Lord, Give Me The Patience To Answer Questions My Child Can’t Possibly Understand The Answers To…

Tags

child development, four year old, frustration, impatience, parenting, questions, science

Like many small children, I think, Owl is a little scientist, and I’m not handling it very well.

I’ve always looked forward to explaining things to my children. When I was just a teenager I made sure to know why the sky was blue and why water boiled, so that some day I could explain it to my kids.

But I always imagined my kids understanding the answer.

For years, Owl and I have experienced mutual frustration with my inability to deliver answers that he can understand. On the bright side, his questions these days are actually coherent most of the time. He no longer asks me what a tree is doing or why I am driving him to school.

Now his questions are actually VALID, but he still can’t understand THE GOD DAMN ANSWER.

That’s not his fault. He’s FOUR. He’s a bright kid. Some day he’ll probably be winning science awards. I’m sure that no one finds it more frustrating than he does. But it still doesn’t make it easy when I’m constantly being badgered for questions that I can’t answer.

He doesn’t just want to know IF he can have a sandwich. He wants to know WHY he can have a sandwich. He wants to understand the PSYCHOLOGY behind my willingness to acquiesce to his request. He doesn’t think that “because you said you were hungry and you asked for a sandwich and it’s lunch time and we have the ingredients to make sandwiches so I considered your request and decided it was reasonable” is sufficient FOR SOME REASON.

He doesn’t just want to know how to make his little McDonald’s toy car go. He wants to know WHY pressing the lever makes it go, and any attempt at explaining physics to him will simply result in a more pressing “WHY?”

Even if he could understand Newtonian physics, asking WHY physics works that way enters a realm of science that Nobel Prize winners have not been able to answer.

This morning, he asked a series of increasingly in-depth questions which basically led to him questioning the entire fabric existence of the world as we know it, and there was no answer I could give him that didn’t involve trying to explain quantum mechanics. A lot of the time I have to settle for “because that’s how things are.”

I’m beginning to wonder if things like religion and superstition weren’t invented by harried moms just trying to shut their kids up. It’s EXHAUSTING, especially when you get to the end of a very long discussion only to feel like it was entirely useless.

Here is a sample transcript from our drive home from daycare this evening:

Owl: Mom… why do my boots fall off when I put my feet down?

Me: Because they’re loose.

Owl: But why do they fall?

Me: Why do things fall, Owl?

Owl: Because of gravity?

Me: Right.

Owl: Why does gravity pull things down?

Me: Because that’s how gravity works.

Owl: But how does it work?

Me: I… you’ll understand more when you’re older. Very big things have gravity and pull things towards them.

Owl: Yeah. And the Earth is big so it has gravity!

Me: Right.

Owl: Why doesn’t SPACE have gravity? It’s big.

Me: I… because space isn’t a THING, honey, it’s empty, it’s the place that holds everything else. Things that are IN space have gravity, like planets and the moon.

Owl: And us.

Me: We’re too small to have gravity. Only very big things like planets have gravity.

Owl: Or like those streetlights.

Me: … No… the streetlights don’t have gravity. They’re small.

Owl: They’re bigger than US.

Me: Not big like the EARTH, Owl. Only VERY BIG THINGS have gravity.

Owl: And everything on the Earth is small?

Me: Right.

Owl: Why everything on the Earth is small?

Me: Everything on the Earth is SMALLER THAN THE EARTH, because otherwise it wouldn’t fit on the Earth. Size is relative, right? An elephant is big compared to us, but small compared to the Earth. We are big compared to an ant, but small compared to an elephant. That TREE is big compared to us but small compared to a skyscraper. Right?

Owl: Right. And the Earth is big compared to everything.

Me: No… The sun is bigger than the Earth, right?

Owl: Yeah.

Me: So the Earth is big compared to you and me, but small compared to the sun. The sun is small compared to a bigger star. Stars are small compared to a galaxy. Galaxies are small compared to the whole universe. RIGHT?

Owl: Right. Because space is big.

Me: Yes.

Owl: Even a whole CAR could fit in space.

Me: …Pardon?

Owl: A car. I said A CAR. A CAR could even fit in SPACE!

Me: A car?? Of COURSE a car could fit in space, EVERYTHING is… OH LOOK WE’RE HOME NOW.

And so I am exhausted and frustrated after a mere 5 minutes with my child. And the worst part is knowing that these are the conversations I always thought I would enjoy. I worry a lot, too, that my frequent simmering impatience is going to have a negative effect on his curiosity and self esteem.

I’m hoping that I will enjoy this more, when he actually understands that street lights and cars are smaller than the entire universe. I’m sure he will.

In the mean time, at least PH doesn’t mind this sort of thing. If he were well I think I would hand all child care responsibility to him until Owl developed the ability to understand basic science. As it is, I’m just going to have to find some way to fight my constant frustration.

Any tips?

Maybe I should just introduce him to God.

But then he’d probably want to know why God exists and how God was made and why God happened to make green that particular wavelength and…

Why I Loathe Vani Hari, Or, There Are No Pancakes In My Chicken Fried Rice

Tags

bad logic, debunk, fear mongering, french fries, logic fail, pseudoscience, pumpkin spice latte, science, the food babe, vani hari

I need to talk for a moment about how much I despise The Food Babe.

At first I was barely aware of her. I heard people making a stink about the “yoga mat chemical” in Subway and largely ignored it because what do you expect in fast food?

Then the Pumpkin Spice Latte thing happened.

Suddenly, my Facebook was alternately full of people going “OMG PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE SEASON” and this:

 

Several things struck me as weird about this.

Let’s go through them.

1. Caramel Colour Level IV. I googled it. The first three hits are a variety of studies on its safety in which IT IS FOUND TO BE TOTALLY HARMLESS.

2. Did anyone actually think there is really bits of pureed squash in their latte? Wouldn’t that taste weird?

3. So… the cows ate feed which contains GMOs… so… I should avoid Starbuck’s milk? Is… that different from all the milk sold in all the stores? Because I don’t think so.

4. I’m sorry, 50 g of sugar is TOXIC? I mean, sure, no one’s saying that 50g of sugar is healthy, but isn’t there more sugar in a candy bar? (why yes, there is). In fact, a Banana Berry Smoothie at Jamba Juice contains more sugar. Besides, to me, “toxic” defines as reaching the LD50, or dose that is lethal enough to kill half the people who eat it. The LD50, or “toxic” level for sugar is 300 g/kg. Based on my body weight, that means that I would have to drink 504.5 Pumpkin Spice Lattes for even a 50% chance of getting killed by it (I hope no one does the math and figures out how much I weigh…).

And finally, I went on the Starbucks website and actually it’s only 50g if you get a GIANT one with 2% milk AND whipped cream. An actual normal sized drink without a bunch of EXTRA DAIRY is really more like 34g, which matches up with a veggie puree at Jamba Juice.

5. I’m not even sure why this is supposed to be scary. These natural flavours could be from ANYWHERE! Oh noes. What if it’s MEXICAN natural flavours? I don’t want my xenophobia tainting my drink, even if it IS natural.

6. If you haven’t had an allergic reaction when drinking a Pumpkin Spice Latte, you’re probably okay. If you have, you probably don’t need The Food Babe to tell you to steer clear.

7. POSSIBLE pesticide residue? Like, she’s just throwing in “maybes” now. MAYBE, okay, not positive, but WHAT IF the coffee beans were picked by someone WHO HAD EBOLA. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DRINK THAT.

8.  Okay, this is the only valid complaint. Secret dairy. I accept that as a concern.

Anyway, so I went on a bit of a rampage posting snopes articles at this thing left right and centre until it stopped showing up on my news feed.

But the Food Babe didn’t.

The next time I saw her it was a complaint about MacDonald’s fries.

The claim was that America and Canada have silly putty in their french fries, while those lucky brits do not.

So of course I googled it. And I learned that this supposedly scary chemical is NOT silly putty but an ingredient thereof. Furthermore, it is used to help prevent workers from being burned, because it reduces spitting and such from the fry oil. The chemical is largely harmless and present in fairly small quantities.

Also, wait. Why is Silly Putty scary? It’s non toxic and we hand it to small children for them to mess around with.

So, basically, the logic goes as follow:

1. Something we eat shares an ingredient with something else.

2. Therefore, that something else is IN the thing we eat. (I love this logic. Eggs are used to make pancakes AND to make chicken fried rice. Therefore there are pancakes in my chicken fried rice.)

3. The something else which shares this ingredient is a harmless substance that is considered safe for small children to play with and probably eat.

4. ?

5. PANIC.

Amusing as the bizarre logic is, here’s what gets me riled:

It’s not that I am a big defender of MacDonald’s. Clearly, being a rational human being, I don’t think their food is good for me.

But that’s actually my point.

DID YOU ACTUALLY THINK THIS WAS GOOD FOR YOU?

You ate at a fast food restaurant knowing that the food would be bad for you. Then you find out one of the ingredients is something which has been cleared by the FDA and is added to keep workers safe. Cue OUTRAGE.

…

…

WHY???

I mean, are we supposed to be upset that the British are getting much healthier, safer fries? Because they aren’t. THEY’RE STILL SALTY, FATTY, CARCINOGENIC FRENCH FRIES.

And they’re delicious.

So either eat them and accept it or avoid them and suck it up. But ONE TINY INGREDIENT ALSO FOUND IN A HARMLESS CHILD’S PLAYTHING should not be the deciding factor here.

So after this, I started looking up this Vani Hari woman.

I discovered that she launched giant campaigns against places like Chick-Fil-A and Chipotle because their food contains GMOs. Even though pretty much all the food at your local grocery store and in every chain restaurant everywhere are ALSO GMO and even though there is no scientific reason to be scared of eating GMOs.

I learned that she has caused numerous false food-scares by mixing up chemicals, such as pointing to the ingredient propylene glycol and calling it “antifreeze”, when actually it is used as a non-toxic antifreeze ALTERNATIVE.

And I have watched her style of fear mongering spread all over my facebook feed.

Now, I see other pages who have copied her scare tactics.

Here’s how it works:

1. All-Natural Generic Facebook Page/Blogger picks a multisyllabic ingredient from some already-recognized-as-unhealthy food.

2. All-Natural Generic Facebook Page/Blogger finds some non-food product with that same ingredient.

3. All-Natural Generic Facebook Page/Blogger shares a photo of the two products together with a question like “what is paint thinner doing in Lucky Charms?”

No, that wasn’t a random example. For serious:

Never mind that the product on the left is NOT PAINT THINNER, but something we use to clean our walls before we apply the paint.

If the All-Natural Generic Facebook Page/Blogger was ACTUALLY interested in educating the public, they would answer their own question. But they aren’t, because the actual answer (I learned with about 30 seconds spent on Google), is boring:

Trisodium Phosphate is a non-toxic food additive which is sold in some health food stores as a nutrition supplement because it has been linked to improved performance in cyclists. It is also very good at cleaning things.

*yawn*

But instead of actually learning something, people go up in arms about it and freak out, when the REAL question is,”DID YOU REALLY FEEL GOOD ABOUT FEEDING YOUR KIDS LUCKY CHARMS TO BEGIN WITH? HAS THIS REALLY SHATTERED YOUR FAITH IN ALL THAT YOU THOUGHT WAS SAFE AND HEALTHY?”

If I see one more version of “this ingredient has more than two syllables so let’s be scared!” I’m going to start making my own:

I’ll point out that Gripe Water, promoted for helpless colicky infants, contains baking soda – sorry, SODIUM BICARBONATE – which is ALSO FOUND IN INDUSTRIAL GRADE FIRE EXTINGUISHERS. WHY ARE WE FEEDING FLAME RETARDANTS TO BABIES.

I’ll make sure everyone knows that their favourite brand of pickles contains vinegar – sorry, ACETIC ACID – which has been proven to be effective against 99.9% of bacteria. WHAT IS DISINFECTANT DOING IN YOUR GERKINS?

I’ll advertise the fact that X Brand of Jam contains PECTINS, which are used to GLUE CIGARS. WHAT IS CIGAR GLUE DOING ON OUR TOAST???

It may not stop people from panicking over nothing, and it may not teach people to use Google before they get frightened by big words, but dangit, it’ll be amusing.

Maybe THAT’S why she does it.

Who Needs Science Or Logic? Not Star Trek: Into Darkness!

Tags

benedict cumberbatch, Enterprise, fail, khan, logic, movies, reviews, science, star trek, star trek: into darkness

A friend took Owl so we could go to a movie this weekend, so I dragged PH to Star Trek: Into Darkness.

Not because I thought it would be good but because I figured it would at least interest him.

It definitely INTERESTED him.

It also may have shrivelled his soul.

I’m not an original Star Trek fan. As much as I love George Takei, my knowledge of Star Trek starts with Captain Picard.

But PH is a genuine Trekkie, he even owns a detailed manual to the Enterprise, which he consults occasionally, so I was surprised that he was so accepting of the 2009 reboot. He was okay with the ending – he felt it left room for the director to make new story lines instead of simply rehashing old stuff.

So I figured this movie would be about the same.

Yeah, about that…

PH’s brain nearly exploded about two minutes into the movie, and it just went downhill from there. Even I, as a non-Trekkie, was offended.

If you are a Star Trek fan, you probably shouldn’t see this movie.

The funny thing is, when we mention it to people, including people who claim to be fans of the original series, they have all said “What? It was good…” Then PH starts pointing things out, and they go “Oh, well, yeah… yeah… you’re right… that didn’t make sense…”

So allow me to rephrase.

If you kind of liked Star Trek and you like movies that are shiny (like me), you should see this movie.

It is VERY shiny.

If you are a Star Trek fan and consider yourself a PURIST, which I think all true Trekkies DO, you should NOT see this movie.

Nor should you see it if you have an interest in, oh, SCIENCE.

I’ll start with non-spoilers, so don’t be afraid. I’ll warn you before I give away anything remotely important.

The Scientist In The Kitchen: Owl Experiments

Tags

babies, child development, experimentation, exploration, learning, parenting, play, research, science, toddlers, videos

Alison Gropnik of The Scientist In The Crib claims that babies, especially toddlers, are like little scientists who constantly experiment with the way the world works. That’s why they’re always dropping spoons, smearing things on the wall, trying to provoke you with bad behavior and so on.

I took this video of Owl interacting with a new toy that I picked up at a swap meet. In under 5 minutes, I counted 14 separate scientific experiments, all unique, although some were repeats of previous experiments but with a new variable being introduced. It’s adorable and fascinating all at once. If you have a few minutes, check it out:

[vimeo vimeo.com/41460908]

If any of you have kids, I’d love to see 5 minute videos of their play. How many experiments can you spot? Post them on your blog, or in the comments here, and encourage others to do the same. Let’s observe the scientists at work!

Maybe I need to get me a veterinarian

Tags

Alzheimer's, deprenyl, DHA, dogs, H1N1, intelligence, IQ, omega-3, pregnancy, puppy food, research, science, senility, swine flu, vaccine, veterinarian, veterinary medicine

I was speaking to Perfect Girlfriend the other day on the phone through my snuffles and wheezes, and she worried out loud about the swine flu, since BC has more than its fair share of cases. We started talking about the vaccine, and I mentioned that there has been a vaccine out for dogs for months.

“For dogs. For DOGS?” exclaimed the aspiring doctor, “We’re still waiting on it for people, but dogs get one?”

That’s the thing, though. Dogs get all kinds of stuff that people don’t. Animal science, in a lot of ways, is much further advanced than people science, simply because it’s easier to approve medication and testing for dogs than it is for people. If another thalidomide thing happens, but to dogs, people don’t lose as much sleep at night.

For example, take Anipryl. Generically named deprenyl, this drug has been around since the seventies. They use it for Parkinson’s and depression in people. But in dogs, they use it for Cushing’s disease and for senility. That’s right. In dogs, cognitive dysfunction closely resembles Alzheimer’s in humans (similar plaques on the brain) and they have a treatment for it, which works. The creator of the company which makes Anipryl is actually a Parkinson’s patient/researcher who thought that deprenyl was the most miraculous drug evar. He found that preliminary studies showed that it actually reduces the overall effects of aging. That’s right, it’s a life-extender. It actually makes animals live longer, although apparently it mostly works on male rats rather than females. Something to do with dopamine? I dunno.

Anyway, the FDA was having none of it so he founded the veterinary drug company because they CAN use it on dogs. They have been treating dog Alzheimer’s (it’s VERY common in older dogs) with this drug since 1992. It’s still not  approved for use in humans for Alzheimer’s, although studies keep going on indicating that it really might help people too, and I think some doctors are beginning to use it as off-label use.

So your dog can have its senility cured, but your grandmother? Not so much.

Then there’s the DHA thing. Recently, everyone’s been talking about DHA. Recent studies have revealed that DHA is even better than Mozart for making babies smarter. Mothers who take DHA supplements (usually cod liver oil – remember your mother forcing that stuff down your throat? Blech) during pregnancy end up with babies whose IQs are higher, who are better at problem solving, and have better hand-eye coordination. Suddenly scientists realize that there is DHA in breast milk but not in formula, and they are now thinking that this explains why breast-fed babies tend to be 6-10 IQ points higher than formula fed babies. So of course now formulas are rushing to add it and advertise it.

The pet industry has known about DHA for forever. Iams has been boasting about it in their commercials recently, that they have the “smart puppy” omega-3 supplements in their puppy food, but actually, the veterinary diets have put DHA in their food for a long, long, time. This is one of the many reasons why I made a point of feeding my Beloved Dog a veterinary diet when he was a puppy just five short years ago… and then resolved to take omega 3 supplements when I was pregnant!

Then Iams started adding it in their food and doing a bunch of studies which they published with much noise and clamour, duplicating what the Waltham Centre and Hill’s had found out long before: puppies whose mothers ate DHA enriched food while pregnant ended up doing much better on intelligence tests. For example, 68% of DHA enriched puppies were able to learn to recognize symbols which indicated the direction to go in order to find food, while only 30% of non-enriched puppies could do that. Studies also found out long ago that DHA was essential for proper eye development in rats.

And it’s not like they didn’t connect it with humans. They did. Notice that this abstract is from 1980. I wasn’t even born yet. But do you see how cautious they’re being? Basically they’re saying “So, apparently fatty acids are associated with bigger brained babies. Interesting.” Why weren’t companies like Similac looking into this thirty years ago? I don’t know why it took thirty years for them to start advertising it to the world at large, but I know one thing – the veterinary industry knew it, and took advantage of it without any qualms.

Hell, even pregnant mothers know this instinctively. When Perfect Girlfriend was pregnant, she developed cravings for seafood. It was like her body was saying “give us the fish oil! BABBY NEEDS FISH OIL.” But instead, thanks to our throwing mercury about recklessly and poisoning our waters, mothers are advised to avoid eating too much fish during pregnancy.

Anyway, my point is, when it comes to the cutting edge of science research – your vet hears it first.