The outcome of parenting: what do we really know?

Lykken's proposal that people should be required to apply for a license before they can become parents is based on his belief that the increase in crime over the past 40 years is due largely to the increase in the number of children reared in fatherless homes. I argue that the absence of a father is a correlate of criminal behavior in the offspring but not its cause. Other correlations that are usually interpreted as the effects of good or bad child-rearing practices are similarly ambiguous and subject to other explanations. I conclude that the increase in crime over the past 40 years cannot be blamed on the absence of fathers or inept child rearing, and offer two alternative hypotheses.