Everyone who works with your kid needs you to keep paying them

When I started doing research at Harvard, I noticed that almost every family study used poor families as subjects. I assumed the funding skewed that way, but it didn’t — even race-based grants used poor families.

When I asked my PI why, she explained that high-earning families almost never participate. That’s when I understood something about the research: it’s parents who are the problem in families, not children, and Institutional Review Boards don’t approve research that might destabilize a parent. So obvious parenting patterns are ignored in favor of centering solutions around the children - as if they are the problem.

High-earning parents don’t sign up for studies. They pay for “parent empowerment.” That’s the word practitioners use to sell to parents who are overwhelmed and have decided something is wrong with their kids. Parent empowerment promises “families centered on gratitude,” which parents hear as “my kids will do what I tell them”.

The actual work is structure and routine. Someone has to set expectations, enforce them, and repeat every day. That’s no fun, so rich people hire tutors, nannies and coaches to do it. Then the parents can work (so much more fun than parenting!) or focus on the fun, meaningful interactions (we are so close!) while someone else handles the heavy lifting.

This is one of the biggest differentiators among families but no one talks about it because the people who work with parents need those parents to keep paying them. Slow progress means more income. And schools don’t tell parents the truth because the rich parents get teachers fired. Research on this is clear: schools only raise problems with parents when the teacher is having a classroom management issue. Otherwise it’s not worth dealing with the parents.

I didn’t understand any of this until I tried to outsource it myself.

When my kids were four and six, I hired people to practice violin and cello with them. I had money, parenting was hard, the math seemed obvious. The cello teacher found out and screamed at me: “You are the parent! You learn how to practice! It’s your job!” I would not have understood it without her level of outrage.

What she was actually saying is that the job isn’t music. The job is setting high expectations and then working with the child to meet them: structure and routine.

She could say it because she was a famous cello teacher for little kids. There was always another student if I couldn’t handle it. Most people who work with parents are in the opposite position: no leverage.

My homeroom teacher once refused to let me back into school with bruises unless my parents produced a note from the police. My dad was a top Chicago lawyer — but the teacher found the loophole the police couldn’t ignore. It takes someone with nothing to lose to tell parents the real truth about their situation.

We don’t have reliable ways to change long-term outcomes by working only with children. Every time a parent sends a kid to get help, it’s a missed opportunity to take responsibility for the situation that created the problem. No one will tell you that. The researchers can’t. The schools won’t. The empowerment coaches are paid not to.

So I’m telling you: your kid is not the one who needs to change. You are.