"But there’s also a passivity to his character with regard to everything except fulfilling his intellectual curiosity (...) Worst of all, he’s sometimes a follower. I see him deciding what he wants to do based on what other kids are doing. My hope is that he has enough in himself to overcome these weaknesses, and I don’t think it’s too early to suspect that whether he does will be the central question of his life. "
This is not a bug, it's a feature. It's great that your son is a follower. One of the worst things that may happen to an intellectually curious and overcapable kid is to not understand social dynamics, or to have agency and want to be a leader when other kids don't want you to.
One of the problems of our modern culture is that we have a strong leadership cult and bias. Everyone wants their kids to be or become leaders. But there are are far fewer leadership positions available than the number of applicants - the vast majority of them will be turned down and may need to deal with resentment and emotional damage after the fact.
Kid's status hierarchies are different than those of adults' and intellectual capability is not part of them. If anything, it has the opposite effect - little kids like dumb stuff, and more often than not, it's the dumbest kid, not the smartest one, who is considered high status, while the overtly intellectual nerd is risking social rejection.
I wish I knew all of this when I was a kid, maybe my childhood would not have turned into hell once I started school - the Pinocchio experience of dreaming to become a real boy, but not being able to.
Eventually, your kid will be able to join something like a chess club - a group or subculture where his intellectual curiosity and capability will become an asset and contribute to high status. But this will probably not be available for him at least for next couple of years.
The “I’ll leave you right here” bluff - I think that's pretty stupid. Threatening someone with something you know you will not follow through is just a quick way to lose credibility, both in parenting and adult life (i.e. business).
That's a very interesting point, if his attitude really indicates sensitivity to group dynamics and emotional intelligence then you are right, that could be a real asset. From personal experience, I think having a naturally low level of confidence can help you more realistically see the world around you, but obviously there are drawbacks if you allow yourself to be influenced too much by what others think.
I don't agree with the idea that one should want to be stupid to get along, or learn how to interact with peers in ways that become obsolete once one is an adult. The real meaning of "socialization" is "enforcing conformity".
I’m at boy 1 and also have intellectually uncurious rightoid MAGA parents. He’s 3 and is also a transport vehicle encyclopedia. Jury is still out as far as his curiosity but here’s hoping 🤞
This article made me look back on my own childhood, and my parents' experiences raising me. Like Boy 1, I was intellectually precocious as a child, and took intense pleasure in learning everything I could find about whatever particular topic I was interested in at the moment, moving to an adjacent topic when I exhausted every resource available to me. I remember moving from an interest in dinosaurs, to geologic history more broadly, then to human history, and beyond.
Also like Boy 1, I was timid, passive, and never entirely at ease within the physical realm. There was a time in my life when I was interested in the game of chess. I had enough innate talent to be the local elementary school chess champion. My parents thought I was a budding Bobby Fischer and I began attending regional chess tournaments. I remember during one match, I was persuaded into resigning by my opponent, despite having a superior position, which I only realized in retrospect.
Interpersonal conflict terrified me, and I almost always found it easier to back down than to stand up for myself. This trait caused me to abandon chess, and many other hobbies when they became difficult, or I encountered competition with others who were similarly skilled. I now experience some regret looking back on a childhood full of abandoned activities that I had talent and affinity for, but gave up because I wasn’t effortlessly “the best.”
I am glad Boy 1 has siblings. As an adult, I have since “smoothed out” these negative traits, in large part, because I had three younger siblings that I had to learn to deal with and live alongside. Each of us has distinct talents, personalities, and interests; and the virtue of being raised together has caused each of us to adopt many of the more positive qualities of our siblings.
My first younger brother (I guess you could call him Boy 2 in my case) is innately more athletic and socially assertive than me. My mom tells me that I became better at dealing with people, conflict, and ambiguity when I was forced to deal with a much louder and more rambunctious child in the house. Similarly, this brother is travelling to Japan soon, in part, due to an interest in Japanese history. Maybe I’m giving myself too much credit here, but I don’t think he would have developed this same appreciation for Japanese history were I not present in the house to expose him to my historically-themed video games, showing him a world beyond his immediate interests.
I am not a pro-natalist, but sometimes I look back and imagine what I would be like if none of my siblings were born and I remained an only child. I’m sure I would get more attention and resources from my parents, but I doubt that would outweigh the downsides of not having siblings to learn from and grow alongside.
Your story really reminds me of the book Nurtureshock. I don't know if your parents praised you a lot for being smart, but studies show that kids who are praised for being intelligent stop trying to do challenging things because they are afraid of not looking smart. Kids who are praised for hard work keep looking for challenges and don't give up as easily. https://www.amazon.com/NurtureShock-New-Thinking-About-Children/dp/0446504130
Enjoy every moment! I encourage you to reconsider the bonding with the newborn, skin to skin etc, There’s a lot of literature that recommends this, I also highly recommend the books on sleep training, but you need consensus from both parents.
Wow, good piece of writing, but it’s one of the most naive things I’ve ever read. Parents have a tremendous amount of influence over children, but only the bad ones try to control. Hope you don’t learn that the hard way. I’ve raised two of my own boys who are in their 20s and I teach high school history. Got a lot of experience and I’m only 49. I found myself laughing at this post.
When your kids get older, you’re either gonna look back at this post and laugh, or you’ll be disappointed with yourself for your naïveté. The part about sharing shows the most naïveté. The kids who learn how to share are able to build better relationships which they can leverage to their own happiness, which means that they are less likely to be irritated by not getting everything they want immediately, and more likely that people will enjoy their company, which makes it easier to get things you want. You’re looking for both of them to be more like you. That way madness lies.
I enjoy your writing and perspective, but I’ve always thought you were on the spectrum. Now I’m almost positive.
There's more than a little hubris here. Stating the kids who share have better outcomes, even if true, doesn't suggest anything about how possible it is to even teach that or how possible it is for someone to learn it if they're just not wired that way. I live in an environment with many young kids around, and plenty of very conscientious lived parents, and I think it's undeniable that some kids just come out extremely headstrong, others greedy but too passive to act on it, and others are Chucky from Rugrats level of sharing. I see these Dynamics playing out within a family often enough that I think it inconceivable that all three types can become the latter if only you parent hard enough.
Kids are gonna act in certain ways when they are young, but parents have influence on the incentive and consequence structures, and almost all kids care about parental approval. Many dysfunctional adults are the way they are because of a lack of parental approval.
That I do agree with. Parental action or inaction plays a role in the way kids see the world. My contention is that the bigger factor in their innate personalities. Hypothetically, and I know this is a very extreme example: a greedy kid forced at gunpoint to share toys will of course share beyond any reasonable expectation, he'll go around the room doling out his toys like Santa, but that won't change the fact that inside he wants it all for himself.
I’m 52, brought up three boys and a late diagnosed bloke on the spectrum. I’m a few years ahead of you but wouldn’t have suggested you were naive from your comments alone but if you throw in the fact that you work in the education system in a time that dictates methods in a woke age that disregards facts and prioritises theory….I wonder if you’ll look back and realise you were a conformist contributor to what is definitely proving itself wrong in western society. There’s a reason the whole US has just gone blue and that doesn’t take much thinking about other than to realise how fucked up our generations children are because the insights taught to them were so thickly surrounded with bullshit you could stand then all up in a line of it! Sorry to say, harsh but fair!!
Introduce Boy 1 to Hearts of Iron as soon as he's old enough to understand it. And Victoria 3 so he can learn about diplomacy.
This is one of my favorite articles you’ve ever written. Touching look at parenting. Congratulations on kid #3.
I enjoyed this personal reflection. Congrats on Boy 2 and your thriving, growing family.
mazal tov! I'm always happy to hear about smart, thoughtful people reproducing beyond replacement. keep going!!
Few thoughts:
"But there’s also a passivity to his character with regard to everything except fulfilling his intellectual curiosity (...) Worst of all, he’s sometimes a follower. I see him deciding what he wants to do based on what other kids are doing. My hope is that he has enough in himself to overcome these weaknesses, and I don’t think it’s too early to suspect that whether he does will be the central question of his life. "
This is not a bug, it's a feature. It's great that your son is a follower. One of the worst things that may happen to an intellectually curious and overcapable kid is to not understand social dynamics, or to have agency and want to be a leader when other kids don't want you to.
One of the problems of our modern culture is that we have a strong leadership cult and bias. Everyone wants their kids to be or become leaders. But there are are far fewer leadership positions available than the number of applicants - the vast majority of them will be turned down and may need to deal with resentment and emotional damage after the fact.
Kid's status hierarchies are different than those of adults' and intellectual capability is not part of them. If anything, it has the opposite effect - little kids like dumb stuff, and more often than not, it's the dumbest kid, not the smartest one, who is considered high status, while the overtly intellectual nerd is risking social rejection.
I wish I knew all of this when I was a kid, maybe my childhood would not have turned into hell once I started school - the Pinocchio experience of dreaming to become a real boy, but not being able to.
Eventually, your kid will be able to join something like a chess club - a group or subculture where his intellectual curiosity and capability will become an asset and contribute to high status. But this will probably not be available for him at least for next couple of years.
The “I’ll leave you right here” bluff - I think that's pretty stupid. Threatening someone with something you know you will not follow through is just a quick way to lose credibility, both in parenting and adult life (i.e. business).
Congrats on Boy 2!
That's a very interesting point, if his attitude really indicates sensitivity to group dynamics and emotional intelligence then you are right, that could be a real asset. From personal experience, I think having a naturally low level of confidence can help you more realistically see the world around you, but obviously there are drawbacks if you allow yourself to be influenced too much by what others think.
I don't agree with the idea that one should want to be stupid to get along, or learn how to interact with peers in ways that become obsolete once one is an adult. The real meaning of "socialization" is "enforcing conformity".
I’m at boy 1 and also have intellectually uncurious rightoid MAGA parents. He’s 3 and is also a transport vehicle encyclopedia. Jury is still out as far as his curiosity but here’s hoping 🤞
Congratulations, and I hope more than three children is in your future.
This article made me look back on my own childhood, and my parents' experiences raising me. Like Boy 1, I was intellectually precocious as a child, and took intense pleasure in learning everything I could find about whatever particular topic I was interested in at the moment, moving to an adjacent topic when I exhausted every resource available to me. I remember moving from an interest in dinosaurs, to geologic history more broadly, then to human history, and beyond.
Also like Boy 1, I was timid, passive, and never entirely at ease within the physical realm. There was a time in my life when I was interested in the game of chess. I had enough innate talent to be the local elementary school chess champion. My parents thought I was a budding Bobby Fischer and I began attending regional chess tournaments. I remember during one match, I was persuaded into resigning by my opponent, despite having a superior position, which I only realized in retrospect.
Interpersonal conflict terrified me, and I almost always found it easier to back down than to stand up for myself. This trait caused me to abandon chess, and many other hobbies when they became difficult, or I encountered competition with others who were similarly skilled. I now experience some regret looking back on a childhood full of abandoned activities that I had talent and affinity for, but gave up because I wasn’t effortlessly “the best.”
I am glad Boy 1 has siblings. As an adult, I have since “smoothed out” these negative traits, in large part, because I had three younger siblings that I had to learn to deal with and live alongside. Each of us has distinct talents, personalities, and interests; and the virtue of being raised together has caused each of us to adopt many of the more positive qualities of our siblings.
My first younger brother (I guess you could call him Boy 2 in my case) is innately more athletic and socially assertive than me. My mom tells me that I became better at dealing with people, conflict, and ambiguity when I was forced to deal with a much louder and more rambunctious child in the house. Similarly, this brother is travelling to Japan soon, in part, due to an interest in Japanese history. Maybe I’m giving myself too much credit here, but I don’t think he would have developed this same appreciation for Japanese history were I not present in the house to expose him to my historically-themed video games, showing him a world beyond his immediate interests.
I am not a pro-natalist, but sometimes I look back and imagine what I would be like if none of my siblings were born and I remained an only child. I’m sure I would get more attention and resources from my parents, but I doubt that would outweigh the downsides of not having siblings to learn from and grow alongside.
Great work, Richard. Congrats on the new child!
Your story really reminds me of the book Nurtureshock. I don't know if your parents praised you a lot for being smart, but studies show that kids who are praised for being intelligent stop trying to do challenging things because they are afraid of not looking smart. Kids who are praised for hard work keep looking for challenges and don't give up as easily. https://www.amazon.com/NurtureShock-New-Thinking-About-Children/dp/0446504130
Enjoy every moment! I encourage you to reconsider the bonding with the newborn, skin to skin etc, There’s a lot of literature that recommends this, I also highly recommend the books on sleep training, but you need consensus from both parents.
Wow, good piece of writing, but it’s one of the most naive things I’ve ever read. Parents have a tremendous amount of influence over children, but only the bad ones try to control. Hope you don’t learn that the hard way. I’ve raised two of my own boys who are in their 20s and I teach high school history. Got a lot of experience and I’m only 49. I found myself laughing at this post.
When your kids get older, you’re either gonna look back at this post and laugh, or you’ll be disappointed with yourself for your naïveté. The part about sharing shows the most naïveté. The kids who learn how to share are able to build better relationships which they can leverage to their own happiness, which means that they are less likely to be irritated by not getting everything they want immediately, and more likely that people will enjoy their company, which makes it easier to get things you want. You’re looking for both of them to be more like you. That way madness lies.
I enjoy your writing and perspective, but I’ve always thought you were on the spectrum. Now I’m almost positive.
There's more than a little hubris here. Stating the kids who share have better outcomes, even if true, doesn't suggest anything about how possible it is to even teach that or how possible it is for someone to learn it if they're just not wired that way. I live in an environment with many young kids around, and plenty of very conscientious lived parents, and I think it's undeniable that some kids just come out extremely headstrong, others greedy but too passive to act on it, and others are Chucky from Rugrats level of sharing. I see these Dynamics playing out within a family often enough that I think it inconceivable that all three types can become the latter if only you parent hard enough.
Kids are gonna act in certain ways when they are young, but parents have influence on the incentive and consequence structures, and almost all kids care about parental approval. Many dysfunctional adults are the way they are because of a lack of parental approval.
That I do agree with. Parental action or inaction plays a role in the way kids see the world. My contention is that the bigger factor in their innate personalities. Hypothetically, and I know this is a very extreme example: a greedy kid forced at gunpoint to share toys will of course share beyond any reasonable expectation, he'll go around the room doling out his toys like Santa, but that won't change the fact that inside he wants it all for himself.
I’m 52, brought up three boys and a late diagnosed bloke on the spectrum. I’m a few years ahead of you but wouldn’t have suggested you were naive from your comments alone but if you throw in the fact that you work in the education system in a time that dictates methods in a woke age that disregards facts and prioritises theory….I wonder if you’ll look back and realise you were a conformist contributor to what is definitely proving itself wrong in western society. There’s a reason the whole US has just gone blue and that doesn’t take much thinking about other than to realise how fucked up our generations children are because the insights taught to them were so thickly surrounded with bullshit you could stand then all up in a line of it! Sorry to say, harsh but fair!!
What an obnoxious comment. Shut up.
Beautiful. And congratulations!
Really funny and surprisingly moving piece. Also congrats on the newborn :)
Lovely piece.
mazel tov!
Interesting, intelligent, funny. Great. May you enjoy the company of your family, children, and grandchildren, and write about it.
Congrats!