The Life Project. Helen Pearson

The Life Project – Book Summary

The untold story of how a group of mavericks, midwives and pioneers changed the lives of everyone in Britain

Helen Pearson

Penguin (26 Jan. 2017)

About the author:

Helen Pearson is a Chief Magazine Editor for Nature, the word’s leading science journal. She is also a journalist and science communicator. Her stories have won accolades including the 2010 Wistar Institute Science Journalism award and two best feature awards from the Association of British Science Writers. She has a PhD in genetics and lives near London with her partner and three children.

About the book:

In March 1946, scientists began to track thousands of children born in one week, which became the longest-running study of human development in the world, growing to encompass five generations of children. This book highlights the history of these cohort studies and the remarkable discoveries that have come from them. If you’ve heard many times “British scientists found out…” this book will help you understand a lot about the basics of their research. One of the key takeaways from the book – the longitudinal studies show that our social class has a significant influence on us during the whole life cycle. So don’t be born into poverty. But at the same time, good parenting reduces the gap between rich and poor by 50%.

Key ideas from the book:

“This book is about the British birth cohort studies, a remarkable series of longitudinal studies that track generations of babies from birth to death. The cohorts span over seventy years of British and scientific history, have generated a vast range of books and articles across many disciplines, and have involved hundreds of scientists.”

Since we’ve moved to the UK, our own approach to healthcare, education, and social care has changed significantly. Coming from Eastern Europe, where things are quite different, we were questioning pretty much everything. Our main question was, “Why?” – why the maternal care is not the same as in many other countries, why some kids are entitled to 30 hrs of free childcare, and some only for 15, why you can’t buy antibiotics without a prescription, etc. And for pretty much every question, we could find a research-based answer on the internet. This book gives a great overview of how the country makes decisions based on science, so-called evidence-based policy-making (and how the scientists are struggling with securing funding for the studies).

The five cohort studies covering more than 70,000 people have produced over 5,000 journal articles and 40 books covering the social sciences, medicine, epidemiology, genetics and other fields. What they offer is a kind of ‘natural experiment’; by tracking cohorts over time and comparing them to other cohorts, researchers can track the impact of social and political changes on different kinds of people.

The cohort studies

The first study has kicked off in 1946, where the researchers (led by Dr Douglas) collected data on the babies born around the UK within one March week (5,362 babies). It was originated out of conversations held as far back as 1936 into the low birth rate at the time – so simply, the main goal for the researchers was to find out what were the reasons which put families off having more babies. One of the key findings was that social class mattered a lot in post-war Britain. It proved that babies born in poor families are 70% more likely to be born dead than those born to mothers in the most prosperous class. So that’s how the government decided to introduce free maternal care in hospitals.

In 1957 the cohort children faced the 11+ exams (which were introduced earlier to give everyone a more equal chance at school). And what did Douglas found again when he analysed the exam results? Poor kids performed much worse than richer children. Born to fail – that was the main conclusion. At that time, this cohort pretty much changed its direction towards social science.

In 1958 the second cohort study kicked off with a great focus on epidemiology. That was when the scientists proved the negative impact of smoking and drinking alcohol during pregnancy and the positive effects of breastfeeding. In the long run, scientists assessed the cohort children when they were 14 and discovered that, regardless of class, those born to smoking mothers were shorter, performed poorly in intelligence tests, had fewer educational qualifications and tended to be obese. Researchers also found that breastfed children tend to have better health than those who are not. And that nutrition in general (in pregnancy and early age) greatly impacted children – poor nutrition was associated with low birth weight, weaker heart, and worse cognition.

Based on the results of the first two cohorts, scientists and the government could see the great benefits of such studies despite the enormous costs. So they launched the next cohorts in 1970, 1991 and 2000. That gave the researchers the broader perspective on social and medical issues over the long run considering various changes (e.g. economic, lifestyle, technology, pollution).

And again, social mobility and social inequality were popping up all the time. Disadvantaged children were less likely to succeed in life, had poorer physical and mental health and were 60% more likely to die before the age of sixty.

Parenting matters – how disadvantaged children succeeded in life

“Children living in persistent poverty were falling behind those who were better off from an early age, but good parenting appeared to offset the disadvantage to some extent”

Scientists knew that not all the children who were “born to fail” would actually do so. Therefore, the researchers selected 386 cohort members born into most difficult circumstances and identified 83 “achievers” out of them – those who were now doing well in life despite the rough start. The scientists were interested in what helped them to progress in life.

So here are the key points:

“First, typical achievers had parents who were interested in their child’s education and who had aspirations for their child’s future.”
“As well as ambitious parents, the achievers were likely to have had an ambitious school behind them”
“A typical achiever was also less likely to have difficulties at home, such as a sick parent, an unemployed father or separated parents”
“A typical achiever was more likely to want to complete their schoolwork and continue in education – and they were often determined to escape into better circumstances than they had experienced as a child.”

A child’s internal motivation to have a better life supported by parents’ high expectations regarding their education and future – that’s the magic formula.

In 2006 the economist Blanden carried a complex analysis of the 1970 cohort data to understand what enabled disadvantaged children to succeed in education later in life. He concluded that parental engagement, particularly in the first few years of life, is more crucial than anything else. He found that children whose parents were reading to them regularly when they were five and showed an interest in their education at the age of ten were significantly less likely to be poor by the age of thirty.

Support is also important later in life.

Pearson also mentions a cohort study following 3,000 children since the age of three, focusing intensively on the best practices in bringing up children during the early years. The study showed that whatever parents did to create a good learning environment at home was more important for children’s intellectual and social development than their parents’ job, education or income:

“Reading with a child, teaching them songs and nursery rhymes, painting and drawing, showing them the alphabet and numbers, visiting the library, taking children on trips and visits – all of these were associated with higher intellectual, social and behavioural scores as the children grew up”

What else can you do? Talk to your children about what they are learning at school, support them with homework, express ambitions towards their future – that’s all associated with improved academic achievement.

The millennium cohort studies showed that talking and listening to your child, responding to them warmly, institutional regular mealtimes and bedtimes, and authoritative discipline are all correlated with the brighter future.

That resonates with Wise Parenting (the authoritative parenting style) – being a demanding parent, but offering loads of warmth and support at the same time. In “Grit” Angela Duckworth describes it as an optimal parenting style for raising great kids with grit. And, as her studies show, grit is the secret ingredient of success in life. So here you go again – scientifically proven.

One of the studies on the millennium cohort has also found that regular bedtime routine and schedule associated with good behaviour. Scientists even came up with an explanation: “disrupted sleep is thought to upset the brain’s innate 24-hour clock, leaving children in a state much like perpetual jet lag, which interferes with the working of their brains and messes with their behavior”.

So routine is also super important for a bright start. And it is also so helpful for parents. ☺

Self-control in childhood predicts success in adulthood

One of the interesting research findings was that self-control in childhood predicts success later in life.

Remember the famous marshmallow test – the experiments started in 1960 by Stanford professor Walter Mischel? Pre-school children were presented with one marshmallow (or another treat) and told that they could either eat that one now or wait up to twenty minutes to get two treats instead (check out this video on youtube showing kids’ reaction to a marshmallow challenge).

Sometime later, the scientists followed up the children and found that those who had better self-control during the marshmallow experiment had gone on to perform better on college-entry tests, were better stress-coping strategies and had a lower body mass index.

Recently, the scientists used the data from the 1958 & 1970 cohort studies (based on some of the seven- and eleven-year-old test) to measure children’s self-control in their childhood. What they found was that children with poor self-control were more likely to have poor health as adults. At the same time, cohort children who had high self-control have been more likely to secure a higher socioeconomic status and move into managerial positions at work. Conclusion – “patience and perseverance are such a crucial predictor of success in life that they should be taught from a young age”.

Again, that strongly correlates with Angela Duckworth’s research on grit. ☺

“It all adds up to the growing realization that when it comes to finding happiness, health and wealth in life, it really helps to build social and emotional skills, as well as intellectual ones. Success at many jobs and life challenges requires people to be diligent, reliable and to get the job done, rather than having bountiful raw intelligence”

Cannot agree more on this!

It also resonates with Nathaniel Branden – in “The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem” (check out the notes) he writes that self-discipline and delaying gratification are the two hallmarks of psychological health:

“No one can feel competent to cope with the challenges of life who is without the capacity for self-discipline. Self-discipline requires the ability to defer immediate gratification in the service of a remote goal. This is the ability to project consequences into the future—to think, plan, and live long-range.”

Key takeaways:

Remember that fundamentals (healthy eating, exercising/moving and sleeping) and a healthy lifestyle are crucial for your and your children’s health and success in life
Wise parenting (demanding and supportive) is more important than pretty much anything else in your children’s life. Love your children, read to them, create a rich learning environment, be present, talk to them, be interested in them and what is happening in their life, express interest and your aspirations regarding their education and future. Also, make demanding challenges a part of everyday life.
Self-control is a great skill to teach your children from a very early life (and it’s never too late for you to learn/improve it). Think about willpower and grit.