The Family Dynamic
A Journey into the Mystery of Sibling Success
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
What explains those rare families that boast multiple siblings who achieve extraordinary success? An award-winning New York Times journalist weaves story with science to explore the circumstances that set those families apart.
“At once clear-eyed and compassionate, The Family Dynamic uncovers how parents—and siblings—shape and fuel individual success.”—Lisa Damour, bestselling author of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers
An Olympic athlete. An award-winning novelist. A successful entrepreneur. All raised under one roof. What can we learn from those families whose children aim high and succeed, sometimes in widely varied fields? Just as important: What were the costs along the way, and what can we glean from their travails and triumphs?
The acclaimed New York Times journalist Susan Dominus offers compelling profiles of six such families in search of the factors that led to their success—was it an inherited quality, a specific way of parenting, the influence of a sibling, or a twist of luck? Inspired by the iconic Brontë sisters, whose remarkable literary success prompted endless speculation, Dominus, the mother of twin teenagers, sought out contemporary high-achieving families who shared intimate stories of their upbringing. She introduces us to the Chens, young parents who fled their country’s one-child policy to open a Chinese restaurant in Appalachia—then sent four children to elite colleges and on to careers that give back in technology and medicine; the Groffs, whose claim to fame is not just an award-winning novelist but an Olympic athlete and a notable entrepreneur; the Wojcickis, whose daughters made inroads as STEM pioneers in Silicon Valley; and the Murguias, who rose from exceptionally humble origins to become powerful jurists and civil rights champions. Woven into these and other stories is an account of centuries of scientific research into the ongoing question of nature versus nurture.
Elegantly written and extensively researched, The Family Dynamic is more than a checklist of how-to’s. It’s a deep and moving exploration of the complexity of family life and the rewards—and burdens—of ambition.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
New York Times Magazine staff writer Dominus debuts with an affecting inquiry into how nature, nurture, and luck commingle in the lives of high-achieving siblings through profiles of six families. She finds that successful siblings push one another toward success. For instance, she tells how in the Murguía household, eldest son Alfred helped his younger brothers—who went on to become a federal judge and a philanthropist—learn the ropes at the University of Kansas even after he secretly dropped out so he could work to help pay the family's bills. Sibling competition can also be formative, Dominus suggests, discussing how Olympic triathlete Sarah Groff took to sports as a way of distinguishing herself from her academically inclined older siblings. Dominus is an expert storyteller whose nuanced family portraits acknowledge the emotional toll that often accompanies her subjects' achievements. For instance, Dominus writes that while Ying Chen, whose children became a doctor and a wealthy businessman, viewed music lessons as valuable beyond their status as an extracurricular stepping stone to an Ivy League school, she would still sometimes fly into an "unnerving, unchecked rage" and hit her kids with "whatever was handy" when they didn't practice. Empathetic and written with a novelist's knack for characterization, this entrances.
