Still, the question of how much parents matter is a good one. It is also terribly complicated. In determining a parent’s influence, which dimension of the child are we measuring: his personality? his school grades? his moral behavior? his creative abilities? his salary as an adult? And what weight should we assign each of the many inputs that affect a child’s outcome: genes, family environment, socioeconomic level, schooling, discrimination, luck, illness, and so on?
