Tea at Trianon: How Parents’ Personalities Shape Children’s Lives

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

How Parents’ Personalities Shape Children’s Lives

From Neuroscience:

A new analysis led by Joshua Jackson, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, explores how parents’ personalities—boisterous or reserved, agreeable or cranky, concerned or care-free—can shape the lives of their children, for better or worse.
The study involved nearly 9,400 kids aged 11-17 and their parents who participated in a German survey that has been running since 1984. Researchers considered the so-called “big five” traits psychologists use to describe personality in broad strokes: Extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism.
The survey also included measures of the kids’ lives, including their overall health, grades in school, use of alcohol or cigarettes, the amount of time spent on leisure activities—beyond watching TV or surfing the Internet—and the frequency of family arguments. The study, co-authored with graduate student Amanda Wright, was published recently in Infant and Child Development. Below, Jackson explained the findings and the impact a parent’s personality can have on their kids. (Read more.)