A short advice-style talk by Dr. Arthur Brooks arguing that children learn primarily by imitating their parents. The speaker frames behaviors (including divorce) as transmitted across generations via mimetic/"epigenetic" imprinting and emphasizes that parents should model the traits they want their children to adopt (religious practice, non-problematic drinking, healthy relationship behavior).
One of the reasons that you find that divorce, for example, it appears to be epigenetic, insofar as it kind of passes down through the generations, is because you mimic what you see. We're mimetic. We mimic particularly what we see in our parents. So people ask me all the time, how do I teach my kid to be a decent person? How do I raise my kid in the faith? Doesn't matter what you tell them. All that matters is what they see. Be the person you want your kid to become. If you want your kid to grow up and be religious in your religion, no Sundays off or whatever your religion happens to be. If you want your kid to grow up and not be a problem drinker, never have your child see you drink problematically. That's the key. Because all that matters is what they see. And they record these things. I mean, this is just imprinted. If your parents are behaving toxically and you see it, you'll imprint that. If they do something that represents what a good marriage or a functional relationship is all about, you'll do that, and you'll be looking for that as well.
