The Economics of Parenting: A Laissez-faire Approach
One way to shift our perspective from the mainstream parenting paradigm is to look at it through an economic lens. Sounds kind of boring, right? This kind of parenting economics isn’t based on collective logic and boring data points, it’s based on praxeology, or human action, which is the study of purposeful human behaviors based on individual desires and needs. So if we focus on honoring our children’s individual desires, needs, and goals, I believe we can better understand their actions and make for a more peaceful home.
Time Preference
One economic principle I’ll be focusing on is the idea of time preference. Time preference is essentially the extent to which an individual prefers obtaining a product/money/satisfaction, etc. immediately vs in the future. Someone with a high time preference will choose to be satisfied sooner, even if that means they would have more satisfaction if they waited longer. Those with a low time preference will prefer to wait to receive more satisfaction in the long-term.
Sometimes we can make our lives as parents easier if we view some parenting techniques with time preference in mind. For example, in the immediate future, rocking our babies to sleep may seem like the best thing to do because, in the moment, they are sleeping, and you can lay them down in their crib while they’re in a deep sleep and call that a success! The potential downside is that if you start this habit now of laying your baby down only when they’re in a deep sleep, they may only be able to go to sleep in the future if you rock them. Once your baby becomes a small toddler, it gets more difficult to rock and transfer to a crib. So if you practice a low time preference of laying your baby down in their crib drowsy, but awake, they might not fall asleep immediately, but they will be more comfortable in the future going to sleep without you rocking them for hours … and hours … and hours.
When it comes to setting boundaries in parenting, if you set them and stick to them, you’re practicing a lower time preference. For example, you’re at a playground and you’ve been there for a half-hour and it’s time to leave. When you tell your kids it’s time to leave, if they cry and whine and beg you to let them play longer, and you “cave” to their demands, it might be a battle every time you need to leave the park. However, if you give your children a countdown “we’re going to leave in 5 minutes” and then once that 5 minutes is up, you stick to it and tell your children it’s time to go regardless of their whines and cries and pleadings, they’ll understand that you’re firm in your boundaries and it won’t be as much of struggle at future park dates. Set boundaries now so in the future, your kids will understand when it’s time to go. If you aren’t firm in your boundaries, then there’s a good chance it’ll be a battle every time you need to leave the park.
Another example is with healthy eating habits: with a high time preference, you let your child eat whatever they want to avoid an argument. With low time preference, you encourage eating healthy meals and snacks, set boundaries while grocery shopping when they ask for every sugary cereal and candy bar they see. The huge benefit of this low time preference is that this is a lifelong habit which you might not even realize the enormous benefit until your children are much older and you witness their preference to a healthier diet. There are many other examples of time preference in parenting, so I encourage parents to look at what might be a bit more difficult for us as parents now, may have a much better long-term effect on our children.
Laissez-Faire Parenting
Much in the way praxeologists view society as being made up of individual actors with their own goals, desires, abilities, attempts at achieving goals, etc., I view parenting the same way. Children are all unique and have their own preferences and abilities and it is more beneficial to the family, society, and the individual child to let them flourish in a free enterprise. So if we look at our household as a market, what is more beneficial to us: an authoritarian regulatory home? Or a free market home?
In general, human beings want to coexist peacefully with one another for our own self-interests which, in turn, benefits the collective. In an authoritarian, high regulatory home, we may get immediate results of obedient, “well-mannered” children, and if you have strict consequences for “bad” behavior, what will come of it? Forcing children to eat all of their food, or say please and thank you, or live by a schedule, may make our lives easier as parents. And spanking, time outs, and taking things away from kids for “bad” behavior might deter kids quickly from acting up again. But at what cost?
A lot of people view peaceful parenting, or gentle parenting, or in this case, laissez faire parenting, as the easy way out because apparently, we just let our kids do whatever they want. What many people fail to realize that with this kind of parenting, it can be a lot of work for parents, especially because it goes against so many of the ways society has told us how to raise children, and against how we were probably raised as children causing triggers in us which can cause difficult parenting days. Spanking, yelling, punishments, etc. are all very parent-centered methods. They might get you immediate results, but at what long-term costs? Spanking conditions children to believe that physical punishment for non-violent crimes is OK. Yelling conditions children to believe that yelling at people for non-violent crimes is OK. Punishments condition children into believing that authority figures make the decisions as to what is morally ok and what is not. Not to mention, it conditions the idea that punishment is better than justice.
Like a free market, parenting is largely a trial-and-error process. It is so because every child is uniquely different. Something within your relationship with your eldest child might not work with your youngest, so you have to try to figure out what will work. In a free market setting, for example, there isn’t an authority who knows the value of a good or service, who can legitimately set that price for every business. That would cause many disruptions to the supply and demand in that industry. Especially for new innovations, the market has to essentially guess what a good price point is and adjust accordingly to how the customer base responds to it. The same can be said for parenting. As parents, we don’t automatically know how our children value schoolwork, kinds of food, sports, etc. so setting strict schedules or food preferences would disrupt a peaceful collaboration with our children. We need to do a little trial-and-error sometimes to find out which subjects interest our children, which foods they respond positively to, which sports they enjoy playing, etc. and shape our lives around what our children value.
The Black Market
We know, based on many examples of government-imposed prohibitions, that prohibitions do not stop the prohibited behavior or action from occurring; it simply shifts the action from the white market to the black market. When alcohol was made illegal in the 1920’s, speakeasies were formed, and bootlegging was extensive, and oftentimes dangerous. People were still going to purchase and consume alcohol, even at the risk of being caught and punished by the law. The fear of punishment doesn’t necessarily outweigh the desire to continue the outlawed behavior. When prohibition was repealed, violence surrounding the sale of alcohol essentially disappeared because makers and sellers weren’t forced to hide within the black market. Let’s look at how this might apply to parenting.
If a parent is extremely strict about what food their pre-teen or teenage child consumes, or what video games they play, or which other children they can or cannot be friends with, and the parent punishes the child harshly when caught, in many cases, what will happen is that the child will simply hide the behavior from their parents. All children from toddlers to teenagers are testing boundaries and are extremely curious about life. In many cases, punishing your child for acting against your wishes will not deter them from the behavior. Their friend’s house becomes the black market where they might drink alcohol, or play that violent video game, or hang out with that kid you think is a bad influence. And you’ll probably notice your child opens up to you less and less until they don’t want to confide in you at all. I never want my children to feel like they have to hide anything from me. I want them to know that I’m a safe person to talk to and confide in, judgement free. I know they will try alcohol and get drunk for the first time at some point in their life. I want them to be able to call me if they need a safe ride home. I don’t want them to fear me so much that they end up driving back home drunk or getting in some other unsafe situation.
There are so many other ways in which I truly believe a laissez-faire parenting style is much more beneficial than a highly regulated style. If too many rules are set it can discourage innovation. If too many limits are set, it can discourage the desire to fulfill dreams. If you punish your child for non-violent “misbehavior”, it makes your child a prisoner in their own home. Laissez-faire parenting is low-time preference parenting. It might be more work in the short-term for parents, compared to an authoritarian-style, but in the long run, you’ll have a healthy relationship with your children, and your children will have a much better understanding of autonomy and the importance of the freedom to choose.