As anyone immersed in Choice Mom politics knows, we tend to be criticized for not offering a father to our children, thereby perhaps dooming them to a life of crime or early pregnancy. I often get emails to that effect. (One, recently, ironically pointed out how important he would be to any child, as he was reaming me out for being selfish, ignorant and destined for hell.)

Without going into the single-parent home debate right now, which we've been talking about here for a few weeks, I would like to offer a few excerpts from Pinker's book, which I recommend to anyone interested in how human beings operate...how genetics might impact their donor-conceived or adopted children...how a single parenting environment might influence a child.

Not only is it important food for thought for any parent -- we tend to invest to a fault in our amazing children, and as generally powerful work horses we can feel our children's destiny falls solely in our hands as well. But Thinkers and Tryers who are facing disapproval from family and friends (or self) might find it worthwhile wisdom.

Pinker talked about a controversial book written by psychologist Judith Rich Harris in 1998, The Nurture Assumption, in which she indicated that our conventional wisdom about childrearing -- developed in part from the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau -- is wrong. He wrote, "Many critics accuse Harris of trying to absolve parents of responsibility for their children's lives: if the kids turn out badly, parents can say it's not their fault. But by the same token she is assigning adults responsibility for their own lies: if your life is not going well, stop moaning that it's all your parents' fault. She is rescuing mothers from fatuous theories that blame them for every misfortune that befalls their children, and from the censorious know-it-alls who make them feel like ogres if they slip out of the house to work or skip a reading of Goodnight Moon. And the theory assigns us all a collective responsibility for the health of the neighborhoods and culture in which peer groups are embedded."

I cheered when I read this. Not simply because it applied words from more educated experts to a philosophy I've shared in "Choosing Single Motherhood: The Thinking Woman's Guide," but because in the years since I published my book I have certainly talked to enough women -- and critics -- who are afraid that single parenting trumps "village" and "pivotal moments" in ways that are innately and irreversibly harmful to a child.

I certainly never claim that growing up without a father doesn't have an impact on a child. (Pinker doesn't either.) And I certainly am not saying that any woman who WANTS to have a partner should ignore that desire and have a child alone. But I've become convinced, by listening to stories of so many mature adults, that the focus on two-parent families is missing too many important points that I feel the need to bring up.

I've written before about my view that many pivot points can affect the average life. Not only are there many ways to positively impact a child, regardless of family structure, but Pinker's words reiterate that the negative impact on children comes from any parent misusing their power. He writes, "Childrearing is above all an ethical responsibility. It is not OK for parents to beat, humiliate, deprive, or neglect their children, because those are awful things for a big strong person to do to a small helpless one. As Harris writes, 'We may not hold their tomorrows in our hands but we surely hold their todays, and we have the power to make their todays very miserable.'"

I have been working with kids who are researching and writing about domestic violence. These students know just as well as I that a neglectful or abusive parent can be married or not, wealthy or not. Many of the kids I'm working with have been raised in healthy single-parent homes. They could also tell you that a single parent who has to work full-time and doesn't have a partner/father to love her child is not innately harmful.

Is it a parent's job to beat out the noble savage that undermines any child's potential, or to write positive messages on the blank slate that our children are when they come into the world? This is the question that Pinker addresses. And his answer is that relationships and genes are both important, but not always in the way we imagine them to be.

"Husbands and wives are nice to each other (or should be) not to pound the other's personality into a desired shape but to build a deep and satisfying relationship...So it is with parents and children: one person's behavior toward another has consequences for the quality of the relationship between them. Over the course of a lifetime the balance of power shifts, and children, complete with memories of how they were treated, have a growing say in their dealings with their parents...If for no other reason, parents should treat their children well to allow them to grow up with such memories."

He also talks about the very important role that peer groups have, encouraging us to remember that an adopted or immigrant child will take on the culture of peers, not genetic parents. He writes that whether adolescents smoke, get into scrapes with the law, or commit serious crimes depends far more on what their peers do than on what their parents do. He quoted Harris as saying that delinquents aren't trying to achieve adult power and privilege with their actions, contrary to our tendency to believe that we have all the control over their behavior: "If teenagers wanted to be like adults they wouldn't be shoplifting nail polish from drugstores or hanging off overpasses to spray I LOVE YOU LISA on the arch. If they really aspired to 'mature status' they would be doing boring adult things like sorting the laundry and figuring out their income taxes.'"

I obviously can't do justice to Pinker's (or even Harris's) thoughts in this brief blog. But I do intend to keep writing about how much influence we do AND do not have as parents, and how environmental and genetic influence have an impact on our children.

What are YOUR thoughts on this subject?

Mikki