The Ava Paradox

Our little Ava learned a word yesterday!  That word is “hot”, and she knows it means to not touch something.  She deploys it for a number of uses, but as a loving and vicarious-living parent, I’d like to believe she knows precisely what it means and just likes the sound of it.  How cool is that?  Let’s go to the video evidence:

This is where you say – this is a trap.  Josh can’t do anything without being preachy and morally superior about his social work values, and the name of the post has “paradox” in it.  He’s going to rant about the disparities in early childhood development between socio-economic classes and he’s using his super-cute baby like a trojan horse to draw me in for some condescending lecture.  You’re darn right I am.

This post might be considered “Emo-Gladwellian-Banduran”.  While Malcom Gladwell (“Malc” to us in the biz, and I may or may not just have made that up) approaches context and timing of personal development with wonder and awe, someone who is more emo might flip the script and talk about the inherent social injustice in early childhood development and the corresponding probable life trajectory.  (Definition of emo here, if needed.) That person might do so while listening to My Chemical Romance.  That person might keep referring back to Albert Bandura. So Emo-Gladwellian-Banduran it is, and no more highfalutin words.  Not many, anyway.  Allow myself to explain…myself.

Lisa and I love and try to care for Ava like any good parents should.  Correspondingly, Ava is doing very well emotionally, physically, and intellectually.  Inadvertently, or maybe not so inadvertently, we’ve also provided her with a huge probable competitive advantage over her peers for the rest of her life.  The things we do might seem normal to you until you think about the absence of those things and what that would do to a child developmentally.

The first thing that we do is love her unconditionally and provider her a ton of positive reinforcement.  We do it naturally, but it also sets the foundation for confidence and self-efficacy, which is maybe the most critical factor in her future life success.  As decently trained parents, we also use everything as a learning opportunity.  Babies are sponges, and while we’re careful not to completely overload her, her mind is elastic and everything becomes educational and growth-oriented.

We’re also fairly scientific with respect to her development.  We’re like the Daryl Morey of parents.  We’ve done our research and we track data daily on everything from nap times to food intake.  We typically aggregate it and say “she took 3 hours of naps and had 24 ounces of formula, 3 scoops of oatmeal, and 2 jars of fruit/veggies”.  Again, nothing terribly out of the ordinary for middle-class parenting, but it contributes to  her physical and psycho-social development.  Just to come circle on the Daryl Morey analogy – Ava’s Plus-Minus is 12.5 in daytime and 9.3 in the evening.  You’re a huge dork in you get that.

But we’re also both working full-time, like most middle-class families.  And like many working parents, we put in more than 40 a week, sometimes many more.  The competitive advantage for Ava is what happens when we’re not there.  Lisa’s mom Linda (Ava’s grandmother, but call her GiGi) comes 4-5 times per week – she drives an hour each way – to take care of Ava.  Lisa’s grandmother (Ava’s great-grandmother) also comes about once per week.  This is a tremendous cost-savings, obviously, but the quality of care is the differentiating factor.  Linda/GiGi:

1. knows early childhood development inside and out
2. has experiential knowledge from two of her own
3. not only views this as her job, but as her mission
4. spends every waking minute with Ava teaching, positively reinforcing, setting appropriate and understandable boundaries, and loving the heck out of her

To get back to Malcom Gladwell, he postulates a rule of 10,000 hours.  That’s how much practice it takes at a specific task to master it.  His assertion is that success in life is less about talent and drive than we think – it’s just as much about opportunity and timing – the “ecology” of the system around a person that allows them to thrive.

So, from a sociological perspective, Ava not only has two loving parents that spend hours every day “learning and loving” her, but she also has a full-time “learn and love coach” who happens to be a GiGi uniquely qualified to provide expert coaching.  She’ll reach her 10,000 hours as quickly as anyone.  She’s already showing signs of significant progress in language – refer back to the video at the start.

You’re saying – that’s great, Reynolds, get to the point.  My point is – by the time Ava is in second grade, she will be advanced from her normative peer group and she’ll probably test gifted and talented.  Whether or not she is inherently gifted and talented (and we think she is, but what parents don’t?) is beside the point.  She’ll be more practiced.  Most testing doesn’t do a good job of assessing potential.  It assesses ability to perform well on the test, which is a function of practice and preparation.  Again, most tests actually test  your ability to take a test, not your aptitude.  These things aren’t mutually exclusive, but they’re not the same, either.

So Ava gets into the gifted and talented program regardless of whether she was the most gifted and talented.  So what?  People start to look at her in a different light.  Teachers and administrators pay more attention.  She stays in GT as she advances grade levels, and she is thought of and comes to think of herself as exceptional.  Not only does college become a normative expectation for her, but so does becoming a Rhodes Scholar.  And whatever comes next is her choice, no matter what in the world it is.  Literally, in the world.

You stop reading this and say – that’s a little farfetched, Reynolds.  It’s really not.  Read Merton on self-fulfilling prophesies.  One of the best things that ever happened to me personally is I went to a private high school for my junior and senior year.  Not only did I go from a B- student to an A- student, I learned something much more important.  Looking back at Episcopal, the one trait almost every student had was confidence.  Episcopal taught me, among other things, that I had to act like I belonged wherever I was.  After a while, I actually started to believe it, starting in college.  Some might say I believe it too much.  The point is, I’m now comfortable in any situation because I’m supposed to be there.  And it becomes, like everything else in life, a self-fulfilling prophesy.

So if Ava is treated like she is gifted and talented, she will actually become gifted and talented, if she wasn’t already.  If she was, then she’ll become even more gifted and talented.   Part of it is due to hours of specialized instruction, but part of it is also due to the “Episcopal effect” of an ecological system that fosters a sense of self-efficacy.

Maybe I don’t even need to say this, but it’s empirically validated and thus it might be worth brow-beating you.  A child who believes in herself will end up, as an adult, healthier physically and psychologically (including less depression and less asthma!).  She will be more likely to have a good-paying job and less likely to be on what some of my more conservative friends call welfare.  She will live longer.  Her children will be more likely to finish high school, college, and post-college education.

In short, her life will be better, and the trajectory is set at a very young age.

What if Ava didn’t have two loving parents?  Or two parents at all?  Did you know that girls raised by single mothers actually start their menstrual cycles earlier than those raised by both parents?  The science is unambiguous: girls that don’t have daddy go looking for him at a younger age.  I’m not saying anything against single mothers – they do a fantastic, herculean job.  I didn’t realize what it was like until Lisa had swine flu for a week.  All I did was evening duty by myself, and it was absolutely exhausting. Much respect to single moms.  But it isn’t ideal, and the reason is bio-chemical.

We really do like to attribute success in life as a combination of hard work and natural ability.  What if Ava, the same Ava, was born to a single mother?  What if she was born to no mother?  She would work just as hard and have the same natural ability.  Do you really believe her expected life outcomes would be the same?

To steal from Gladwell again, the tallest tree in the forest doesn’t necessarily come from the best acorn.  It’s just as much about light and rain and animals not eating the sapling and being lucky enough to avoid fires.  It’s about the ecosystem.  Luck plus ability plus effort.

To get to the preachy point – we all judge others.  It’s natural.  The jerk co-worker.  The family member who struggles with behavioral health issues.  The pregnant teenager.  The homeless guy panhandling on 59.   Maybe consider why that other person is the way they are.  Some of it is choice, no doubt.  But much of it may be context and environment.  There but by the grace of God go I.  Right?  From this understanding will come compassion and maybe a better way, for you and that person.

In any case, the Hot! Hot! Hot! thing was super cool.