Had I been around to seek opinions a century ago, such would have been the perspective of John Watson, then chair of psychology at Johns Hopkins University.
In his best-selling 1928 parenting guide, Psychological Care of Infant and Child, Watson holds forth on how to raise a child “who loses himself in work and play, who quickly learns to overcome the small difficulties in his environment . . . and who finally enters manhood so bulwarked with stable work and emotional habits that no adversity can quite overwhelm him.”
Here’s Watson’s advice: “Never hug and kiss them. Never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinarily good job of a difficult task.” Watson further recommends letting children cope with problems on their own “almost from the moment of birth,” rotating different caregivers to prevent unhealthy attachment to any one adult, and otherwise avoiding the coddling affection that prevents a child from “conquering the world.”
Occasionally, of course, people take the opposite stance.
They’re convinced that perseverance and especially passion bloom when children are lavished with unconditional affection and support. These champions of kinder and gentler parenting advocate big hugs and long leashes and point out that children are by their nature challenge-seeking creatures whose innate desire for competence needs only our unconditional love and affection to reveal itself. Once unfettered by the demands of imperious parents, children will follow their own intrinsic interests, and disciplined practice and resilience in the face of setbacks will follow.
On the continuum between supportive and demanding parenting, proponents of this permissive “child-centered” approach fall to the left of center.
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So which is it? Is grit forged in the crucible of unrelentingly high standards or is it nurtured in the warm embrace of loving support?
As a scientist, I’m tempted to answer that we need more research on the topic. There’s a lot of research on parenting, and some research on grit, but no research yet on parenting and grit.
But as a mother of two teenagers, I don’t have time for all the data to come in. Like the parents asking me this question, I have to make decisions today. My girls are growing up, and each day of their lives, my husband and I are parenting them, for better or for worse. What’s more, as a professor and a lab director, I interact with dozens of young people—and I’d like to encourage their grit, too.
So, as a step toward resolving the debate, I’ve probed the evidence for each side. An advocate of old-fashioned, strict parenting suggested I talk to grit paragon Steve Young, the record-breaking quarterback whose Mormon upbringing included a daily paper route, Bible classes before school, and absolutely no cussing or drinking. Meanwhile, an advocate with a more liberal bent pointed me toward Francesca Martinez, the outspoken British stand-up comic whose writer father and environmentalist mother allowed her to drop out of school when she was sixteen and didn’t bat an eye when she titled her memoir What the **** Is Normal?!
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Let’s begin with Steve Young.
The legendary quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers was twice named Most Valuable Player in the National Football League. And he was selected Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XXIX, during which he completed a record-breaking six touchdown passes. At retirement, he was the highest-rated quarterback in NFL history.
“My parents were my foundation,” Steve has said. “Good parenting is something I wish everyone could have.”
Here’s a story to illustrate his point.
Though Steve had been the star of his high school football team and was heavily recruited by colleges across the country, he entered Brigham Young University as their eighth-string quarterback. Since seven other quarterbacks stood between Steve and playing time, his coach relegated him to the “hamburger squad”—a unit composed of the least valuable players whose primary role was to run plays so the BYU defensive line could practice.
“Man, I wanted to go home,” Steve recalled. “I went to school my whole first semester with my bags packed. . . . I remember calling [my dad] and just saying, ‘Coaches don’t know my name. I’m just a big tackling dummy for the defense. Dad, it’s horrible. And this is just not what I expected . . . and I think I’d like to come home.’?”
Steve’s father, whom Steve describes as “the ultimate tough guy,” told him: “You can quit. . . . But you can’t come home because I’m not going to live with a quitter. You’ve known that since you were a kid. You’re not coming back here.” Steve stayed.
All season, Steve was first to practice and last to leave. After the team’s last game, he stepped up his private workouts: “There was a huge net hanging at the far end of the field house. I squatted behind an imaginary center; took the snap; did the three-step drop, and threw into the net. From the beginning of January to the end of February, I threw over 10,000 spirals. My arm hurt. But I wanted to be a quarterback.”
By sophomore year, Steve moved up from number-eight quarterback to number two. By his junior year, he was BYU’s starting quarterback. In his senior year, Steve received the Davey O’Brien award for the most outstanding quarterback in the country.
There were several other times in his athletic career when his confidence faltered. Each time, he wanted desperately to quit. Each time, he appealed to his father—who wouldn’t let him.
One early challenge came while playing baseball in middle school. “I was thirteen,” Steve recalled. “I didn’t get a hit the whole year, and it just got more and more embarrassing. . . . Game after game, I couldn’t get a hit.” When the season ended, Steve informed his dad that he’d had it. “My dad looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘You cannot quit. You have the ability, so you need to go back and work this out.’?” So Steve and his dad went back to the field. “I remember it being really cold and miserable and rainy and sleet and snow, and he’d be pitching the ball and I’d be hitting them.” By his senior year in high school, as captain of the varsity baseball team, Steve was batting .384.
The lesson that persistence eventually delivers rewards was one on which Steve relied in the four years he sat on the bench with the San Francisco 49ers. Rather than request a trade, Steve apprenticed himself to Joe Montana, the starting quarterback who captained the team to four Super Bowl victories. “If I was ever going to find out just how good I could get, I needed to stay in San Francisco and learn, even if it was brutally hard to do. . . . I many times thought about quitting. . . . I heard boos during my sleepless nights, but I feared calling my dad. I knew what he’d say: ‘Endure to the end, Steve.’?”
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At this point in my narrative of Steve Young’s improbable ascent, you might conclude that parents of gritty children are authoritarian. You might leap to the conclusion that they’re centered on their own standards and fairly insensitive to their children’s particular needs.
Before you issue a final verdict, though, sit down with Steve’s parents, Sherry and LeGrande Young. And before you do, take note that LeGrande prefers the childhood nickname that aptly captures his approach to life: “Grit.” “He’s all about hard work and being tough and not whining,” Steve’s brother Mike once said of his father. “The name really fits him.”