Parenting Skills

During Barack Obama's news conference last week, he made the following statement about his daughters: "Malia and Sasha generally finish their homework a day ahead of time," the President said. "They don’t wait until the night before. They’re not pulling all-nighters."

When asked in a follow-up interview to explain these remarks, political adviser David Axelrod suggested that perhaps President Obama was "just expressing pride in his own parenting skills."

Whenever I hear the term "parenting skills," I wince. What exactly are these skills and how do you acquire them? And are we to give Barack Obama credit for the fact that his kids aren't procrastinators? Perhaps this trait is simply genetic. Or maybe Malia and Sasha have watched too many friends panic on the night before a project is due and don't want to live this way. Or did one of their teachers instill this habit in them?

So it goes with so-called "parenting skills." Who knows how kids turn out the way they do? It's typical, I think, of our narcissistic culture to take credit where none is due.

Give it up. We all have less influence than we think.