David Epstein's new book, Range, isn't about parenting per se, but Epstein thought a lot about parenting while he was writing it. And not just because his first child was born a few months before its publication.
Range, a book about the value of being a generalist rather than a lifelong or career-long specialist, argues that many of the most effective people in elite professional fields (such as sports, art, and scientific research) succeed not despite the fact but because they find their way to that particular field after pursuing other endeavors first. The concept of parenting, particularly the guidance and gatekeeping of children's hobbies and interests, seems to consistently hover just outside the page margins—because it's hard to argue that anyone plays a more vital role in overseeing people's academic, artistic, and athletic pursuits early in life than their parents. As Epstein put it in an interview with me, “Before this was even a book idea, I was interested in [early childhood] specialization, particularly in sports. And you cannot interact with that area without parents being front and center.” Range's primary takeaways for parents are both clear and counterintuitive to contemporary parenting wisdom: Let kids find out on their own that they're passionate about something, and let them quit and pursue something else when they find out they aren't.
Epstein opens Range with the story of the strikingly laid-back upbringing of Roger Federer, believed by many to be the greatest male tennis player of all time. Unlike Tiger Woods—another sporting legend, whose early, all-consuming childhood specialization in golf under his father's tutelage has become a template for parents who want to prime their kids for excellence—Federer played several sports as a child and an adolescent. His parents encouraged him only in the direction of good sportsmanship, and when he began to gravitate toward tennis, they cautioned him against taking the sport too seriously. Years later, Epstein notes, Federer would credit the hours he spent dabbling in basketball, handball, skiing, wrestling, swimming, table tennis, and skateboarding with helping him develop his hand-eye coordination and his famously well-rounded athleticism.
The Federers, Epstein notes, did a lot of things that served their son well. For starters, once they learned that Roger loved playing sports, they encouraged him to try a variety of them—or to have a “sampling period,” as Epstein calls it in the book. Sampling periods are crucial, he argues, because they allow kids to discover organically what they love doing and most want to succeed in.
They've also grown less popular in recent years. In the first two decades of the 21st century, stories like those of Tiger Woods and the chess-playing Polgar sisters of Poland—whose parents homeschooled their three young daughters with the explicit intention of making them international chess celebrities (and succeeded)—seeped into the modern canon of parenting wisdom. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the 2011 book that encouraged parents to guide their children into rigorous training for specific activities as early as possible and not allow them to quit, became a best seller and helped contribute to the notion that kids need a “head start” if they are ever to achieve excellence. And outside of these famous examples, the increasing competitiveness and time demands of kids' sports leagues and musical ensembles tend to necessitate that kids prioritize one activity over all others.
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