Cribsheet

You have likely heard the adage that there are ‘a million ways to skin a cat.’ Parenting, while distinctly different from deconstructing felines, should be approached with a similar philosophy in mind. Emily Oster wants parents to take a more relaxed approach in raising their children. While data-driven research can certainly be useful in decision-making processes, parents need to be careful about what kinds of studies and information they are making their choices based upon.

Additionally, many parenting choices can be made based on a personal decision-making framework alone. If you consider what it is that you value most, be it time, money, or quality of care for your child, you can keep these opportunity costs in mind when making decisions while also considering the marginal value in each situation. At the end of the day, there’s not one way to do parenting right. If there was, we would have figured it out a long time ago!

Emily Oster was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1980. After receiving her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2006, Oster began her academic career at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Later, Oster’s professional pursuits took her to Brown University where she is currently an economics professor. Oster studies a wide array of concepts spanning from research design and methodology to development and health economics. Prior to publishing Cribsheet, Oster wrote and released Expecting Better in 2014. As of March 2019, Oster’s premier text had sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide.