Why Home doesn't Matter- an argumentative essay on the article titled Why Home Doesn't Matter - Judith Rich Harris (2007)

Essay by neeloA-, April 2009

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Harris' article is a fresh point of view for me. I never gave much thought to separating the child from the home. I always associated the home and society as close-knit in the up-bringing of a child and never distinguished between the two in understanding how a child's personality might develop. Reading Harris' article was very interesting for me, in particular the way she seems to completely knock off the home front and parents in developing the child's eventual personality was a shock that I didn't agree with at first, but as I read into the article a second time I could clearly see the ideas she was trying to assert.

I think that Harris is pretty correct when she writes that with the child, "it is what happens to them outside the parental home that makes children turn out the way they do." However at the same time, I think she is a bit incorrect for completely ruling out the home in playing a crucial role in the development of a child.

I feel that the parents of a child and their personalities do rub off on a child, for instance if a child has very angry and ill-tempered parents, the child will most likely also be ill-tempered. I personally have this problem, my father has an awful temper and me and all six of my siblings are known amongst our own social circles for being easily angered and possessing aggressive attitudes. Then again, Harris goes on to call these personality traits genetic as according to behavioural geneticists "about half the variation in the measured characteristic-the differences from one person to another-could be attributed to differences in their genes." This would mean that the personality of the parents doesn't just "rub off" it is actually disposed in the child's...