Theory of Relativeness

In business school we were posed an interesting question: would you rather make $50,000 when your friends make $30,000 or $80,000 when your friends make $100,000. Overwhelmingly, we chose $50,000. I have been noticing this same behavior more and more in my children. My daughter is happy to get 1 cookie… until she looks over and sees her sister has 2. They are perfectly content playing with a toy until they see the other with a “better” one.

If our behaviors are based on the traits that survived natural selection, then there is something about keeping up with the Jones that actually increased our chance of survival. I can see a benefit in being driven by the successes of others. When a cave daddy comes home with a basket of berries, this pushes the others to do better. With no absolute scorecard, relative success provides a useful measure of how we are doing and an important motivator to do more.

Even more important is the idea of survival of the fittest related to this relativeness. Within a tribe of 20 people, those that collect more and do better are the ones more likely to live. Even today in India with millions and millions of people competing for a few seats at the best universities… leading to the best jobs… leading to security that food will be on the table. This trait of comparing ourselves with the neighbors has practical benefits to help motivate us that are rooted in an instinct to survive.

There is an unexpected implication to this trait that drives us to success. It is when the measure is no longer collecting food and security but about brands and status. How important is upgrading a Toyota for a Mercedes to our survival and success… and when does it end? We should embrace our innate desire to compare, compete, and win… this drives us towards excellence. But as with all traits that helped us get this far, realize how we are programmed and not be controlled by it.

Is social anxiety bad?

Social anxiety is a fear or apprehension when interacting with others and is the 3rd most prevalent psychiatric disorder. My daughter started in a new pre-K program and suddenly my social, hyperactive daughter turned shy. Did she have social anxiety? Her teacher told me she kept to herself and was very quiet. Wow, this doesn’t sound like my daughter!

Having a fear of other people is an unhealthy condition given that we are constantly surrounded by others. But if we look back at cave mommy times, having a fear of rejection from a group was very important. Being part of a tribe was how people survived and the rejection from that group meant sure death. And through natural selection, disregard for others led to those genes not being passed on. Instead, to survive, it was important to have a heathy fear of rejection which gave rise to cooperation, flexibility, and interest in others.

I went to visit my daughter at school a few weeks later and noticed that she was not playing by herself. She was not disinterested in others. In fact she was standing near two girls and watched them so intently she looked paralyzed. She appeared to be studying them… would they harm her, reject her? How would she be able to maneuver her way into their group?

Soon after I bought a reward chart and found an interesting “chore” called Get Along with Others. I put this on my daughters chart to see what she would do. I didn’t do much else but she immediately got excited… approval by others is a strong opposite force to fear of rejection. She came home that night and told me she played with two other girls at school. “What! You did?” And she told me that all she did was “take the shy off and left it at home”. She got a big gold star!

There is much published on social disorders and plenty of medications available. But it is interesting to think that we are wired to have a fear of rejection because it was a key survival trait many years ago. We live in a society of much change that challenges our natural wiring… few get a chance to live within a small community with familiar faces all their lives. However, we should embrace social anxiety because it is a natural reaction. We wouldn’t exist without it.

What have we been eating?

Its really astonishing reading the labels and marketing nowadays. All Natural, No Hormones, Real Cheese, Cage Free, and of course Organic. What were we eating before? And why is it so hard to find real food?

About a year ago I learned all about high fructose corn syrup. First of all its not something found naturally but lab created. Supposedly it makes you more hungry and is one of the worst things for your body. Around the late ’80s, sweetener consumption in the US went from mainly sugar to about 50% high fructose corn syrup! Wow, I never got the memo on that!  Remember Supersize Me… it wasn’t really about the burgers and fries but about the gallons of coke we consume which has high fructose corn syrup. So the really scary part is… its in everything. When I buy whole grain bread… it has high fructose corn syrup. What! I thought I was being a discerning consumer. There are only about 4 of 30 brands of bread that don’t have it (Mortons and Organic brands).

Okay but that is really only part of the story. There is actually something called Food Science. Engineering our food to make it taste better, look better, smell better, and last longer. Huh, interesting. Even our vegetables are engineered… and as an engineer I know about optimizing tradeoffs. So we get bigger, juicier, apples. Nice. But apples today have half the nutritional value than apples 50 years ago. So the catch is Food Scientists are trading off profit maximization for nutrition.

Anyone who cooks with onions may have experienced this first hand. At Costco you can find an onion twice the size but with what turns out to be half the taste. There is something wrong if you cut an onion and you don’t cry. The little organic ones bring me to tears! Interestingly recently started a vegetable garden and discovered something called Heirloom seeds. These are the original seeds created through pollination (and natural selection)… so I realized even seeds are genetically engineered. So again, what have we been eating? And worse, now vegetables are not as good for me as they used to be? I thought organic was just about pesticides but there is so much more.

Its no wonder we are obese. We need to eat twice as much to get the same nutrional value. We inject our bodies with chemicals that creates insulin resistance and supresses our natural feeling of fullness. So I also believe there is a lot of hype about organic… but now I buy nothing but organic. I look forward to the day we go back to trusting nature over engineers.

We Are Pre-wired for Kindness

Wow, I was excited when I read this in a book called Social Intelligence. Sometimes we forget when we turn on the TV but people innately care about other people. This is why we feel better after helping someone or involuntarily smile when someone else does.

Interestingly, the other side of this, we also frown when we see a scary movie or feel sad when we hear bad news. What Social Intelligence is suggesting is that we feel empathy. This is a valuable trait for communicating and relating to others. But more importantly this was necessary for survival thousands of years ago… before widespread communication.

One look of horror from another person can be communcated with a single expression to hundreds of people. Without speaking, they all run… from say a pre-historic lion. This is an amazingly efficient form of mass-communication.

Even though we probably don’t need this sort of communication today… we need to beware of the way we are wired… we are all impacted by each other. A sour face, a critical glare, and harsh word — particulary to your little one — can have a real impact. Social Intelligence highlights how these external reactions translate into brain and body reactions — releasing stress hormones. We can actually get sick by being around negative people.

So what did I get out of this… a smile not only brightens my day but my daughters and everyone around me. And it can help make them healthier too.

Don’t let your boys grow up to be cowboys

And for that matter don’t let your daughters grow up to be princesses.

A fantastic book by Eckert Tolle talks about how we are training our kids to be something they are not and ultimately fulfilling stereotypes. The reality is that boys cry and girls punch (as any mom knows). The problem with reinforcing these stereotypical behaviors is that we end up in a society that is not “aware” or self realized. And this impact has led to world wars, terrorism, prostitution, and many of our worlds woes. 

Really each of us has Yin (passive, gentle, feminine) and Yang (active, bright, masculine) in us. I often worry that my daughter is a bit… too much. She is very strong, fast, agressive… or put another way vivacious, dynamic, exciting. I have no doubt she’ll be the next Meg Whitman or Oprah!

Imagine a world where people were free to express themselves, be present, and live without constraints. Let’s stop teaching our daughters to sit still and our sons to be tough. Let’s teach them how to be the best they can be.

Temper Temper

Why do toddlers need to have temper tantrums from a Cave Mommy perspective. Why would temper tantrums be a favorable trait that would help the toddler survive? And more importantly, how can we avoid them?

A cave toddler screams to get attention. This would help them survive in some situations (and thus pass on this tantrum gene). After all, its hard to ignore a screaming two-year old. But more importantly, they scream when something goes wrong. For example, if the toddler is eating a fallen berry and a cave uncle comes by and takes it away. That screaming may help get it back. Certainly it makes the point of “I’m not happy, give it back now” without even uttering a word. That’s pretty efficient. And it would get a quick response before the perpetrator has time to pop that berrry into his own mouth.

So how do we work with these god given (or naturally selected for) traits today? Well, tantrums only happen for a reason — to communicate swiftly and unignorably. A ‘no reason’ tantrum would not have been tolerated by impatient cave mommy or others in the cave people community. So if tantrums have a cause, they can be avoided.

What causes tantrums today? Simply put, a toddler gets stressed. After all, what would you do if you had no power to choose what you do. Stress even for adults is caused by situations where we do not have control. Toddlers are always at the mercy of others… what they eat, when they sleep, where they go, how they play, and who takes care of them.

So simply put, avoid tantrums by giving power to our toddlers! Keep a routine that toddlers can predict. Now they know what’s coming next and can mentally prepare. Offer them choices — do you want to sit in your high chair or booster seat? Avoid surprises that derail them… and when I say surprises I mean the bad kind like oh time to sleep now! Waaaaah. Minimize the stress and uncertainty by explaining everything, in detail, repeating often.

“We are going to Grandma’s house. You can play with Grandma and then she’ll give you dinner, and then play some more, and then she’ll give you milk, and brush your teeth, then you’ll go pee pee, then Grandma will read you a book, and then you’ll go sleepy sleepy! Okay? You are going to sleep with Grandma tonight. Then tomorrow Mommy is going to wake up and get in the car and drive to Grandma’s house and pick you up.”

No detail is too small for your curious little happy tantrum free toddler.

Blink and the Cave Mommy

Blink is a book by the author of Tipping Point… that describes how we would all be better off if we followed our instincts. This is something I believe in from a Cave Mommy perspective. Just like Eskimos can identify thousands of different kinds of snowflakes (when the rest of us only see snow), mommies can distinguish nuances in her baby’s cry. In an instant we have an instinct whether he is hungry, tired, bored, sleepy, frustrated, or hurt.

It intuitively makes sense WHAT happens… almost like pattern finding. We get a series of sensory inputs that we run against data points we collect each day. We make quick multivariate correlations and force rank possible solutions — all in an instant. Explaining HOW and defending my instinct is more difficult… like explaining how to ride a bike. On a conscious level, I have no idea what variables I used. Was it a hand movement or facial expression or sound?

The WHY is based on natural selection. Any cave man or woman has an advantage if they can make good decisions quickly. This before databases, power point, and of course analysis paralysis. Cave Mommies had to do the number crunching and get to a conclusion in their head, quickly.

We rely on our instincts every minute of every day whether it is for caring for our child, identifying trouble as our toddler walks in park, or picking a new nanny. What’s most important and the book Blink articulates so well… is that we’ve got to trust these Cave Mommy instincts. As soon as your thinking and reasoning mind take over you are very likely to come up with a different, reasonable, defensible, rational but wrong conclusion.

Our Cave Baby Artifacts

Upside of Lazy

Like many moms, I am “energy optimizing”… that is I’d like to do the least amount work for the maximum amount of benefit. OK, so my husband would just call me lazy. However, there are some merits to what he would call laziness and what I would call smart about use of time and energy… particularly when it comes to parenting. And this philosophy fits well with the overall Cave Baby Theory.

That is, in natural selection, the traits with the advantage are most likely to get passed on. Given the lack of technology and etc… cave mommy’s had to balance a whole lot of things and get by. They didn’t have the same societal pressures we have today to IMPRESS OTHERS WITH MY GREAT PARENTING SKILLS or follow laws around negligence and child abuse. They had to do it all, simply and naturally. If it wasn’t simple, natural, or have some reward attached… they probably wouldn’t have done it.

My top 3 Lazy Mom Parenting Tips:

Do more lying down – Nurse while you sleep. For me being sleep deprived just was not an option. Maybe its the engineer in me that tried to reverse engineer how cave mommies probably would have fed their kids at night. Roll over, get in the right position… and let baby do the rest… oh and get your rest. Okay its not a pretty site… reminds me of all the piglets at the farm latching on to their mommy but it works.

Don’t get up — I’m a working mom so getting up in the middle of the night is also not an option. Also, my kids get up early so having them play in my bed versus screaming in the other room is preferred. I don’t have to get up! You may wonder if they’ll ever leave my bed but my toddler had no problem transitioning as soon as she could walk. In fact she liked having her own room and bed. Now she can get out of bed herself and walk over to our room in the morning.

Just be– I love shopping for cute little developmental toys but more and more I’m realizing that I don’t need this stuff. Cave Mommies raised babies without more than themselves and nature around them. My six month old is happy seeing my face or playing with her feet and of course hearing my voice. My toddler can spend hours and hours at the beach… something we love too. My toddler learned counting and ABCs just from some good old fashioned singing– no batteries required.

Cry or Be Eaten

Last night, as my six month old daughter was falling asleep she fussed a little. She was lying next to me but she struggled to get closer. As soon as I picked her up she fell asleep. This happens a lot, but this time I wondered why. What was the purpose? If every trait went through natural selection… what is the advantage of crying?

If my daughter were a cave baby, her fussing would have actually made her more safe. By picking her up she was less likely to fall prey to a mountain lion, coyote, or even a hawk. I used to think of crying for communicating hunger or some other problem, but crying also could be a way to keep mommy close and thus… to keep baby protected.

There must have been a wide range of traits (some babies cried too much and some too little). The cave babies that did not cry much had a distinct DISadvantage. Cave Mommy wouldn’t know when to feed the baby and they could perhaps leave the baby unattended for periods of time with little complaint. These cave babies would not have survived… and so this wonderful no-crying -gene did not get passed down.

Babies that cried too much also were at a disadvantage. These babies that would not stop crying were probably more likely to at some point also get ignored because there was nothing the Cave Mommy could do. This crying-too-much gene then too would be less likely to get passed on.

So am I spoiling my 6 month old by holding her? I’m just acknowledging her survival instinct which balances just the right amount of fussing/crying to communicate her needs to me. Crying has a real purpose and its better respond to it as nature intended rather than ignoring it.