So there’s a reason the parenting model is popular. But it’s a poor fit to the scientific reality. From an evolutionary perspective, the relations between human children and the adults who care for them are crucially and profoundly important; indeed, they are a large part of what defines us as human beings. Our most distinctive and important human abilities—our capacities for learning, invention, and innovation; and for tradition, culture, and morality—are rooted in relations between parents and children.
