The Peter Principle of Parenting

In the business world, the “Peter Principle” is the principle that has been applied to describe whether people within an organization are competent at the jobs that they do. The Peter Principle states that any person just doing OK (or worse) at their current job will stay at their current job. Any person that is particularly good at his or her job, however, will be promoted. If the person keeps doing well, they don’t keep their job for long, since they’ll continue to be moved up the corporate ladder. Since the people doing their jobs well keep getting new jobs until they perform poorly, eventually the entire organization is full of people that have been promoted one time too many and are at best OK, and often inept, at the job they are allegedly doing. Anyone who has worked in corporate America for any period of time has either heard of this principle and is probably sitting there right nod, nodding their head in recognition.

The same principle applies to parenting.

Some couples in this world have one child, realize that it is a ton of work and that they’re in over their heads and they say “we’re stopping here.”

Most couples, however, after having the first child decide to have another. If that goes well, they have another. And so on and so on. Until things aren’t going well anymore.

Indeed, when I was young, I remember days of sheer happiness with me and my parents and my younger brother and sister. And then my youngest sister came along and everything fell apart...

Like my family growing up, in most homes in America there are families that have one child more than the number that would have allowed everyone to maintain their sanity. No one is happy. Everyone has one extra kid.

The Peter Principle brought home.