As if being an older parent isn't tough enough at times, now there's a study in the news that indicates good parenting is dependent upon looks.

The next time you see a child wandering lost and alone in the grocery store, sneak a peek at the parents.There's a good chance they're ugly, suggests new research from the University of Alberta.
"Unattractive parents are less likely than attractive parents to supervise their children closely".

Without even beginning to get into what a supreme waste of money some research amounts to, I have to wonder about the sort of mind that thought this one up. Seems the mind in charge is rather fixated on the superficial and not so picky about science:

Andrew Harrell [is] the same social scientist who started a media storm last year when he presented evidence that showed that parents neglect unattractive children more than attractive ones. He argued that evolution was at play: Since pretty children have the best genes, parents will pay them the most attention to ensure their strong genetic material carries on.

Pretty children have the best genes? Where does that come from? Is this some sort of advanced genetics previously unknown? Is the University of Alberta a Beauty College?

Now, he's on to new findings on parental ugliness.

Great. It's always nice when someone has a mission in life. Mr. Harrell's may seem trivial, but he steps up the tension ... attempting to convey an element of importance, I suspect ... by tossing in a dire consequence:

"The unattractive parents may be ugly because they have had economic difficulties, health problems, diabetes, poor eyesight, psychological and physical hardships that distract them," Harrell offered as an explanation, though he said his limited data can't prove the theory, since his team never interviewed the parents or the children.

"They have their own personal concerns and they have less time to be attentive to their children. ... Their mind is elsewhere."

"They are in such physical and psychological misery they are not there," Harrell said.

Such arguments might explain why a child can drown in a swimming pool, even though a parent is close by and supposedly watching, he said.

I just have to read that over and over. It's the "in such physical and psychological misery" line that really gets me going. It conjures an image of hoards of the homely trudging painfully across a wide expanse of the frozen food section, moaning and wailing, and so occupied with the moaning and wailing ... and painful trudging ... that they fail to notice a special on Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey, and that their equally homely child has just tucked a frozen tamale up their sleeve.

... .... ....

Sorry. I went away for a while, just drifted along in an annoyed little world of my own, but I'm back now ... and this is serious science ...

Harrell, the director of the Population Research Laboratory in the U of A's sociology department, began studying parents in grocery stores to figure out if their behaviour contributed to accidents involving shopping carts where children were hurt.

Now there's a clue to the motivation ...

"If the homely parents had ugly children, the neglect was even worse, with 36 per cent of parents letting their children out of sight.

"This inattentiveness is what happens," Harrell said, noting that while ideas on beauty are subjective, researchers' scores on the parents' looks were very similar among observers. "They don't see the kids in distress and this is when accidents happen."

Parents were considered neglectful if the child wandered more than three metres away -- too far to intervene in time if a child got into trouble -- or went out of sight around an aisle or far across the store.

Harrell said: "I'm appalled. We've always believed it was a failure of shopping carts, but it's the parents, crappy parenting (that plays a part)."

Ah ha! Beginning to get the idea that someone doesn't want shopping carts to get the blame? Could this be the reason for this "study"? He may be "appalled," but I'm cynical.

Sure wish there had been a photo of Mr. Harrell. I'd love to see get a look at his mug.