Rethinking Achievement Culture

A Discussion of the Risks of Achievement Culture in Never Enough by Jennifer Breheny Wallace

You can buy the book Never Enough HERE.

SKIP TO: Action Items for Parents

SKIP TO: Key Takeaways

Described as the “definitive book on the rise of ‘toxic achievement culture’ overtaking our kids’ and parents’ lives,” Never Enough focuses on kids growing up in relatively affluent communities in the United States. Specifically, communities “predominated by white-collar, well-educated parents” with median incomes exceeding $110,000, where children attend schools “distinguished by rich academic curricula, high standardized test scores, and diverse extracurricular opportunities.”[1] This book is relevant to anyone interacting with this group of kids. (Especially their parents!)

Wallace explains that, although this group is likely bound for some of the most selective colleges and high-status jobs, its members also have an elevated risk for clinical depression, anxiety, and substance abuse.[2] The study first making this finding initially received a lot of push back. (These kids have everything, how could they possibly be worse off?!) But other studies have since replicated its findings.[3] Although these children may appear to “have it all,” they also grow up in an environment of “unrelenting pressure” to excel.[4]  Unaddressed, the common psychological and substance abuse problems that emerge for these kids can persist long beyond the high school and college years.

Wallace provides a helpful perspective on how many of these kids internalize pressure. She also explains how parents might effectively mitigate it.

Wallace argues that the pressure finds its roots in a narrow conception of success and the belief, common in affluent communities, that the safest path to a secure adult life is via getting into a top college. (Wallace challenges this belief, see below.) To get into a top college, one needs to stand out from the other kids in the community – the competition. Unfortunately, the other kids in these communities tend to be smart and have lots of resources. Plus, they are also working hard to get into a top college. This intense competition creates an achievement-oriented culture, as each kid tries to stand out from her peers.

Wallace summarizes: “When you live in a community of high achievers with strict definitions of success, when friends are competing for the same leadership positions, for the same teams, for the same acceptances to increasingly exclusive colleges, you grow up in an environment of outsized expectations.”[5]

Achievement Culture

To help their children to stand out, parents enroll them from young ages in extra tutoring and activities intended to look good on college applications. (This typically includes sports, music, math, etc.) 

Parents are trying to help their children by giving them opportunities and a platform from which they can succeed. Many parents do not expressly apply pressure, or even realize they are doing so. They may simply encourage their children to “try their best” but then ask about performance relative to other children.[6] Children are very quick to pick up on a parent’s unspoken hopes or expectations. As a result of the additional implicit or explicit pressure, many activities that traditionally helped kids manage stress or blow off steam have instead become additional sources of stress.

Over time, some children struggle to distinguish their personal value from the value of their achievements. Wallace writes, “At the critical stage of adolescent development, as they are grappling with questions of identity . . . [t]they begin to feel valued not for their intrinsic worth, but for their […] resumes.”[7]

Isolation & Purposelessness in Achievement Culture

As children reach adolescence and understand the number and value of the resources available to them, many feel pressured by the surrounding achievement culture to take advantage of every opportunity on offer. If, despite all these opportunities, they do not get the results they and their parents are hoping for, the only one they can blame is themselves. They tend to develop a false sense that “their fates rest entirely in their own hands.”[8]  

Because they are so focused on achievement, these kids often neglect relationships and developing a concept of what they personally value. This can lead them to develop a false sense of self, constructed around what they believe their parents or peers want. Internally they may feel “unlovable and unknown.”[9]

All this pressure and distorted focus can result in isolation from parents and peers and a sense of emptiness or purposelessness.

It is not the affluent community or broader achievement culture itself that increases risk for problems. Wallace says the problem is excessive pressure, which is just more common in these communities. [10] So what causes (or prevents) the tip into excessive pressure? According to Wallace, parents play a major role.

Parents are often anxious about a child’s future. This can translate into pressure on the child, conscious or unconscious. Therefore, parents must think through how to manage their own anxiety. This way, they can in a position, not to be a source of additional pressure, but to be a calm, receptive, and helpful resource for their children, capable of spotting problems as they emerge.

The Importance of Healthy Adults for Child Resilience

Wallace points to research suggesting that the biggest difference in a child’s long-term resilience is made by having a psychologically healthy adult around. This suggests that to help the child be resilient, the parents must demonstrate resilience and take care of themselves.[11]

One of the best ways parents can stay psychologically healthy is to maintain solid adult friendships. This helps adults feel supported, rather than isolated or needy. Wallace explains that developing and maintaining adult friendships doesn’t need to be a huge time commitment, just a deliberate one. Talking through difficult problems with someone who can understand and validate makes people feel less alone and less stressed. It makes them more able to focus on the big picture, to see that other families often face similar issues. It also keeps them from being emotionally dependent on their kids.

Relaxed, balanced parents are less likely to succumb to the tunnel vision of achievement culture. They are more likely to be responsive to their children. They’re in a place to provide a kind ear and a big picture perspective so that their children feel heard, like they are important, and like they have a solid base of support that is not contingent on the child’s successes and failures.

More on resilience below.

Affluent communities are often filled with kids involved in structured activities that take away time from family and friends. They are surrounded by an achievement culture that promotes constant competition.

To teach balance and to help children find a sense of meaning, parents must say no to activities that would result in their child being over-stretched or that would imbalance other areas of the child’s life that are meaningful and important. Even if the child disagrees.

For instance, if a child has an important test, rather than encouraging her to think about it as a maximum effort, parents should encourage her to implement a reasonable plan to study. The plan should enable her to fulfill other responsibilities, including those to family (chores, being present for dinner), extra-curricular (sports, music, etc.), and friends (keeping plans, etc.). Parents should stress that although tests are important, their other responsibilities are as well.

The Importance of Mattering to Others

Wallace explains that it’s important for children to continue to manage responsibilities that are not achievement-oriented. These responsibilities make a person matter, in a very real way, to other people over a lifetime. Unfortunately, by letting children off the hook for chores and other responsibilities to their family or friends, we are inadvertently stripping away their sense of meaning and purpose.

Wallace describes something that really rings true for me and how I felt growing up. She says, “In affluent communities, kids often come to feel anything but helpful.”[12] Many parents have the mindset that childhood and adolescence is the time to be a little selfish, until the child’s path is set. As a result, kids have learned to focus narrowly, on themselves.

Chores – ones that are actually helpful to the family – give a child a sense of belonging. They are one tangible way for children to feel like part of a team and see that they matter to others. Even though you will probably need to fight your child constantly to do the chores, Wallace argues that the responsibility grounds children with the perspective that their life does not revolve around them, their school, or their achievements. In some cases, reminding children who are stressed of their place as a member of the family (for instance, by requiring that they help cook dinner), can actually serve as a stress reliever.

Children focused on accruing achievements lose out on time to consider what is intrinsically meaningful to them. Intrinsically meaningful activities are enjoyed for their own sake, not for external recognition. This may be because the topic is interesting, because the activity enables them to help others, because they like the feeling of working hard and developing competence or expertise, or because it enables them to express themselves creatively. These are the sorts of activities give a child a sense of meaning.

This means parents should prioritize finding some activities that are intrinsically meaningful to a child. This will help him develop interests, passions, and goals.

We’ve Forgotten Purpose in Achievement Culture

To be clear, this doesn’t mean slacking off at school.

Wallace provides an example of how powerful a driver purpose can be. She describes a boy who, through his initial interest in volunteering with a search and rescue team and the experiences he had there, discovered a deep desire to become a doctor. He was motivated to overcome challenges with dyslexia and transformed from a student taking easy classes into one intent on pursuing an advanced track. Interestingly, he also developed a determined but calm perspective in the face of setbacks. He explained, “when you have a purpose beyond yourself, you realize that there are infinite paths to get there.”[13] His perspective developed naturally because his goal was not to have the most prestigious job or the highest salary. His goal was to find ways to serve others as a doctor.

If a child’s focus is on putting together an impressive resume, rather than on what purpose the impressive resume serves and how day-to-day actions are meaningful, the entire exercise can feel exhausting and empty. A small setback can feel like a disaster, and the pressure can feel overwhelming. Wallace argues that in order to prevent a child from feeling burnt out, the child doesn’t need a break. She needs a clear sense of purpose.

Parents can help orient children away from the achievement culture mindset by making a point of identifying and helping kids recognize their strengths, and then by encouraging them to pursue goals based on whether they are intrinsically worthwhile to the child. This is a much better, and broader, concept of success than typically found in affluent communities.

We discussed the key action items – now let’s delve into the backstory behind these recommendations.

First: Why Are Parents so Anxious (and what can we do)?

Second: How Important is a Prestigious College Anyway?

Third: The Importance of Mattering.

Kids growing up in affluent communities that embrace achievement culture are under a lot of pressure. If parents play a key role in either counteracting achievement pressure, or pushing it over the edge, let’s talk about what may be going on with these parents.  Why are so many parents applying pressure and embracing achievement culture in the first place?

Sources of Parental Anxiety

Wallace argues that parents are deeply anxious about their children’s futures for a number of reasons. First, we live in a roughly meritocratic society with room for only a few at the top. When a child starts out life in the upper middle class, there is a lot of room to move down. To prevent this, parents need to safeguard their child’s status.

Second, many parents are uneasy about whether the United States remains the land of opportunity it once was.[14] This unease is borne out in the following statistic. Children born in 1940 had a 90% chance of out-earning their parents (adjusted for inflation), but the chances fell to just 50% for children born in the 1980s.[15] If children are growing up in a land of diminishing opportunity, parents need to provide their children with as many comparative advantages as possible.

Status safeguarding

Wallace cites research showing that people are extremely conscious of status relative to peers, even if they try not to be. Status markers appear in how we dress, what names we drop, what car we drive, what school we went to, etc. This awareness interacts with the very basic parental desire to see one’s child succeed. Parents tend to conceptualize “success,” perhaps unconsciously, as maintaining or rising in social status from status at birth.[16]

If parenting success means that a child does the same or better than her parent, the upper-middle-class child faces an uphill battle in a (albeit imperfect) meritocracy. Her upper-middle-class parent was already more successful than the average person born into her generation, and that same level of success is now the baseline expectation for the child. Statistically, we would actually expect the child to be less successful than her unusually successful parents.[17]

Parents must therefore intervene to prevent a parenting failure in what Wallace calls “status safeguarding.” The pressure falls on parents to disrupt the average upper-middle-class child’s downward inertia by designing the child’s life to be most likely to secure (or improve) her status going forward.

Land of shrinking opportunity?

Further to successful parents trying to status safeguard their children’s social status, there is also the perception that America is no longer the land of opportunity it once was. If the opportunities are fewer, the pressure to outcompete comparable children is greater. Parents have picked up a scarcity mindset.

In an uncertain future and with rising inequality, Wallace argues that many parents have calculated that the best means of securing a child’s status is to outcompete others and to shepherd the child’s entry into a prestigious college.

To ensure entry into a top college, parents need to ensure that the child accrues as many achievements as possible for the college application. This has led to an achievement culture in the upper-middle class.

Wallace explains the value of the degree is not in what is learned. The value is in the fact that not everyone has access to it. It’s a powerful status symbol. The coveted nature of this status symbol, Wallace says, has resulted in affluent parents trying to “shoehorn[…] their children into a small number of elite colleges.[18]

How Parents are Managing Their Anxiety

More involved parenting

In order to protect their children’s future, Wallace describes how many modern parents have adopted an “intensive parenting” style, wherein the children come first in family life.[19] The economic downside of a child not obtaining a higher education is too great for parents to take the hands-off approach to parenting that used to be more typical.[20]

Wallace says mothers are spending 57% more time on childcare since the mid 1970s, despite being more likely to work outside of the home. Fathers are spending nearly three times as much time on childcare (albeit from a lower baseline).[21] Despite this uptick in childcare responsibilities, many longstanding social networks which parents once relied on for support have diminished (family, church, neighbors). As a result, parents increasingly are putting their personal needs on hold.

Wallace addresses this topic primarily in a section called “You First: Your Child’s Mattering Rests on Your Own.” She points out how many parents, moms in particular, sacrifice for their kids to the extent they can make themselves sick and/or unhappy. Wallace writes that “[t]o be a ‘good’ parent today is to be an all-consumed parent, norms primarily defined by white, affluent parents who have the time, money, and privilege to engage in ‘full-contact parenting.’”[22] In intensive parenting, the parent’s basic needs often go unmet.

The risks of a more involved approach

Wallace thinks many of these parents are forgetting that kids are keen observers. It’s important to model the type of life you want your child to lead. If you show your child that you don’t take care of yourself while relentlessly pursuing a goal (i.e., your child’s success), your kids are going to pick up on that. Alternatively, if you treat yourself kindly and draw some boundaries for yourself, they will pick up on that.[23] Kids are more likely to internalize what they see you do, rather than what you say they should do.

Intensive parenting is correlated with “heightened feelings of isolation and a greater sense of burden” for parents.[24] Note that the study Wallace cites here for its emotional risks to parents looks specifically at intensive parenting as performed by mothers, characterized by the belief “that women are better parents than men, that mothering should be child-centered, and that children should be considered sacred and are fulfilling to parents.”  College-educated mothers who put their lives on hold are at a particularly high risk for anxiety and depression once their children enter middle school and start to pull away from the home nest – when there is “less emotional return on our sacrifices.”[25] This is also when the pressure on children to perform typically amps up.

Remember how the biggest benefit to a kid’s resilience is having psychologically healthy adults around? If parents take an approach to parenting that makes them psychologically unhealthy, it won’t be good for the kids. It doesn’t matter how many tutoring sessions or sports activities their parents drive them to.

Does Intensive Parenting Translate to Better Child Rearing?

Intensive parenting is the philosophy that the best interest of the child come first and the parent’s needs come second. Wallace sits down with three researchers to ask whether the sacrifices of intensive parenting are “worth it.”[26]

Melissa Milkie

First, she talks to Melissa Milkie, a sociologist studying the rise in intensive parenting over the past 30 years. I’m going to be upfront that I don’t agree with everything Wallace and Milkie say here.

Milkie has focused on the rise of “intensive mothering.” This is an ideology, the main tenants of which are “that more mother-child time is beneficial for children’s outcomes and that mothers’ time is uniquely important for children.[27]

Milkie states there is little evidence showing time spent with children directly correlates with better outcomes. There is some evidence showing it may have a negative impact to the extent that the mother is exhausted or emotionally unhealthy. She says that what matters more is the quality of time and types of activities parents engage in with their children.[28]  

Wallace was apparently flabbergasted by this news. She says, “I, like many moms who could afford to, had put my career, my social life, and my own wants and needs on hold for the betterment of my kids – yet here was Milkie telling me that my sacrifices may have a negligible effect. I nearly dropped the phone.”

A more convincing argument

But that’s not what Milkie is saying, even if you believe in her findings. (I don’t; see my criticism below). Milkie is saying that if you’re stressed out and anxious, that is not good for your kid. And she’s saying that “time spent with children” (not necessarily the same thing as intensive parenting, by the way) in itself, doesn’t directly correlate with a child’s successful outcome.[29] And she is saying that if you spend more quality time with your child, that may have a positive impact.

I think that the question Wallace means to be asking here is a more nuanced one: whether parents are making a good trade in spending the incremental hour with their children, if that hour might have been used instead to take care of some of the parent’s basic needs.

If a mother’s distress negatively impacts child outcomes, this would be an argument that a mother should reconsider how to allocate time between herself and the child, for the ultimate benefit of the child. The distress the mother may feel in sacrificing her own needs may harm the child in excess of any benefit to the child of the additional time together. For me, this is a much more convincing argument than the mother’s time having no effect on the child’s “outcome,” whatever that means.[30]

Suniya Luthar

The second researcher, Suniya Luthar, suggests that when parents are overstretched, they become less sensitive, responsive parents.

Luthar says there are decades of resilience research showing that a child’s resilience depends on the primary caregiver’s resilience.[31] This is another way of saying a child’s future psychological health depends on her exposure to a psychologically healthy adult during formative years.[32] This is the reason for the suggestion that in order to be a good parent, adults need to consider and protect their own mental health.

Unfortunately, Wallace finds an “unspoken assumption that being materially successful should somehow protect against distress, that high levels of education should provide the skills to eliminate worry and loneliness. Given the many resources at our disposal, we wrongly believe we shouldn’t need help.” But she says this isn’t true.

Importance of adult relationships

Luthar clarifies that by telling parents to take care of themselves first, she does not mean more “me time,” picking up yoga, spa days, or other self-care rituals marketed to busy women. [33] This isn’t another thing for the to-do list. Rather, she means that parents need to prioritize those relationships (other than with their kids) that let them feel loved and cared for. It has a major impact on reducing stress.

Many moms put these relationships on hold when things get busy – and then they stay busy and isolated for years. Wallace suggests scheduling meetings with friends and trying to find a go-to person or group to share worries with. This enables parents to bring better versions of themselves to parenting. It prevents them from being overly emotionally dependent on their children.

Gordon Flett

Another risk of intensive parenting is that children can pick up and easily misinterpret a parent’s stress, exhaustion, or depression. The third researcher, Gordon Flett, who wrote The Psychology of Mattering, explains that “[a] feeling of not mattering is often rooted in the smaller actions or lack of responses that accumulate on a daily basis.”[34] Children tend to internalize this feeling that the parent is not emotionally present by thinking they are the problem and thinking they don’t matter to their parents.

For this reason, Wallace argues that children benefit most from parents who are able to have perspective, wisdom, and energy and who convey the message that the child matters to the parent and brings the parents joy. Not parents who “take self-sacrifice to the extreme” for their kids.

Flett recommends that parents make a point to respond sensitively and warmly to their kids. They should explicitly tell their children how much they matter. Parents should express unconditional acceptance particularly after a failure. They should show warmth through physical affection. Parents should make a point of finding activities to do with their children. [35]

More on Gordon Flett below.

Parents care about getting their kids into a prestigious college. According to Wallace, this is a primary driver of achievement culture. Given we are pushing our kids (and ourselves) so hard, it’s worth a pitstop to consider how important a college’s prestige actually is. For me, this discussion was particularly interesting given the bad press coverage of elite universities in the past couple years.

College Rankings

She begins by discussing criticisms of the rankings process. The primary criticism is that rankings rely on factors that do not measure the school’s value-add to students. Instead, they primarily reflect the metrics of the students who are accepted and the existing reputation of the school.[36] For example, a key rankings factor (between 16% and 21% in the US News 2025 rankings) is the college graduation rate. I think we can all see that the kids admitted to Harvard are the sort very likely to graduate from any university. This probably has little to do with their experience at Harvard.

Nevertheless, given so many parents want their kids to get into a prestigious college, surely college matriculation impacts long term outcomes? Spoiler: It’s not clear that it does.

Pope’s White Paper on the Importance of “Fit”

Wallace cites a white paper written by Denise Pope of Stanford University Graduate School of Education, which argues that a college’s “fit” with a student matters more than its selectivity. She says that Pope found little evidence that attending a highly selective school translated into more success later in life.[37]

Naturally, I pulled the white paper to better understand its findings. Pope’s paper looked at outcomes in terms of “learning, well-being, and future income.”[38]  It found “evidence that institutional selectivity is associated with long-term financial outcomes” due to a clear disparity in the average incomes between graduates of different schools.[39] However, the authors also considered a study comparing students with similar SAT scores across different schools. This study found that after controlling for SAT scores, the impact of a school’s selectivity on long term earnings vanished. (Note that this was not the case for first generation or traditionally underserved students).

Gallup & Purdue’s 2014 Survey

Separately, in 2014, Gallup and Purdue University jointly surveyed over 30,000 alumni. They asked how motivated alumni felt to achieve goals, whether they had strong, supportive relationships, whether they were in good health, whether they effectively managed their finances, and whether they felt they belonged in their community. The researchers found that a selective school, a public or private school, or a large or small school “hardly mattered at all.”[40]

Instead, they found that the student’s experience while at school played a critical role in how positively they answered survey questions. Specifically important was whether they were “engaged” on campus. The key college experiences that positively impacted success were: (1) taking a course with a professor who made learning exciting; (2) having a professor who cared about the student personally; (3) having a mentor who encouraged the student to pursue personal goals; (4) working on a meaningful project across semesters; (5) participating in an internship; and (6) being active in extracurricular activities.[41]

Conclusion

I have some concerns regarding this how convincing this 2014 survey should be, which I discuss below. But Wallace’s overarching point here seems to be a good one. At the very least, we can say that it is not clear cut that getting into the most selective school possible confers major benefits. This is a significant finding when we know that intense participation in a grueling race to get into the best college possible has its own risks to a child’s long term well-being.

The Canadian professor Gordon Flett (we met him above), says that feeling like you “matter” serves as a buffer against stress, anxiety, depression, etc.[43] Specifically, kids feel like they matter when they feel noticed by and significant to others, that others rely on them, that someone else cares what happens to them, that they are missed when absent, that their actions are valued, and that they are unique and known for their “true self.”[42] According to Flett, research shows that that feeling like you matter to your parents may be particularly important for boys.

Although today’s parents certainly value their children deeply, this may not always be clearly communicated to the child. Or at least not clearly understood.

Wallace say parents must focus not just on what they say, but on what their children hear. The two things are not always the same![44] This is especially the case in the teenage years. Teens are much more sensitive to negative than to positive feedback.[45] In particular, parents should be wary of perceived parental pressure to achieve extrinsic markers of success.

Note that I do not read Wallace as saying that parents ought to lower the bar on expectations in terms of behavior, effort, etc. Rather, the concern is about pressure focused on external achievements, particularly those the child does not value intrinsically.

Countering Achievement Culture: Finding Ways to Matter

I’ve broken down mattering into the three major themes I see in Wallace’s book. I’ll discuss the categories in a bit more depth below.

Part of a Team

Wallace argues that key to showing a child that she matters is the lesson that “physical and psychological limits are worth honoring.”[49] Rather than supporting every competitive urge their children have, parents ought to consider when instead to pull them back to keep a healthy balance. Children need parents to “help them reimagine their ambition in an environment that tells them constantly to secure and acquire more.”[50]

Prioritizing a balanced mindset, instead of an achievement-based mindset, starts with requiring children to carry other responsibilities to friends and family. This will likely prevent them from engaging in some academic or extra curricular opportunities.

This flies in the face of a common sentiment in affluent communities: “I can, therefore I must.”[51] The risk of embracing this mindset is that children can believe that because they have so many resources and no limits imposed on their or their family’s time to devote to their success, their futures are entirely within their own hands. They can develop a very narrow focus on themselves and exhibit compulsive behaviors, like overstudying and overpreparation.

Chores

One way to teach balance is to give children real responsibilities at home (a.k.a., chores), as discussed above. This encourages a team-oriented mindset and is an easy way to make clear to children that the world is bigger than them. It teaches them that others rely on them for something. Wallace argues that chores teach children that they are able to add value to those around them. It shows them that they belong in a world, on a team, that needs them.[56]

Wallace argues that it hurts kids not to teach them responsibility to others. They need to see their ability to make a difference in the lives of others to understand what their struggles are for.

In Wallace’s words, the risk is that children “are given this road map to follow, a series of hoops and tests, but without a larger sense of why they’re doing it.”[54] She pinpoints purposelessness as a key cause of burnout. It is vital to connect kids to a purpose. They need to feel the meaningfulness of their day-to-day actions to other people.

Wallace also describes a study by Marty Rossman, a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota. Rossman followed 84 children over 20 years. She found that those who had chores in preschool were more likely to achieve in school, be self-sufficient, have early career success, and less likely to use drugs or alcohol compared with those who either didn’t have chores or who started chores as teenagers. [55]

Rest

As a bit of a sidenote, apart from feeling like you matter, balance may confer additional benefits. Wallace mentions how many parents pinpoint Malcom Gladwell’s discussion the finding that elite musicians needed 10,000 hours of practice as a reason for encouraging intense study. She says that the study is so commonly cited, but a key fact is typically forgotten.

These musicians also rested more than others in their field. They practiced for long hours, but they also took a break afterward, took naps, and prioritized leisure time. The researchers noticed that their form of sustained attention could only be held for a limited period.

This suggests that enforcing a balanced approach may result in additional benefits beyond mental health. It may also support better concentration in those areas where one chooses to focus.

Feeling Seen

Parents can also help children to feel seen by encouraging them to pursue goals with intrinsic value. As a reminder, intrinsically valuable goals are enjoyable or fulfilling for their own sake, independent of prestige, money, etc. 

The best way parents can teach children to value intrinsic pursuits is by upholding those values themselves. Children tend to adopt the same values as their parents. This means parents need to be conscientious in how they discuss material possessions, brand-name colleges, the prestige or impressiveness of certain jobs, etc.

Materialism in achievement culture

The alternative to pursuing goals that are intrinsically valuable is pursuing goals that externally signal success. In other words, these are materialistic goals, valued for their prestige and income. This is the dominant approach when affluent communities embrace achievement culture. Materialistic achievements look great on college resumes.

Wallace suggests that pursuing materialistic goals comes at a steep price. She says, “[p]ursuing materialistic goals, like high-status careers and money, causes us to invest our time and energy into things that take time away from investing in our social connections, a habit that makes us feel isolated over time. Ironically, the more isolated we feel, the more likely we are to pursue materialistic goals that we hope, even subconsciously, will draw people to us.”[52]

Unfortunately, a materialistic strategy does not typically succeed in making us less lonely. Rather, people fixated on these goals are more likely to be depressed, anxious, etc.[53]

Feeling Cared For

By parents

Wallace mentions how some parents, rather than focusing on identifying and fixing weaknesses, try to spot strengths. She describes one mother who tried to be a “strength spotter” for her children. She would make notes of when her children were at their best.[46] Another mother would write her daughter “strength letters” annually. The adult daughter re-reads them as reminders of her passions and habits at each stage of her life. (I may be adopting this idea.)

Ensuring children feel cared for includes physically showing affection and playing with them. She describes “greeting your child at least once a day like the family puppy: with total, unabashed joy.”[47]

Wallacea lso points to studies showing a link between warm parental affection in childhood and future mental and physical health.[48] This advice aligns with one of my takeaways from the Whole-Brain Child, about the importance of just having fun with your child.

By friends

Parents should also encourage children to develop solid friendships. As children grow into teenagers, Flett says that peers become more important for their sense of mattering. Although studies have found that family connectedness was the strongest protective factor, feeling connected at school was also very protective.[57] One study found that feeling accepted by peers and having at least one good friend were key predictors of well-being and performance.[58] Another study found that having a fewer high-quality friendship is better than having more low-quality friendships.[59]

Wallace recognizes that parents cannot control this area. But they can emphasize the value of relationships and teach children to prioritize them. She describes how some students she met who have thrived in competitive schools have had adult mentors who encourage them to “root for their classmates, to sacrifice for the good of the team, to help their friends and learn to ask for help in return, and to confront and manage the uncomfortable feelings that arise from competing with peers.”[60] Maybe a quality to seek out actively in a middle / high school coach, teacher, etc.?

In Conclusion

To wrap this up, parents can balance achievement culture by encouraging their children to feel like they matter. To do this, they should aim to demonstrate that the child is part of a team, seen for who she is, and cared for.

Milkie’s Study on Time With Kids

To be fair, I have not read all of Milkie’s papers. But I have some concerns regarding her statements above after reading her paper: “Does the Amount of Time Mothers Spend with Children and Adolescents Matter?” Presumably this is the study she is referencing when she says there is little evidence showing time spent with children directly correlates with better outcomes.

The study purports to answer the following question: Does the amount of time children spend with their mothers matter for children’s developmental outcomes?

“Outcomes”

One major concern is that the “outcomes” for children (that are supposedly unaffected by how much time mothers spend with their kids) are not actually outcomes. They’re current metrics. They were taken at the same time the researchers collected data about how much time mothers spent with children.

The paper mentions in passing that although the researchers looked at the question of how mothers’ time with children impacted the child over time, they “do not present results here. First, there were no statistically significant associations between time with mothers in childhood […] and adolescent outcomes[…]. Second, theoretically, maternal time should be important for the concurrent experiences and well-being of children. Existing research also indicates a lack of long-reaching influence.” The paper cites a study that measures cognitive achievements (not emotional or behavioral metrics) in support of the claim of lack of long-term influence.

Addressing the theory that maternal time should be important for concurrent child wellbeing: Isn’t it also a possibility that moms who think their kids are having trouble academically, emotionally, or behaviorally are inclined to prioritize spending more time with them?

On the topic of measuring current metrics: Isn’t the impact over time the most interesting question? Also, isn’t this what we mean by the word “outcome?”

If you don’t present the data showing “no long term association,” this isn’t a study on outcomes. We don’t know what markers researchers considered, controlled for, and what specifically was not statistically significant. Surely that longitudinal data was the relevant data! And we want more longitudinal data than how the kids “turned out” during the handful of years they were adolescents.

Measurements

My second major concern is the way the researchers measured the “outcomes” of children.

The researchers considered behavioral problems, emotional problems, and academic performance.[61] This makes sense. The problem is that academic performance was the only objective measurement. The other two metrics were assessed by asking the mothers.

Let me say that again.

The researchers concluded that more mother-child time was “not associated with the well-being children” by asking the mothers themselves whether their child was negatively affected, emotionally or behaviorally. Seriously? Surely a core concern about a mother spending less time with her kid is that she would be less aware of, or more likely to minimize, her child’s emotional or behavioral problems. Conversely, as theorized above, mothers who think their kids are having trouble might prioritize spending more time with them.

Impact of social resources

Milkie’s study also found that the best predictor of good emotional and behavioral well-being was “social status resources.” In other words, family income and education. Doesn’t this finding directly counter Wallace’s key claim in the book? That is, that children with lots of social status resources are most at risk for internalizing disorders and substance abuse?

Other authors who have written about this cohort of children have suggested that affluent parents tend to be both busy and reluctant to acknowledge emotional and behavioral problems in their kids.[62] So maybe this is another reason to hold more skepticism about the accuracy of a mother’s reporting on her child’s behavior and emotional well-being. Particularly if she is affluent, busy, and has limited time with her child.

College Prestige Doesn’t Matter

Let me start by saying that I have not personally dug deep into this research. I’d like to at some point. But I’ll wait until my first kid hits elementary school.

I have two big picture reasons for skepticism regarding Wallace’s reliance on the 2014 Gallup and Purdue University above. I’m not sure it supports the proposition that the prestige of a college doesn’t have much bearing on later-life success.

Subjective evaluations

First, the study assesses outcomes by a very subjective measure. It relies on the subject’s own evaluation of his or her happiness, fulfillment, and/or financial success.

Here’s my issue. My understanding is that it is fairly well documented that people adjust to nearly anything, given time.[63] For instance, both people who win the lottery and people who suffer life-altering serious injuries revert to their previous happiness baselines. This suggests to me that even if entering a less prestigious college truly were a major life setback, those individuals would revert to their usual happiness baseline within a year or two and report similar life satisfaction levels. One would therefore expect a group who suffered a setback, and a group who received a boon, to report similar levels of life satisfaction several years later.

And in fact, the studies Wallace cites do find that both the prestigious and non-prestigious college groups report similar life satisfaction levels. They do not discuss objective outcomes. So I’m not sure her research really dispels the underlying concern. Parents may still be correct that entry into a less prestigious school is a setback.

Correlation or causation?

Second, the researchers found a relationship between how engaged the students were on campus and long-term outcomes. Based on this, the researchers argue for the importance of school “fit,” presumably because it will promote engagement on campus (this is another untested assumption, by the way). I worry this may be a cause of correlation rather than causation.

Let’s look at the two sets of questions more closely (college engagement and long-term outcomes).

Questions about engagement on campus focused on relationships with professors, relationships with mentors, projects that spanned semesters, and how active the student was in activities on campus. To assess long-term life outcomes, the researchers asked graduates about how motivated they felt, how supported they felt in relationships, their sense of belonging in the community, about their health, and management of finances.

The questions sets are not identical, but they seem to me to get at similar themes. They look at one’s connections with others, pursuit of goals/projects, and ties with the community.

I wonder if all the researchers actually found was that individuals tend to be consistent over time. Individuals likely to be have good relationships on campus, to pursue goals, and to be involved with their communities are likely to be this way in college, and after. Maybe there is no causation whatsoever.

The Price of Privilege by Madeline Levine.

This book was written in 2006, before the publication of Never Enough. It was early in describing the phenomenon of increased rates of anxiety and depression among adolescents in affluent communities.

Levine has a similar, but slightly different take. Based on my reading, her primary finding is that children growing up in these high-pressure, affluent environments are learning to evaluate their own lives according to external metrics. Many of their parents are distracted with their own lives, and unavailable for everyday interactions or deep emotional support. Yet they often micromanage their children. They don’t let the child learn how to pursue goals and plan for herself. The children often have a poorly developed sense of self, lack autonomy, and feel isolated. It’s a great read and covers the same themes from a slightly different perspective.

The Psychology of Mattering by Gordon Flett

I enjoyed Wallace’s description of Flett’s theory on the protective effects of helping adolescents feel that they matter. I’m personally prone to distractions when spending time with my kids, but hadn’t thought much about how that might be perceived by them. I also have not thought about the world in terms of finding ways to matter to others. I found it an uplifting way to look at relationships.

The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kasser

Kasser describes how pursuing materialistic goals tends to come at the cost of developing our connections with others. Ultimately, those who purse these goals tend to end up stressed and unhappy.[64]

What interested me was that the definition of materialism was more expansive than I initially thought. It is more than a consumer mindset and includes valuing things because they are external metrics of success. I find myself drawn to Ivy schools as an immediate signal to others of intelligence or tenacity – but I had never thought of this as materialism. Curious to learn more.

I have a lot of criticisms for this book, don’t I? But I actually really enjoyed reading it. I’ve found the idea of finding ways to matter to people creeping into my daily interactions. It’s a different perspective, and it makes me feel less isolated. Or at least, it helps me feel like whether I feel isolated may be within my control.

With respect to my kids, the book helped me consider my parenting approach from a long-term perspective. It may be more important to help my kids think about finding ways to matter to the world around them than to focus them on pursuing specific activities. I’ve seen for myself how the best motivation and drive is what comes from a person internally, when they know what they want. It doesn’t usually come from outside pressure. If I’m able to help them find that internal motivation, their energy will flow naturally, and I can act more as a guide than a taskmaster.

---

Disclaimer

This is part of a series of practical takeaways on books that influence how I parent. My parenting takeaways from Never Enough are my own interpretations and may not reflect the authors’ views. If you want to read more in-depth on the topic, I strongly encourage you to buy Never Enough. Also, this blog contains some affiliate links: if you make a purchase after clicking through a link, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

---

A Handful of Endnotes

[1] Luthar SS, Barkin SH, Crossman EJ. “I can, therefore I must”: fragility in the upper-middle classes. Dev Psychopathol. 2013 Nov;25(4 Pt 2):1529-49. doi: 10.1017/S0954579413000758. PMID: 24342854; PMCID: PMC4215566.(https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4215566/)

[2] Luthar SS, Barkin SH, Crossman EJ. “I can, therefore I must”: fragility in the upper-middle classes. Dev Psychopathol. 2013 Nov;25(4 Pt 2):1529-49. doi: 10.1017/S0954579413000758. PMID: 24342854; PMCID: PMC4215566. (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4215566/)

[3] Jennifer Breheny Wallace, Never Enough (New York: Portfolio, 2023), 6.

[4] Wallace, Never Enough, 6.

[5] Wallace, Never Enough, 7.

[6] Wallace, Never Enough, 28.

[7] Wallace, Never Enough, 43.

[8] Wallace, Never Enough, 117.

[9] Wallace, Never Enough, 59.

[10] Wallace, Never Enough, 6.

[11] Wallace, Never Enough, 96. See, for example, Emmy Werner’s Kauai Study [https://www.pathwaysrtc.pdx.edu/pdf/fpS0504.pdf] on resilience, which began in the 1950s and followed Hawaiian children who faced significant adversities. It found that a stable, supportive adult was one of the best predictors of resilience and positive outcomes.

[12] Wallace, Never Enough, 178.

[13] Wallace, Never Enough, 205.

[14] Wallace, Never Enough, 32.

[15] Raj Chetty et al.,The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940. Science, 398-406(2017). DOI:10.1126/science.aal4617 (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aal4617.)

[16] Wallace, Never Enough, 28. (Quoting Loretta Graziano Breuning, author of I, Mammal.)

[17] This is the phenomenon of reversion to the mean. Even accounting for heritability of traits that may have contributed to parental success (for instance, cognitive abilities, ambition, resilience, emotional intelligence, etc.) it is more likely that the child will naturally drift toward an average outcome, unless the parent intervenes.

[18] Wallace, Never Enough, 42.

[19] Wallace, Never Enough, 83.

[20] Wallace, Never Enough, 35.

[21] Wallace, Never Enough, 84.

[22] Wallace, Never Enough, 83.

[23] Wallace, Never Enough, 78.

[24] Wallace, Never Enough, 87. ScienceDaily. “Does Being an Intense Mother Make Women Unhappy.” July 5, 2012. (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120705151417.htm)

[25] Wallace, Never Enough, 87.

[26] Wallace, Never Enough, 94.

[27] Milkie, M.A., Nomaguchi, K.M. and Denny, K.E. (2015), Does the Amount of Time Mothers Spend With Children or Adolescents Matter?. J. Marriage Fam, 77: 355-372, 356. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12170

[28] Wallace, Never Enough, 94.

[29] If you look at the Milkie’s study on this, she defines outcomes as current reading and math scores, emotional problems, behavioral problems, and engagement in risky behaviors. Also, one of Milkie’s studies actually did find an association between the time mothers spent with adolescents and reduced delinquent behaviors. Also that as the number of hours a mother worked ticked down, adolescent math scores ticked up. To me, this is not exactly “negligible.” (Milkie et al., 2015)

[30] Another issue I see here is that the “outcome” Wallace cares about, and the “outcome” Milkie measures are not the same. Early on in her book, Wallace notes that most parents don’t necessarily want their kids to be straight-A students, football team captains, etc. Rather, they “simply wanted happy, productive, and filling lives for their kids.” (Wallace at 13.)  Is this what Milkie is measuring when she measures outcomes? No. Milkie is measuring current reading scores, math scores, emotional issues, behavioral issues, and engagement in risky behaviors. So her study is not necessarily relevant to the metrics Wallace cares about.

On a personal note, I worry that telling women that additional time “makes no difference to child outcomes” may be covering up the fact that outcomes, as the term is defined by researchers, are not the only reason to spend time with your children. Different people hear different things in the word “outcome.” I think some women may hear that it just doesn’t make a difference to the child if mom spends less time with her. I’m not sure that’s either true or something researchers can, or even attempt to, measure.

[31] Wallace cites Jennifer E. DeVoe, Amy Geller, and Yamrot Negussie, eds., Vigrant and Healthy Kids: Aligning Science, Practice, and Policy to Advance Health Equity (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2019) (https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/25466/chapter/6).

[32] Wallace, Never Enough, 96.

[33] Wallace, Never Enough, 98.

[34] Wallace, Never Enough, 95.

[35] Wallace, Never Enough, 71.

[36] Denise Pope wrote in 2018 about how, although many rankings seem like “objective measures of quality,” in fact they are very arbitrary and “are not accurate indicators of a college’s quality or positive outcomes for students.” Wallace describes how the rankings are calculated and how many of these measures relate more to the qualities of the students who are admitted rather than to the attributes of the school. (Wallace at 126.)

[37] Wallace, Never Enough, 127.

[38]  Stanford Graduate School of Education. (2018, October 1). Challenge success: White paper on college admissions [PDF]. Stanford University. https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/challenge_success_white_paper_on_college_admissions_10.1.2018-reduced.pdf

[39] The studies found meaningful differences in average earnings  (as high as 21%, but the study authors highlight that there are larger variations in income within institutions than between institutions.) Stanford Graduate School of Education, “Challenge Success.”

[40] Wallace, Never Enough, 128.

[41] Wallace, Never Enough, 129.

[42] Wallace, Never Enough, 53

[43] Wallace, Never Enough, 51.

[44] Wallace, Never Enough, 54.

[45] Wallace, Never Enough, 57.

[46] Wallace, Never Enough, 68.

[47] Wallace, Never Enough, 70. She takes this recommendation from Susan Bauerfeld.

[48] Wallace, Never Enough, 71.Notre Dame News. (n.d.). Parent touch, play and support in childhood vital to well-being as an adult. Retrieved 2/5/2025, from https://news.nd.edu/news/parent-touch-play-and-support-in-childhood-vital-to-well-being-as-an-adult/

(I believe this is the actual study: Narvaez, D., Wang, L., & Cheng, Y. (2016). The evolved developmental niche in childhood: Relation to adult psychopathology and morality. Applied Developmental Science, 20(4), 294–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2015.1128835 (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10888691.2015.1128835).)

[49] Wallace, Never Enough, 115.

[50] Wallace, Never Enough, 115.

[51] Wallace, Never Enough, 117.

[52] Wallace, Never Enough, 120.

[53] Wallace, Never Enough, 122.

[54] Wallace, Never Enough, 181.

[55] Wallace, Never Enough, 185.

[56] Wallace, Never Enough, 186.

[57] Wallace, Never Enough, 146.

[58] Wallace, Never Enough, 147.

[59] Wallace, Never Enough, 148.

[60] Wallace, Never Enough, 149.

[61] They also looked at engagement in risky behaviors for teens. This was measured via surveys of the teens themselves. (Milkie et al., 2015)

[62] See Levine, Madeline. 2006. The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids. New York: Harper.

[63] For instance, see Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(8), 917–927. The researchers compared happiness and life satisfaction levels across three groups: lottery winners, individuals who had suffered life-changing injuries resulting in paraplegia or quadriplegia, and a control group. The researchers found that although the lottery winners and injured persons initially experienced changes in happiness levels, over time, both reported happiness levels that returned to a baseline comparable with the control group. The study supports the notion that subjective well-being is not permanently altered by significant positive or negative life events. People tend to adapt and return to a stable happiness “set point.”

[64] Wallace, Never Enough, 121.