Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: 15th-Anniversary Edition

Greetings from Yellowstone!

Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids is the only book I ever wrote that definitely improved the world a lot. A lower-bound estimate is that several hundred extra babies were born as a result — a social value of over a billion dollars. Now a new edition of the book, shipping November 17, is available for pre-order.

While the main text is unchanged, it features a new Afterword where I evaluate subsequent research and reflect on my first-hand experience as a parent. Including:

a. International adoption research.

At the time, I was unaware of any systematic research on the effects of international adoption on child development. Only in 2017 did I discover a stack of studies on this very issue. The results closely fit common sense: Growing up in the Third World gravely damages both body and mind, for life. International adoptees do much better on physical measures, especially height, weight, and head circumference. And they do much better on mental measures, especially IQ and school performance. The younger adoptees arrive in the First World, the better they do—and contrary to the rule that cognitive gains fade out, the mental benefits of early international adoption remain blatant in adulthood.

The punchline:

Selfish Reasons is a parenting book, but I’ve written a whole other work, Open Borders, on immigration policy. The evidence on international adoption ties both books together. “Choosing the right parents” is greatly overrated intranationally but not internationally. If you’d been raised by a random different family in the First World, you probably would have turned out about the same. But if you’d grown up in the Third World, you probably would have been stunted, both physically and mentally. If the sheer unfairness of life troubles you, stop worrying about metaphorical barriers to success inside rich countries and focus instead on literal barriers to success between rich countries and poor countries.

b. GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Studies)

Since Alexander has already done a better job here than I could do after many months of reading, I’ll only add one extra point. Twin and adoption studies ask questions that matter to not only every parent but every curious person. Why do people turn out the way they do? How different would I be if I’d grown up in a different family? What explains intergenerational success?

GWAS, in contrast, ask questions that almost no one has ever really cared about. Which specific genes lead to intelligence, height, educational success, or whatever? What difference does it make? In the long run, granted, GWAS could become extremely useful for genetic engineering. A few IVF providers are starting to calculate polygenic scores to decide which embryos to implant—and unlike misanthropic “bioethicists,” I wish them all the luck in the world. Still, for the typical person who plans to have children the typical way, twin and adoption research provides vital guidance, and GWAS are all but useless.

c. Hilger and Homeschooling

After criticizing behavioral genetics and inventorying research purporting to show large effects of parenting, Nate Hilger, writing in The Atlantic, accuses me of deep hypocrisy: “Perhaps most telling, I’ve had trouble identifying any critics of intensive parenting who do anything else with their own children. One economist argues that parents have little power to shape their children’s future and yet homeschools both of his children.”…

I take no offense at Hilger’s accusation of hypocrisy. “If parenting makes little difference, why on Earth would you bother homeschooling?” is a fine and fair question. But if he had googled, he would have discovered that I wrote an essay answering this accusation just weeks after my homeschooling experiment began.

My main answer: Although I was never convinced that homeschooling would have large long-run benefits, I was fully convinced that it would have large short-run benefits.

When the book releases, I’ll be running three deep-dive responses to three critics: Nate Hilger, Scott Alexander, and Lyman Stone. Hopefully I can get each of them to write replies and/or do podcasts on these issues. I’ll also be open to all other media; if you want to schedule something now, just email me.

If you happen to feel any gratitude to me, pre-orders are a great help for getting further attention. And if you’ve already got your copy, they make great gifts for every actual and aspiring parent and grandparent, as well as anyone curious about why human beings turn out the way that they do — and anyone worried about the coming population crash. Why not order right now before you forget??? I thank you in advance.