To launch Views from Cleve-Mandu podcast, Manjul and I discuss parenting in personal, philosophical, and sociological terms. We’re both relatively new to fatherhood and want to do our best for our kids.

Today’s episode breaks down into roughly three segments:

* Generational differences in parenting

* Eastern versus Western differences in parenting

* How much parenting matters to outcomes for kids (i.e. nature versus nurture)

Resources, Recommendations, and More:

* We talked a bit about whether social expectations have changed much across generations for parents. There isn’t a simple story to tell, but from my perspective, it does seem there is increased parental investment especially from the upper quintiles.

* I claimed that becoming a parent does appear to confer a happiness penalty in the aggregate. Measuring such things is fraught, and I highlighted this to point out that subjective responses to parenting can vary a lot. Manjul and I are overjoyed to be parents. However, I can understand how this finding may pop up in the data as there is an entire lifestyle adjustment when moving from a married but childless life to a married-with-children life. Here’s one look at that issue in The Atlantic: What Becoming a Parent Really Does to Your Happiness

* Here is a post from Lyman Stone on Parenting Trends (I summarize some points below):

* Parenting has become a more isolating activity over recent time.

* Most the measured increase in parenting time is due to low-intensity supervision by dads.

* Moms have increased the intensity of their parenting investment despite spending similar amounts of time on parenting compared to the recent past.

* Moms are spending less time with friends than the recent past.

* Parenting styles have become increasing attached to brands, identities, politics. etc. This has raised the stakes of parenting discourse.

* On parenting styles, there is a recent movement to reduce parental supervision of childhood as there is a concern from some social observers that “helicopter parenting” (safteyism) and social media/smartphone socialization is driving a noticeable rise in mental health issues among teenagers and young adults. Jean Twenge of iGen, Lenore Skenazy of Free Range Parenting and Jon Haidt of The Anxious Generation are high profile figures in this space. Also on parenting styles, I correctly referenced Amy Chua’s memoir on her aggressive parenting approach. Her notorious memoir is titled The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom.

* We recommend that any current or prospective parent check out Emily Oster’s blog called Parent Data along with her books: Expecting Better, Cribsheet, and The Family Firm. She is the Billy Beane (the one from Moneyball) of mommy bloggers, meaning she applies cost-benefit, quantitative approaches from her discipline (economics) to granular parenting related questions.

* Some claims she’s known for include

* Advocating early oral allergen exposure to prevent food allergies

* Arguing the current guidelines for alcohol, caffeine, food consumption during pregnancy are overly stringent

* Arguing the benefits of breastfeeding are often oversold 

* Arguing the only negative consequences of “screen time” boil down to it just outcompeting other enriching activities.

* Arguing that daycare has no effect on attachment.

* Our nature versus nurture discussion is quite short and obviously doesn’t jump into all the complexities raised by such questions. I have written on the subject a few times before but even there am just scratching the surface. For those looking for a primer, I think Robert Plomin’s Blueprint is a gentle and appropriately provocative introduction to the field that studies these questions, Behavioral Genetics. Blueprint leans quite heavily into championing the nature side of the argument and some of the claims have been complicated by more recent research. Nonetheless, it is an easy and engaging read. I have a review available at Goodreads that discusses some of the issues at play. I’m perhaps a strong partisan for the importance of nature, but I think this is largely my response to seeing too many smart people entirely dismiss its role without careful consideration.

* Although we didn’t address the subject explicitly in the podcast, I’m interested in the question of how paternal care evolved in humans. This was recently the subject of Sarah Hrdy’s newest book Father Time. Hrdy argues that prolonged exposure to children decreases male testosterone levels and increases oxytocin and prolactin levels. This is a latent parental instinct that may have been selected for in the Pleistocene (~2 mya to 12kya which includes a major Ice Age) during harsh conditions. I have a detailed review of Hrdy’s book here.

* We implicitly referenced the Varsity Blues Scandal when touching on the relationship between parental expectations and educational outcomes. This is a really interesting news story that illuminates a lot of salient issues in contemporary America. To some extent, it reveals the way elite status is conferred more by college degrees than material wealth.

Disclaimer

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes. The opinions expressed are solely our own. We’re not providing professional advice of any kind.

Hi, thank you for listening. This is Stetson of the Holodoxa channel at Substack. Today, I’d like to introduce a new podcast venture. One we’re calling “Views from Cleve-Mandu.” This funny title is a mashup of the names of the hometowns of the hosts, Cleveland and Kathmandu. Which reminds me, I should actually introduce my co-host, Manjul. 

Manjul is someone I’ve known for almost a decade now. He's a sharp guy. Our connection came courtesy of our wives. They’ve been lifelong friends. When we all get together, Manjul and I have a lot of interesting conversations. We come from different places, work in different industries, and have different perspectives. In an effort to add some structure to these conversations and figure out if they’re interesting to anyone else, we’ve decided to launch a podcast.

And yes, I know what you may be thinking, “Yet another podcast run by Millennial mansplainers. Do we really need another?” Well, maybe you’re right, but give us a chance to prove otherwise. We’re not professional podcasters, and there will be some growing pains. We'll work through them. Nonetheless, we think we can introduce listeners to a wide-range of novel, compelling ideas. We can get to all kinds of wonky details about genetics, history, or economics, but we can also take all complexity and compress it into engaging stories that are easy to understand and easy to remember. Plus, we can do this from two meaningfully different backgrounds. There will be times we venture into the wilderness of dangerous ideas and navigate some serious disagreements. Maybe even with you, the listener.

So to conclude this little introduction, I want to give some concrete details. We’re launching this September (the 22nd) with new episodes on Sunday evenings every other week. We already have five episodes ready to go. These touch on topics like parenting, the origins of humanity, the value of college, trends in the energy industry, and the opportunity cost of reading. We always welcome any feedback or any questions from any listener. We hope that we can count on you as fellow travelers on our journeys through the peaks and valleys of Cleve-Mandu.

P.S. I’ve already received some feedback on the audio. Generally, I think the episodes have been better than this recording. Plus, I still have to purchase a mic, and I’m figuring out which one is best still. I’ll try some other fixes in the mean time too. Any advice is welcome.

Views from Cleve-Mandu is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new episodes, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

On Establishing a Vibe:

Manjul and I played around a bit with the various generative AI image creators, including the one built into Substack, to see what would fit best for our show. I’m sure this will evolve over time. Depending on where things go, perhaps we’ll invest in some help with designing marketing materials for the pod. It’s fun to see what these genAI tools turnout even though they tend to be quite generic and characterless. Here are some images we’ve left on the cutting room floor. Enjoy.