Cribsheet

A breath of fresh, rational air. This was as good as I expected - as good as I was hoping for - and I would auto-add it to all baby registries.

Emily Oster is an economist and prof at Brown University who specializes in the empirical evaluation of policy programs around the world; specifically, she is one of the “randomistas”, i.e. economists who specifically worry about establishing good causal inference. (You'd think ALL economists worry about this - and they definitely, sorta, kinda do. Mostly. But the “randomista revolution” is a relatively new thing in economics, maybe ~20 years old.) She also wrote what I consider to be the best pregnancy advice book out there, Expecting Better.

Given this background, she brings three important - NAY, CRITICAL - skills to the How To Do Things genre:
1. An understanding of data and research quality; namely, the ability to disentangle correlation from causality. This is especially crucial for things like, for example, the research around breastfeeding (dramatic music).
2. The theoretical approach to dealing with risk and uncertainty. This is one of my favorite parts of economics: people are systematically irrational (as Dan Ariely would say) in their behavior around risk and uncertainty. GOD, I LOVE BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS - it's so wonderful. See The Undoing Project for an eminently readable, pop intro to the field. With regards to parenting, the best example of behavioral econ principles is our behavior around SIDS - people are (justifiably) terrified of SIDS, a low-probability, catastrophic event. “Safe sleeping” means placing infants on their backs, not in your own bed, with tight-fitting sheets and nothing else. But some infants don't sleep well (okay, ALL infants don't sleep well), so parents are tempted by co-sleeping/bed-sharing - something that, if you listen to the American Academy of Pediatricians, IS SO VERY CRAZY DANGEROUS OMG. But Oster notes that, if you look at the data, we are implicitly taking larger risks every day - for example, kids are more likely to die in car accidents than while co-sleeping (if done safely, i.e. no smoking/drinking parents, etc), but, well, the AAP isn't at all advising against driving with your child!
3. A decision-making framework, given this data and our understanding of the risks. That is, being explicit about preferences (utility!), costs (including mental health!), thinking about the marginal value of stuff, the expected value of stuff (i.e. its value to you multiplied by the probability of it happening), and the net present value of stuff (i.e. the value of some future something, discounted by your internal patience).

If you have a background in economics, if you've tinkered with econometrics and are wise in the ways of Stata, then all of this is your everyday bread and butter. Oster's genius is applying this field's wisdoms to a realm that is usually ignored by economists (though not all!) - parenting - and writing it as a pop advice book. I mean, Oster doesn't actually ADVISE anything - rather, she provides a methodology for making decisions and, where possible, the best data and research evidence to help make that decision.

Some TL;DR:
- “Breast is best” at reducing, in the first year of life, gastrointestinal infections from 13% to 9%, and reducing rashes from 6% to 3%. It has no long-term benefits to the child. It might reduce breast cancer risk in the mom.
- “Cry it out” sleep training improves sleep for everyone in the family, and the effects last for years - YEARS. It also reduces maternal depression, because sleep, people.
- Development milestones have enormous distributions. (i.e. The Wonder Weeks app is most likely bullshit - since how can we pinpoint “wonder WEEKS” when literally some kids roll over/crawl/walk/talk MONTHS before or after other kids?!) Where your kid falls in these distributions doesn't matter for anything in the long run.
- Daycare, nanny, stay at home, work, etc. - all have (basically) no effect on the kid.
- Marital satisfaction declines after kids - oh well!
- The discipline described in Bringing Up Bebe and Brain Rules for Babies - i.e. time-outs and an “authoritative” (not authoritarian) style - works.
- Introduce allergens early. Also, the food stuff from Bringing Up Bebe is evidence-supported.

Oster also includes a chapter that I think every pregnant woman should read: what happens those first few weeks postpartum!

My only critique is Oster's equivocation around some of the fashionable parenting ideas out there. Sometimes she's basically like “There's no evidence this works, but there's no evidence it DOESN'T work - so if you want to, go ahead!” My gripe about this is that - while she's correct, from a statistical philosophy POV - that is, “absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence” - I would have stressed that Your Parenting Philosophy Du Jour is just as valid as believing that, say, the color of your car is a meaningful input into your parenting. My point being: something that is completely lacking in evidence, but fashionable, does not necessarily merit equivocating acceptance. But I guess Oster is (a) more generous/less judgey than me, and/or (b) casting a big net cuz sales!

Highly recommended. Yay econ.