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Denied a physical social space, it鈥檚 no wonder they hang out online (Image: Peter Marlow/Magnum Photos)

Two books on bringing up children, Parentology by Dalton Conley and It鈥檚 Complicated by Danah Boyd, warn us not to follow science鈥檚 rules too slavishly

PITY Walter, the father of Tristram Shandy in Laurence Sterne鈥檚 celebrated comic novel of that name. He only wants the best for his boy, and has spent long hours studying the parenting theories of his day, enumerating all the dos and don鈥檛s. But the world 鈥� in all its variety and incident 鈥� is out to fox him at every turn.

His wife, noticing a clock has gone unwound, throws his son鈥檚 humours out of whack at the moment of conception. At birth, Dr Slop鈥檚 forceps crush Tristram鈥檚 nose, ruining 鈥� so his father fears 鈥� an organ vital to a young man鈥檚 social chances.

Children, as any parent will wearily agree, are great levellers. Few parental pretensions 鈥� and even fewer pieces of advice from well-meaning relatives, friends and books 鈥� can withstand the blizzard of counterexamples brought to the fore, minute after minute, by a lively infant.

Attempting to raise a child 鈥渟cientifically鈥� is so manifestly doomed to failure that it is a wonder this notion raises its head, bloody but unbowed, in every generation. Parentology, by the New York sociologist Dalton Conley, is a scientifically and statistically informed memoir about bringing up his two children. Meanwhile It鈥檚 Complicated, by Danah Boyd, a principal researcher at Microsoft, reassures its readers that, having cared for their children perfectly well for years, they probably aren鈥檛 going to see all that work unpicked when their darlings join Facebook.

So far, so ordinary. In both cases, however, first impressions are deceptive. Both books champion a rich, complex idea of what youth is about, and view with horror the way adult discussions so often reduce the young to mute metrics.

As early as page 14 of Parentology, a neonatologist explains to Conley that his sure-to-be-premature daughter should stay in her mother鈥檚 womb as long as possible, since 鈥渆ach week is ten more points of IQ鈥�. Conley was furious. 鈥淎 spark of rage landed on my sleeve. An urge to grab the doctor鈥檚 head and bash it against the sharp corner of the sonogram machine seized hold鈥� I wanted to smash his head one time for every IQ point,鈥� he recalls.

For all its insightful, funny, fully researched, conscientiously cited, Freakonomics approach to science and statistics, what really powers Parentology is a species of loving rage. The numbers teach us a great deal about what parents cannot do, cannot change and cannot help. However, we learn something quite different and very valuable from Conley. Love, care, interest and empathy won鈥檛 change a child鈥檚 chances, but they render most of the measures discussed in this book profoundly unimportant.

By all means keep score 鈥� it鈥檚 a tough world out there, and your kids need all the help they can get. But if you measure your worth as a parent by the numbers, you鈥檝e missed the point of the enterprise.

If parenting is about learning how little influence we have over people and events, then pity also the youths interviewed by Boyd for It鈥檚 Complicated. Patronised, legally marginalised and even subject to curfew, US teenagers 鈥� to hear Boyd tell it 鈥� have but one means to engage with the outside world: via the imperfect medium of the computer screen. 鈥淥bsessed鈥� with social media, they are simply trying to recreate, for themselves and each other, a social space denied to them by anxious parents, hostile civic authorities and a mass media bent on exaggerating every conceivable outdoor danger.

Of course, a life online is not simply a life lived behind glass. There are serious problems with social media: chiefly, the obstacle they present to self-reinvention, and the ease with which bullies can weaponise them.

But Boyd has little time for technological determinism. Her fieldwork with worried-well parents and their kids reveals the fault is not in our computers but in ourselves, that we scare our kids into their bedrooms, then spy on them constantly once they鈥檙e there. And she marshals a huge body of sociological evidence, anecdotal and statistical, to support this.

鈥淲e scare our kids into their bedrooms, then spy on them constantly once they鈥檙e there鈥�

Parents, you鈥檝e had your chance. Of course you blew it. Now leave the kids alone.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淭he toughest job鈥�