many parents who behave that way.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do think that parenting styles matter. Evidence suggests that parents that interact with their children in a certain way tend to lead, for instance, to better results in school. If you take the PISA study and look at the questionnaire about how much time people spend reading books, talking politics with their children, well, you see a significant effect. I think we have a sufficient number of empirical observations that suggest that parenting styles. I also think that the way parents interact with their children is a very important predictor of how future society is shaped. I want to make clear that the alternative is to believe that genetic factors are the most important element of the play.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In a very competitive and segregated system like the United States or the United Kingdom, the success in school opens the door of success in the labor market. In other systems like in Sweden, there is much less of an emphasis on grades admission to highly school and the system is altogether more homogenous. And so this makes somehow the system of incentive provided by the school very different. China has this very dramatic examination at the end of high school and everything in the school system gets geared towards operation. So, this, of course, generates a system of incentive in parents, which is very particular also in children, of course, in trying to prepare and succeed because getting top spot and ending up in Pecking University or in Xinghua University is very different from going to a small provincial university”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, and I liked that you said this is possibly one of the benefits of the permissive style because we tend to think right now that authoritative is probably the best blend and too permissive is not good. But actually here's one large cultural side effect or benefit of having this more permissive style is this value of independence that comes out. How is parenting style tied to education systems, the organization of the school systems, especially within different countries?”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think if I may say this is one of the virtues of the permissive printing style, by letting children learn from their own mistake and take the decision their instinct would drive them too, people develop the capacity to make decisions. In some of these countries like Scandinavian countries, people develop an extremely good capacity to cooperate, to work in team because on the one hand there is less competitive pressure and at the same time people somehow become more adult and independent driven earlier on.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Incentive a more macro perspective when you ask parents in different parts of the world what values are in their opinion most important well again in Sweden you have as many as 80% of them that regard independence as one of the cardinal value if you take the United States that percentage is just above 50%”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's kind of a self fulfilling. I mean, it's nice to feel needed. So there's an incentive for parents to keep doing that beyond just the child's best interests. It's because it actually feels good to the parent, right? To be needed in that way.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. You also want to raise children into adults that will become adults that are self sufficient, at least insofar as they can make decisions on their own rather than with the help of their parents.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even just helping the decision making because one of the real skills that children need to learn in order to be functioning adults in our society is how to evaluate the options that are in front of them, how to figure out what options they really do have, and how to decide which options to pursue. And if the parents are sort of too involved in that process, kids don't learn how to make decisions on their own. And so it can feel like for a parent that you're very hands off. You know, I'm not telling my kid what decision to make. I'm just helping them make their decisions.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Important to kind of think about two ways that parents can be over involved in their children and two ways that they create moral hazard for their kids. One is by being overinvolved in terms of protecting their kids from bad things and steering their kids towards what the parentcy is good things. But I also think that there is a way that parents can be overprotective with their kids, and that is involving themselves too much in the kids' decision-making process. So I can still as a parent say, let my kid define for him or herself the life that that child would want, but be very involved in”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. But of course, exactly the other side is felt by governments and parents alike because you don't want to let your kid risk his life, you know? And so if you see him doing something that's really dangerous, it's not as though I would want to wag my finger at you and say, ah, moral hazard Kids need to learn how to internalize what risk is. And if they don't ever experience the downsides, the failures, the bad things that can come about from taking risks, their perception of risk is going to be skewed. And when they become adults, they'll engage in risky behavior. And then you as parents are no longer there to protect them. And it could be really catastrophic.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not that risky, right? What looks like risk is not risk because in the end, if things go badly, the risk will be borne, the downside of the risk will be borne by the government or by the public rather than the banks themselves. And so if the existence of insurance or the availability of a bailout is there, it actually encourages more dangerous behavior by the bank because it knows that in the really catastrophic events, it doesn't have to deal with the consequences. And the same thing is exactly the same tension that you feel, that if you're always there warning your kids about danger, protecting them from bad things, if you're always there to sort of provide them with a safety net, the kids themselves might start engaging in higher risk activities precisely because they know that mom or dad is always there to bail them out.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The idea of moral hazard is familiar from bank bailouts. If a bank knows that it's going to get bailed out, if things really go south for them, that encourages them to engage in higher risk activities because they know that there's a certain sort of safety net.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I definitely agree with you. And we talk about this because this is one of those cases where there's this really sort of bizarre connection that you would never think of unless you thought about it from an economic standpoint. There's this connection between this concept that economists have long worried about called moral hazard and helicopter parenting or exposing your kids to risk. What”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know. I mean, I feel like I'm aware of those tendencies in myself. I think it's Peter Gray who talks about how we're not exposing our kids enough to fear and risk and that they need these things to sort of inoculate themselves against to learn that it's okay and how to deal with it. And so I constantly am aware of this battle, right, where I'm like, well, I don't want to say be careful, but please be careful, you know, and it's like the helicopter urge of following your kid around when they're, you know, on a skateboard, on a cement skate ramp or whatever it is. But so it's, I think we all have those tendencies in different degrees. You're not universally a helicopter parent.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right, they would say that they are not the old style authoritative parts. They are rather very engaged parents but also obsessed with their children not making mistakes and providing an excess support that in the end was more into the control part.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, if I had to capture the element of this continuous presence of parents in the life of their children, I would say it's a mixture of authoritative and authoritarian, where authoritarian, since we sort of capture by the value of obedience, is probably more of a traditional way of being authoritarian parents.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Skill premium, educational premium, etc. In others less so, in Sweden, the proportion of parents that we classify as permissive has remained pretty much constant over time and is about 75% of the respondents, whereas in the United States that percentage is as low as 18%. And if I go to those we classify as authoritative parents, again in Sweden it has been low and it has not changed much over time. It's around 7%. In the United States it is as high as 45% and it has increased significantly over time. Where this authoritative element I think captures part also of this phenomenon of helicopter parents. How do you think?”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, if I think of technological change as a driver of economic inequality, then we find a large effect. If I look at the effect of technology on inequality in different countries that has resulted in some countries very large increasing of”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This perception of risk as something completely intolerable, but this together with the fact that technologically you can do more control. There are instruments for doing that. Society has created this cluster in which making the right encounter, going to the right school, giving the right answer in that particular interview. Everything tends to be so important that parents feel that they have some sort of duty to be there and to intervene and to protect their children, although in the end they come back fire.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Children make many more choices than they used to be. And the same access to technology you mentioned per se, if unmonitored, opens up a variety of potential action contacts that parents may or may not approve. So parents work very hard in trying to grow their children responsible and make their choices. If I think about the wrong type of thing I could have done when I was myself a child, they were somehow obvious type of things my parents could check. But if my daughters, which is now 18, when she was younger, she would have engaged in some type of activities, well, then it wouldn't have been so easy for me to figure out unless I engaged myself in a very extensive type of monitoring. On the one hand,”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought it was really interesting that you said that we know less of what kids are experiencing than we once did because I think in a lot of ways it feels like we actually know far more, right? With the technological tools and the way kids use technology, the way parents use technology, GPS data and texting and being always in touch and the way that schools send home information, there's ways in which we know a lot more. So how do you see that impacting different parenting styles?”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Education is also a powerful instrument for parents in exercising some control through influence and moral suasion on children. So if parents want to try to change the payoff in the game, so they try to change the way children behave by making them think differently in the game, well, more educated parents may have access to higher sophistication. But that's not to say that less educated parents are irrational. They may just have more limited set of instruments at disposal, which comes to the point also why education is negatively correlated with punishment, with corporal punishment. And one of the answers that, well, the set of strategy that more educated parents can play is more sophisticated and that leaves somehow parents who have less time. And lower education with a more simple way of intervening.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If in the end parents and children had exactly the same view of the world, there would be no game. So we go to the root of what makes parents and children see things differently. The interesting thing is that love that creates a common interest.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kids have access to all sorts of information the parents can't observe directly themselves, right? All parents here is the fight between the siblings in the next room. They don't know who started it because they weren't there. In situations where parents are worried that their children might be facing an incentive to deceive them, how can parents sort of design the social interaction to minimize the consequence of that deception or the incentive to do it?”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. I mean, every parent has to go through the struggle of teaching their kid why lying is wrong. Because kids will figure out at some point that they can get what they want by deceiving their parents.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I definitely think kids are rational. One of my favorite stories I've got it secondhand but was of an economist son who ran into the store and came out holding two candy bars and said, Dad, can I have two candy bars? And dad says, no, no, no, you can only have one. And the kid gets this giant smile on his face because, of course, he only wanted one, but he knew that if he asked for two, the compromise would be at one.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, they're more independent in the following way, let me say, which is that there's a lot of interactions that kids have where the parents aren't present. You know, a century or two centuries ago, kids weren't going to school. They weren't leaving the house. They weren't interacting over at friends' houses as much. One of the fundamental problems that modern parents face is the fact that in some respects, kids know more about what's going on in the kids' lives than the parents do. So, you know, your child is doing poorly in school and comes home and says, I'm working as hard as I can, you know, but I just can't manage to do well. We hear of parents face a real struggle because on the one hand, if the child is deceiving them is really not working that hard, a parent would like to do various things to encourage the child to work harder. On the other hand, if the kid really is working as hard as they can, and this is just the best they can do, it's counterproductive for the parent to criticize.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Game theory typically stipulates that payoffs are essentially given. Cultural economics have tried to put a new level of elaboration on that. So the idea that one of the investment an agent can make is in changing somehow the payoff of the other. We reason that way when we try to persuade children, the children are fighting on the back of the Another way some parents act is to try to convince day by day children that fighting in the back of the car is not worthy and it has some negative moral aspect. Go back one century or more, my grandparents, my grandparents generation, most of the interaction between parents and children was regulated by restrictions. So parents were telling children what they could do and what they could not do. We think they were doing it on the ground, again, on this altruism and paternalism”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, where do these two ways of interacting meet then, this sort of large picture of parents and children being aligned or not about the future and the now and the more micro daily strategic interactions that Kevin described?”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is an element of common interest between parents and children, the drive to success, and then there is an element of dissonance and diversity of views where parents care more for their children when they will be adult. Whether it's more the economic part of it or other way of enjoying life, when we think about parent and children, if we think that parent and children value them differently. So if both parents and children think that being a great painter is a good thing, this type of conflict does not arise.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Interesting. So you're describing the interaction of parenting basically as this combination of paternalism and altruism, but really having to do with whether you're thinking about the now or the future. I mean, but aren't those different ways of seeing things, basically kids really thinking about the now and parents thinking about their kids' future and what's best for the future? Isn't that kind of just the definition of parenting?”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. And by not designing the interaction in the right way, you end up putting yourselves in a no win situation. The kids have called your bluff. You don't want to cancel the vacation, but you also don't want to establish a reputation with your kids that your threats mean nothing. And so one of the things that game theory teaches, you want to design punishments or rewards for your kids that are possible for you to follow through on and that you want to follow through on. So instead of going to the amusement park in the morning, maybe you'll go to a museum. That's a threat that's credible because the kids know you'll want to go to the museum.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. Every parent knows you're not supposed to do it, but they all, but everyone finds themselves doing it nonetheless In game theory terms, this is called a non-credible threat. And the reason that it's a non-credible threat is because the kids, if they're sophisticated enough, and most kids are, will realize that mom or dad doesn't want to cancel the vacation any more than the kid does.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's exactly where game theory comes in. Yeah, we describe game theory as the science of strategic interaction. And the idea here is that anytime you've got two different people whose interests aren't exactly the same, you know, you have a child who wants another cookie for dessert and a parent who wants their kid to finish their vegetables. And so one of the focuses of game theory has been on how can you create strategic interactions, games between two different individuals so that both individuals can come out in a way that's good for both of them.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the real central struggles for parents, I think, is making this balance between what makes life easy today, what gets your kid to stop crying or to stop fighting with you or whatever, and what makes a good kid in the long run. You know, you can give them an extra cookie now and they'll stop bugging you for it, but also you're not teaching them good eating habits. We try to find ways of planning and designing their interactions with their kids so that they can get their kids to do things that are both in the long-term interest of the child, but also make life easy on the parents.”
2017-09-05 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Macro and Micro of Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source