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by
Emily Oster
success at this age? Is this my child’s window of opportunity to learn where rockets go? If they don’t, will they be behind all
Tennessee sends kids a book each month (thanks to an effort spearheaded by Dolly Parton).
There is a large body of literature showing that children whose parents read to them as babies and preschoolers have better performance on reading tests later.
In particular, researchers have found that the benefits are bigger with more interactive reading.6 Rather than just reading a book, kids benefit from being asked open-ended questions:
think the Cat in the Hat is feeling now?” LEARNING TO READ Reading to your child is one thing. Asking them questions is definitely something you
to read? Is it even possible? Some people would say yes. There is, for example, the Teach Your Baby to Read system,7 which promises that you
that he could learn to read. The truth is that there is not much literature on extremely early reading. There are some examples—case reports—of children who learn to read fluently at very young ages—two and a half, early three.
this is an age at which people often explore part-time “preschool” options, designed (in general) to increase socialization, and possibly to start teaching school-type skills. If your child is in day care, their older classrooms will often be a more structured form of school.
age two or three will, on average, improve the ease with which they transition to school. Having decided you want to
Again, we can hark back to the day care chapter. Day care and preschool at this age are distinguishable largely by the length of time: people tend to think of “preschool” as a half-day activity and “day care” as an all-day activity.
Reggio Emilia-inspired schools put more emphasis on play, with typically little formal letter or number exposure at preschool ages.
to parenthood,” and they are not all filled with the adorable pictures you see on your friends’ Facebook feeds. Becoming a parent is challenging. I think in some ways it is more challenging for this generation than the last. On one hand, we have a lot of stuff they didn’t (disposable diapers, Amazon Prime).
disagreements were not as important, and there were not as many of them. The worst thing that happens with a wet sponge is you have to replace it. But if you mess up your kid, that’s forever! The stakes seem infinitely
anxiously for the nanny to arrive Monday morning. It was great, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything—even at the time—but there is no question that nerves fray more quickly and conflicts can worsen fast in this situation. So it does seem like—based on
It is probably an exaggeration to say you’ll “hate your spouse,” but people (women in particular) do seem less happy after kids.
a paper showing that between the pre-childbearing period and the period of having school-aged children, the share of mothers reporting low marital satisfaction rises gradually from 12 percent to 30 percent, with an abrupt jump in the first year of the child’s life. The marriage does not recover until parents become grandparents.3
it’s useful to look at two specific things that researchers have speculated play a role in the marital-happiness decline. The first is unequal chore allocation: women tend to do the bulk of household work, even if they also work outside the home. The second is a decline in sex: parents have less sex, and sex makes people happy.
Although it may be surprising, there is speculation (at least on the internet) that these sources of unhappiness are linked. If men do more chores, do you have more sex?
In fact, the effects go both ways. Some studies suggest that if men do more chores, the couple has less sex. Some suggest the opposite—that the couple has more sex.14 Generally, these findings come from surveys in which people are asked about what share of chores they do and about the frequency with which they have
Due to a lack of maternity leave, my mom attempted to time my brother to arrive over Christmas break, but she got January 11 instead.
But some researchers have done this, generally using a method with “surprise” births. They look at the arrival of twins as something that increases the size of the family while not affecting the number of children you actually wanted.
Later-born children tend to do (slightly) worse on IQ tests and get less schooling than their earlier-born siblings.
some downside to having an only child—will they be socially awkward? Again, this is hard to study, given the differences across families. To the extent that we have evidence, this concern seems unfounded.
analysis was limited to women who had already had a preterm birth).6 This very large effect is not, however, replicated everywhere, and there is a question of whether it might be driven by differences across
but they found much smaller effects (more like 20 percent than 80 percent) when they compared siblings. The effects when comparing cousins were somewhere in the middle. They found no association between these
defined as more than five years between birth and the next pregnancy—are associated with worse outcomes. And we see some similar evidence in the Canadian work. However, very long intervals between births are unusual, and more likely
is challenging since people choose their birth spacing, to some degree. But at
we turned to talking about our kids. “The thing is,” one of them told us, “when our kids were four and one, we used to look at each other and say, ‘I can’t wait until
doctor in time? Should I bring something to be prepared for this? Should we test her in advance? Do I need an EpiPen?” Dr. Li paused. She looked at me. And then she said, very calmly: “Hmm. I’d probably just try not to think about
Shirley, and Sarah Hudson—but also the teachers at Moses Brown and the Little School at Lincoln. My incredibly supportive family. Thank you to the Shapiros: Joyce, Arvin, and Emily. To the Fairs and Osters: Steve, Rebecca, John, and Andrea. And to my
Sleep Problems. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. Karp, H. The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer. Rev. ed. New York: Bantam, 2015. Weissbluth, M. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step‑by‑Step
routine vaccination. Lancet 1997;349(9052):-599-603. 14. Brady-Fryer B, Wiebe N, Lander JA. Pain relief for neonatal circumcision.
delivery, with an analysis of episiotomy types. J Reprod Med 2001;46(8):-
comparisons. Soc Sci Med 2014;109:- 55-65. Nelson MC, Gordon-Larsen P, Adair LS. Are adolescents who were breast-fed less likely to be overweight? Analyses of sibling
and the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. JAMA 1992;267(17):-2359-62. 9. Willinger M,
positional skull deformation: Randomised controlled trial. BMJ 2014;348:g2741. 13. Carpenter R et al. Bed sharing when parents do not smoke. 14. Vennemann MM, Hense
up from birth. I—Prevalence and recurrence in the first five years of life. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed) 1985;290(6478):- 1307-10. 8. Chen RT, Glasser JW, Rhodes PH, et al. Vaccine Safety Datalink project: A new tool for improving
is an approximate calculation based on a medium-tax-level state. Chapter 10: Who Should Take Care of the Baby? 1. NICHD Early Childcare Research Network. Early childcare and children’s development prior to school entry: Results from the NICHD Study of Early Childcare. AERJ 2002;39(1):-133-64.
do and do not attend child day care centers: A cost‑of‑illness study. PLoS ONE 2014;9(8):e104940. Morrissey TW. Multiple childcare arrangements and common communicable illnesses in children aged 3 to 54 months. Matern Child Health J 2013;17(7):-1175-84.
R, Barbour J, Romaniuk D, Warr R. Management of infant sleep problems in a residential unit. Childcare Health Dev 1994;20(2):-89-100.
language comprehension and neuropsychological functioning in childhood: A population-based study. Dev Sci 2016;19(5):-790-802. 2. Murray GK, Jones PB, Kuh D, Richards M. Infant developmental
www.motherjones.com/environment/2008/04/-brief-history-disposable-diaper. 5. Blum NJ, Taubman B, Nemeth N. Relationship between age
to toilet train healthy children? A review of the literature. Neurourol Urodyn 2008;27(3):-162-66. 7. Vermandel A et al. How to toilet train healthy children? 8. Greer BD, Neidert PL, Dozier CL. A component analysis of toilet-training procedures recommended for young children. J Appl Behav Anal 2016;49(1):-69-84. 9. Russell K. Among healthy children, what toilet-training
M, Leckey Y, Kelly P, et al. Proving the power of positive parenting: A randomised controlled trial to investigate the effectiveness of the Incredible Years BASIC Parent Training Programme in an Irish context (-short-term outcomes). Archways Department of Psychology, NUI Maynooth. 2009. 4. Haroon M. Commentary on “Behavioural
mother_s_day_you_will_hate_your_husband_after_having_a _baby.html. 2. This chapter will really only scratch the surface of the marital issues that arise. For
satisfaction over the family life cycle. J Marriage Fam 1970;32(1):23. 4. Lawrence E, Rothman AD, Cobb RJ, Rothman MT, Bradbury TN. Marital satisfaction across the transition
