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?
 

"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." -- Publisher's description.

The Family Dynamic: A Journey Into the Mystery of Sibling Success (Crown, 2025) combines narrative with science to explore the circumstances of families with multiple children who achieve extraordinary successes.

Susan Dominus is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine where she covers a variety of topics. She worked as an editor for the first eight years of her career at magazines including Glamour, The American Lawyer and New York before switching to reporting and writing. She freelanced for The New York Times Magazine and other outlets before joining the Times staff in 2007 to write the “Big City” column for the Metro section. Dominus joined the staff of the Magazine in 2011 and was a member of the Times team that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for reporting on sexual harassment in the American workplace. In 2024, Susan Dominus won a National Magazine Award for an article about menopause.

Moderating discussion is Dr. Aurelie Athan, a clinical psychologist and Research Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Athan's research interests embrace Maternal Psychology: Matrescence & Maternal Mental Health, Perinatal Risk & Resilience, and  Reproductive Psychology: Reproductive Identity Formation and  Reproductive Life Planning & Decision-Making. The author of numerous articles, her Ph'D is entitled, Postpartum Flourishing: Motherhood as Opportunity for Positive Growth and Self-Development (Columbia University, 2011). Dr. Athan is the founder of KHORA, the Maternal and Reproductive Psychology Lab at Teachers College.

This book talk is co-sponsored by KHORA and Gottesman Libraries. It is the third in a series of three book talks this Fall on matrescence, the "developmental passage where a woman transitions through pre-conception, pregnancy and birth, surrogacy or adoption, to the postnatal period and beyond." (Aurelie Athan, Ph.D., 2016)

Where: 306 Russell / Online

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