The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

by Malcolm Gladwell

try and measure this very question—the effect parents have on their children. Obviously, they pass on genes to their offspring, and genes play a big role in who we are. Parents provide love and affection in the early years of childhood; deprived of early emotional sustenance, children will be irreparably harmed. Parents provide food and a home and protection and the basics of everyday life that children need to be safe and healthy and happy. This much is easy. But does it make a lasting difference to the personality of your child if you are an anxious and inexperienced parent, as opposed to being authoritative and competent? Are you more likely to create intellectually curious children by filling your house with books? Does it affect your child’s personality if you see him or her two hours a day, as opposed to eight hours a day? In other words, does the specific social environment that we create in our homes make a real difference in the way our children end up as adults?