Its no surprise that an economist cherry picked and used anecdote to support their writing. It's one of the least rigorous fields out there whose practitioners are primarily used to green light whatever policy a politician deems fashionable or appropriate

Indeed. Economics is the art of using meaningless spreadsheets and number-crunching to justify the decisions you were going to make anyway. Oster's book is a great example of how.

It sounds like you’re getting mad at someone for reading Malcolm Gladwell or Freakanomics. It might be NYT bestseller middlebrow pop science that you find facile and contemptuous but a lot of people do not. And the author doesn’t even indicate how Oster informed his parenting. Seems overly dismissive of the article.

You're right, I regret my original, snide comment. It's barely relevant to the article and I should have known it would derail the thread.

Too late to undo it now, but lesson learned.

This is pretty disingenuous. Oster's book(s) is tantamount to long-form data journalism, principally citing research to criticize confidence in certain notions rather than arguing for overconfidence in another.

Much like nutrition and sociology, research can be politically fraught, have lots of data points, etc. But that's neither here nor there, either research is high quality or it isn't, including in the domain of economy.

Do you have a parenting book you would recommend. As an alternative to this?

Your intuition, and your heart and head.

Children become most like whoever they spend the most time with. So, one of the best things you can do is just be the type of person you want your children to grow up into -- and spend time with them.

But this is not a binary thing, but a gradient. Your children will also learn from the other people they encounter, and care must be taken to make sure the community and school they reside in is also one that exerts the influence you want it to (e.g. look at the parents of the schools you want to send them off to, because it will be a look into what sorts of kids your children will interact and grow with).

There is also an emotional component -- which either you know how to handle or you don't (or will learn in the process). Perhaps this is the most important one, because if you neglect it, your children may fit into society and your ideals, but they will be deeply troubled and unhappy.

Keeping vigilant, present, and aware of your children's emotional state (and helping them deal with such) is a vital -- often neglected -- part of parenting. The other one would be keeping an eye on their health. There are numerous chronic health issues that could pop up that would greatly influence the way they see and experience life -- such as inherited diseases like celiacs, neurodivergence, etc. -- that must be accounted for. But also fitness, good nutrition, and the rest that guarantees your children won't be living life handicapped.

Other than that, no. Much of the "parenting books" have been very harmful, and more than useless. Most books that get published are not published because the info is true and wholesome, but because someone thought they would be commercially useful. You're better off talking with other parents who you respect about how to deal with specific issues. So what I've written above is a decent start.

I really liked Hunt, Gather, Parent.