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Spare The Rod, Spare The Child ?

Posted on January 13, 2010
by Dinesh Dutt

One tenet of parenting about which Shanthala and I have had no disagreement at all is spanking. We both agreed that unlike our parents’ generation, we wouldn’t spank Maya, no matter what the circumstances were. Why ? Because we thought that by spanking we were forcing our view on the child violently, that by using violence to enforce a behavior, we were telling her that it was OK to use violence to achieve your goals, that the act was humiliating to a child, possibly even terrorizing. Charity is not the only thing that begins at home. I also thought that once we thought occasional corporal punishment was OK, we would find it easier to spank when we were tired and Maya was cranky. Using the rod is easy, sparing it for an alternative option is not.

Besides these reasons, the data seems to show that spanking is not good for the kids w.r.t their cognitive development and social behavior. For example, a recent study by Duke University’s Center for Child and Family Policy concluded that spanking children when they were very young (1 year or less) slowed their intellectual development and led to aggressive behavior at an older age. Not everybody agrees with the data however. And this article in Wall Street Journal last October shows why:

“Statistical analysis of spanking’s effects on cognition are clouded by many complicating factors. Effects can be attributed to the wrong cause, statisticians say; rather than spanking causing problems in children, it is possible that their existing cognitive problems can make spanking more likely. Moreover, any effects of spanking are difficult to measure and probably small. And unlike, say, a study on prescription drugs that removes a misleading placebo effect, no ethical study can assign some children to be spanked. Instead, parents must be trusted to remember and share their disciplinary practices.“

The Duke University study was considered methodologically more sound than many other studies on the effects of spanking partly because it showed that kids who had more problems at age one were not getting spanked more at an older age. But still, not everyone is convinced, even if spanking is largely frowned upon in this US of A, an act liable to get you on the front pages if you’re a celebrity. In any case, my reasons for not spanking were not based on whether Maya’s cognitive development was affected.

I was surprised, however, to read that children who were never spanked fared worse than children who had been spanked. In the (now discontinued) blog by the authors of “NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children”, the authors write:

“For decades, research on spanking was challenged by the lack of a control group to compare against – almost all kids (90+%) had been spanked at least once, at some time in their early lives. New research shows that now up to 25% of kids are never spanked, so it’s a fair question: How are they turning out? Are they turning out better? Surprisingly, they’re not.“

They quote the newly published work by Dr. Marjorie Gunnoe, a Professor of Psychology at Calvin College. She looked at data from a new population study, Portraits of American Life, that is underway that involves 2,600 people and their adolescent children who are interviewed every three years for the next twenty years. Some 25% of the teens in the study say that they’ve never been spanked. She looked at the data for bad outcomes such as antisocial behavior, violence and depression as well as good outcomes such as academic aspirations and rank, hope for their future and volunteer work. They write in the blog:

“those who’d been spanked just when they were young—ages 2 to 6—were doing a little better as teenagers than those who’d never been spanked. On almost every measure.

A separate group of teens had been spanked until they were in elementary school. Their last spanking had been between the ages of 7 and 11. These teens didn’t turn out badly, either.

Compared with the never-spanked, they were slightly worse off on negative outcomes, but a little better off on the good outcomes.

Only the teenagers who were still being spanked clearly showed problems.”

The authors speculate that a possible reason for this is that progressive dads (defined as dads who can function as moms) are inconsistent when it comes to enforcing discipline. They quote the work of Dr. Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, a developmental psychologist at Ohio State University:

“Schoppe-Sullivan found that children of progressive dads were acting out more in school. This was likely because the fathers were inconsistent disciplinarians; they were emotionally uncertain about when and how to punish, and thus they were reinventing the wheel every time they had to reprimand their child. And there was more conflict in their marriage over how best to parent, and how to divide parenting responsibilities.

I admit to taking a leap here, but if the progressive parents are the ones who never spank (or at least there’s a large overlap), then perhaps the consistency of discipline is more important than the form of discipline. In other words, spanking regularly isn’t the problem; the problem is having no regular form of discipline at all.“

In an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, Po Bronson, one of the authors of “Nurture Shock” elaborates further the mindset of progressive dads:

“Progressive dads – they imagine this wonderful, you know, tight bond with their kids, and they  haven’t really thought about the fact that disciplining their kid is going to be part of the job. And they don’t necessarily – they know how to be great to their kid and nice to their kid but they don’t necessarily have a strategy for disciplining. And as a result they experiment as discipliners. They – one day they’ll say well, you know, no dessert. And the next day they’ll act really mean to their kid or angry or offended, trying to show their kid what they’ve done is wrong. And then the next day they’ll withdraw some other privilege or say you have to go to bed early and it becomes very inconsistent.“

I admit that I find myself vacillating about when to punish or enforce my view. Some cases are easy. For example, wearing a helmet when riding a bike or sitting in the toddler car seat. But others, I’m much less certain about. For example, in India Maya sometimes protests wearing a diaper. I’m not sure what makes her protest. Is it because she feels hot ? Or because she doesn’t want to go out ? If going out is not critical, I let her not wear the diaper and we don’t go out either. I tell her several times: “Maya, no diaper, no park”. Is this being inconsistent ? In our first week here, Maya would insist that she was not tired, going to sleep only when I sat on a stretch out chair holding her. This was troublesome, but I chalked her demand to her being disoriented and jetlagged. Past that first week, she didn’t insist on that behavior. 

When do I take her point of view into consideration and when do I not ? Life is not predictable. Should my response to the situations Maya objects to be that fixed ? I remember reading in a book about non-violence that non-violent alternatives to a situation are difficult to conjure up because we have so little practice. Similarly, finding options that work for both the parents and child are harder than just doing what the parents want. Sigh. Work life seems such a breeze compared to parenting. No wonder many hand the problem over to the mom.

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New Year, Old Continent

Posted on January 8, 2010
by Dinesh Dutt

The new year found us in an old continent, in the land of our birth, India.

The Emirates Experience

Maya and I boarded an Emirates Airlines flight on the afternoon of December 25th headed for Bangalore (or Bengaluru as it is officially called now) via Dubai. Emirates had been praised a lot as a classy airline, head and shoulders above its competitors, on par with Cathay and Singapore, with even better food.

Maya is too big now to journey on our laps and so we purchased a ticket for her. We chose the final rows of the craft where the 3-4-3 seating switches to a 2-4-2 format. With just two seats between us, we thought that we’d have more flexibility and no immediate neighbor to worry about. Furthermore, with just two seats at the ends, there was marginally additional room on the window side to keep Maya’s things. This had served us well last year when Maya had made her first trip to India. The final advantage of the two seater would be that Maya could stretch out when asleep.

The first thing that struck me when I boarded the craft, a 737-300, was the rather comfortable leg room, much more than Cathay or Singapore. But unlike Cathay, the additional side room we had planned on, didn’t exist; the additional room was on the aisle seat and not on the window seat. What was worse, the armrest on the first row of the 2-4-2 seating couldn’t be raised, providing an inflexible two seater. Neither one of us could stretch when we slept.

There was a single guy in the 2 seater row behind us and I didn’t think he’d be willing to move to a row where he couldn’t take advantage of stretching out. A few minutes later, a couple arrived to occupy the single remaining seat in that row. They had an aisle seat behind us and a window seat in the two seater row on the other side of the aircraft. The woman sweet talked the single guy to changing seats with her husband. Ah-ha! I thought. Having exchanged seats, they cannot deny us our exchange. Knowing guys to be less flexible, I turned to the woman and explaining my predicament, asked her if we could exchange seats. Sure, she said and stood up. I could see the reluctance in the guy’s eyes, but the die had been cast.

Each seat had an individual TV monitor with touch screen controls in addition to the traditional remote control. Each seat also had power sockets for laptops and a USB port. A memory stick with pictures e plugged into the USB port would automatically trigger a slide show of the pictures on the TV monitor.

Some folks told me that the air hostesses on Emirates Airlines were rather brusque and not kid friendly. I was delighted to find that they were wrong. They understood that everyone is happier if the parents are allowed some leeway in managing the kids rather than playing by the book. The staff were friendly to Maya, didn’t insist on her being strapped as soon as we started taxiing, and once during a turbulent stretch, when I was standing in a corner calming a frustrated Maya, told me to be careful but didn’t demand that I return to my seat.

The food that had been raved about wasn’t anything to rave about, being on the same class or a little below that of Cathay or Singapore. The croissant served for breakfast was positively appalling. The snacks between meals however were both healthier and tastier.

The connection at Dubai was a little painful as the security lines were extremely long, and this was flying to India. I dread the lines when we’re returning, especially in light of the increased security after the Christmas near mishap.

Single Parent Traveller

My workplace was closed from Christmas to New Year and I thought that the grandparents might enjoy an extra week with Maya. Maya has no issues being alone with me and I felt confident that I could look after her by myself. But, many friends and family members, including Shanthala, were a little apprehensive about my traveling alone with Maya. The duration, the cramped quarters and the logistics of flying solo with her might prove to be too much for me (and her), was their fear. While I was less apprehensive than them, I worried a little about logistics. I worried about using the loo when she was awake, when she was asleep. How do I manage the hand baggage and her with only a single pair of hands ? Do I take the stroller or do I not ?

I have found the stroller to be unhelpful with Maya. She prefers to push the stroller than be pushed. With the stroller, I’d have two pieces of baggage to push. If she refused to sit in the stroller, I could strap the hand baggage in the stroller, but it’d not be a picnic. So I eschewed the stroller, despite warnings from friends and Shanthala. We sometimes carry Maya in a body sling that I’ve found her to be far more cooperative in. So, I carried the sling hoping to use it only as a final option.

Shanthala smartly insisted that I take a small enough backpack so that I’d have only 2 pieces of hand baggage, a Pullman and a bag with Maya’s food, diapers and such. The backpack with the laptop had to fit in the Pullman.

The first hurdle I faced was how do I carry four pieces of checkin baggage and Maya. Most luggage carts can hold only 2 pieces of luggage. Maya’s nanny had thoughtfully suggested that she drop us to the airport since most taxis don’t carry a toddler car seat. I considered having her watch Maya as I loaded one luggage cart, rushed it to the checkin counter and returned quickly to the curbside to pick Maya up and push the second cart. Luckily for me, a man with a large luggage cart was waiting at the curbside when we arrived. He was a trifle more expensive than two separate luggage carts, but far more convenient. I didn’t bat an eyelid in using his service. I felt pleased that the first hurdle had been crossed so easily.

The next hurdle was navigating past the security checkpoint. Removing my shoes, removing her shoes, separating the laptop from the rest of the cabin baggage, removing my jacket, removing hers, holding our tickets and passports, and pushing six items through the scanner might be tricky. As I stepped past the metal detector column, without a beep, I felt that the second hurdle had been crossed rather easily too. Thats when the TSA chap asked me if I had pushed all my stuff through the scanner. Yes, I said, and looked back at the conveyor belt to see that one piece was stranded. I reached across the barrier and pushed the piece onto the belt.

“Step back, sir”, yelled the TSA guy. “You violated security protocols. Please pass through the detector again”.

I stepped back out and back in again.

“Request thorough check”, he yelled and asked me to go into an enclosed space. Maya who had been unhappy waiting in line and having her stuff taken away, now began wailing. Her nap time had passed and she was a little cranky. I talked to her soothingly, fuming inside at this seemingly ridiculous behavior from the security. She soon calmed down and we waited for a more thorough pat down. Then, a TSA guard called out “Whose baggage is this ?”. I looked to see her gesturing at my Pullman. “Mine”, I said. “I need to open it for a more thorough inspection”, she said.

Maya’s medicines had triggered the thorough inspection of the cabin baggage. After two more runs through the scanner and wipes for explosives, the Pullman was delivered, its contents a disorganized mess. After recovering from that, we had a mostly incident free journey to the gate. We boarded the plane a half hour later. Once on board the plane, Maya decided to take her nap and slept for about a hour or so. She woke up right as they started serving the food.

Mealtime posed another logistical problem. The room was small enough that if Maya got cranky, she could kick the food and make a real mess of our seats and our dress. I had packed spare clothes for her, but I had no extra pants. When we were settling into our seats after boarding, a gentleman across the aisle from us saw that I was traveling alone with Maya. Reaching over, he volunteered to help in any way I could use his help. I took his help in removing the plates immediately after our meal instead of waiting for the cabin crew to clear them. Just knowing that he was there was support enough.

Maya wolfed down quite a bit of the food. She spotted a covered chocolate bar amongst the meal and asked me to unwrap it. She had never tasted chocolate before. She took a small, wary bite and her eyes lit up. “Wow”, she said and proceeded to wolf down both our chocolates. Rested and full, she was ready for some action.

A few days before we left for India, the three of us were finishing some last minute India shopping at a local electronics store when Maya spotted a giant screen TV. She demanded to be taken to it. “Madagascar” was playing and she watched, her eyes never leaving the screen. “There”, Shanthala said, “your airplane journey will go smoothly now. Just turn on whatever cartoon or wildlife movie is playing on her screen and she’ll be a great traveler”.

Alas! On the plane, the small screen didn’t attract her at all. There were no wildlife screenings and so I tried various cartoons including Cars and Finding Nemo. After a minute or so, Maya lost interest in the proceedings. A part of me was relieved that she didn’t care to watch TV. I powered on my laptop and she was happy watching the pictures of our life and a couple of video clips that I had downloaded.

An hour or so had gone by and now she was a little restless. I walked her back and forth along the length of the aircraft. I tried reading her some books. Another hour crept by. Maya became even more restless and demanded to be taken to the front of the aircraft. She seemed to want to know why she couldn’t deplane right away. When I walked upto the first class cabin and told her I had to turn back, she started wailing. She stopped a minute or so later, after I found something to distract her. She tried playing lion with the passengers behind us, but tired quickly.

She fell into a deep sleep another half hour later and proceeded to sleep for the next seven or so hours. After she awoke, a repeat of the proceedings before she went to sleep followed. By then, we arrived in Dubai.

The only moment of terror happened in Dubai airport. Maya loved getting on and off the escalators. A few tries was all it took for her to learn to balance as she got on and off the flat escalators. The departure gate at Dubai however was a steep descent with the escalator only going down. Climbing up meant about 40 or so steps. Maya wanted to descend the escalator, climb back up, come down the escalator again and repeat this ad inifitum. Lugging the cabin baggage up the stairs and balancing them as I got on the escalator with her proved to be a challenge. The third time around, as I got on the escalator ahead of her so that I could break her fall should she lose her balance, Maya got on the escalator and then feeling uncertain, stepped back. Now I was descending the escalator alone leaving her at the top. I scrambled back up the escalator and somehow managed to get her back on. That was the end of that game. Maya let the world know how unhappy she was with this unceremonious end. It was the only time in her life that I felt I could’ve spanked her. I was tired and scared. But I managed to not lose control.

Maya slept the entire duration from Dubai to Bangalore, waking only a few minutes before we landed. The new Bangalore International Airport is a vast improvement over its predecessor. Like we had experienced the last time, getting past immigration, customs and collecting our bags took all of some fifteen minutes. Maya’s grandparents, my parents, were waiting for her, unbounded delight in their eyes, despite the late hour (we landed at 2:45 am).

Maya uses the diaper only at night now. Or when we travel. Maya told me about wanting to pee when we were on the plane. Unwilling to pull out her toilet seat from the cabin baggage, I took her to the toilet and attempted to use the toilet without her seat. She was OK with that, but didn’t care at all for the circus that followed in trying to put the diaper back on in that cramped space. After the first couple of times, she conveniently used the diaper. She held on to her poop through the journey, pooping in the toilet only after we got home.

Maya and I had survived the 16 hour flight from SFO to Dubai, the two and a half hour transit in Dubai and the three hour journey from Dubai to Bangalore. Survived ? I felt that I could repeat this experiment without too much trepidation. Most of the kudos go to Maya for being such an easy child. Luck was also on our side. Had the Nigerian attempted to blow up the plane just a day earlier, our trip might have been less easy, given the ridiculous, draconian measures that were passed in the immediate aftermath of that incident.

Shanthala joined the party a week later.

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Effects of TV On Children

Posted on November 30, 2009
by Dinesh Dutt

Last week, a new study reported that the TV time for preschool children maybe as high as one-third of their waking hours. The sudden spurt is not caused by some epidemic surge in watching TV, but because previous studies did not account for the time spent at daycare. According to the study, at-home daycare centers were particularly egregious in this matter, with almost three-quarters  reporting they let the kids they cared for watch TV and DVDs while the number was only one-third for the non-at-home daycare centers. More alarming was the amount of time spent watching TV. On average, preschoolers spent 2.4 hours, toddlers 1.6 hours and infants 12 minutes at a home-based day care while the respective numbers for daycare centers were 24 minutes and 6 minutes; non-home daycare centers said they did not allow infants in front of the TV.

According to an article in the British daily, The Guardian, four month old infants in the US gaze at the idiot box for an average of 44 minutes a day. The number shoots up to 1.2 hours for those just under two. Similar data for Australia and the UK also point to significant amounts of time spent viewing TV by young children. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends zero TV and video time for children under 2 and suggests a maximum of 1-2 hours a day for older kids. The Australian Academy of Pediatrics is considering doing the same.

Is this Ludditism or is this news of increased TV time alarming in some way ? Does data back up AAP’s recommendations ? After all, AAP also opposes co-sleeping, the custom of having the infants share the bed with the parents. The answers to these questions are based on several considerations.

The primary concern of most parents with their kids watching TV or DVD is the nature of harm, specifically the effects on cognitive and social skills. Aren’t Baby Einsteins popular ? Aren’t they credited with making kids smarter, increasing some cognitive skill such as language acquisition or spatial reasoning ? The ineffectiveness of these so-called educational DVDs is well documented. They’re so ineffective, Disney, the makers of Baby Einstein, started offering refunds because their products failed to live up to the marketing. Dr. Dimitis Christakis, a paediatrician and researcher at the Seattle Children’s Hospital is oft-quoted for his work on the effect of media on kids. Dr. Christakis became interested in the subject when as a father, he found his toddler son mesmerized by the TV.

His research links too much TV during the preschool years with poorer language acquisition, obesity,  violent behavior and reduced attention spans. One study surveyed 1000 families with children under 2 in Minnesota and Washington. Their conclusion, published in 2007: “for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them. Baby DVDs and videos had no positive or negative effect on the vocabularies on toddlers 17 to 24 months of age.”  Another study, based on data accumulated over 40 years across 8000 families linked boys between 2-5 years of age who viewed violent programs (cartoons, movies, even football) with a higher probability of aggressive and anti-social behavior later in their life (specifically 7-10 years); examples of such behavior include cheating, being mean, lacking remorse, being destructive, being disobedient at school and having trouble with teachers. An earlier study by his group, in 2004, linked excessive TV watching with attention problems at age 7. An independent study by a group of New Zealand scientists on the same subject concluded: “childhood television viewing may contribute to the development of attention problems and suggest that the effects may be long-lasting.”. Events unfold at a faster pace in TV and videos than they do in real life which sets them up to them expect events in real life to unfold at the same pace. Ergo the lowered attention span.

A little over half of households with kids under the age of six report TV being always on, mostly on or at least on half the time in their house. Studies from Univ of Massachussetts Child Study Center said background TV “may have negative consequences for speech development, playtime and parent-child interaction”.  Another set of data and studies is quoted in the book: “Thinking and Literacy” which looks at data from various educational departments such as the 1980 California Assessment Program and the National Assessment of Educational Progress to conclude that TV viewing leads to reduced academic performance.

Some researchers speak of a media diet to account for quality as well as quantity. For example, programs such as Sesame Street were created with children in mind and by consulting with child development experts. Some studies done on children who viewed such programs show that the children developed a general understanding of the world faster. But none of these studies included infants, only much older kids. Also, how much faster ? Does faster imply better ? Does this faster development continue in later life or do the other kids catch up ? Another criticism of these media studies is that higher socio-economic status and greater educational qualification of parents far outweigh the effects of TV when it comes to measuring the cognitive development of children. That is no criticism. It reminds me of how unfair the advantage is to poorer children, in surmounting their disadvantages in competing with their more well-to-do peers.

Another facet on the effect of media on young children is the contribution to the consumerization of childhood, a subject about which I’ve written in the past. The majority of advertisements to children involve food and toys. The advertisements for food all involve unhealthy food such as sugary drinks (like Coke), sweets (candies, sweetened cereals etc.) and fat (potato chips, nachos etc.). Like the perfunctory warning sign posted on the outside of cigarette packs and tobacco stores, some advertisements exhort children to eat vegetables and fruits, to eat healthy, by the way. But the combination of advertisements, school vending machines and peer behavior make it almost impossible for kids to stay off these unhealthy food. To top that, young children’s brains crave sweet, salt and fat; even their own biology makes it hard for them to avoid sweets. Other advertisements start promoting fashion at an early age. The US market for infant, toddler and preschool kids clothing is about $15 billion dollars according to a report published in 2003. Specifically girls begin to develop an skewed, abnormal sense of their bodies. A growing body of work documents the commercialization of childhood and its effects, a body that includes books such as Juliet Schor’s Born to Buy, Pamela Paul’s Parenting Inc., Sharon Beder’s This Little Kiddy Went to Market,  online essays such as “Commodifying Kids” and online websites such as “Campaign For a Commercial Free Childhood” and movies such as “Consuming Kids”. A good summary of the effects is narrated by Henry A Giroux in  “Commodifying Kids”:
“American society in the last thirty years has undergone a sea change in the daily lives of children – one marked by a major transition from a culture of innocence and social protection, however imperfect, to a culture of commodification. This is culture that does more than undermine the ideals of a secure and happy childhood; it also exhibits the bad faith of a society in which, for children, “there can be only one kind of value, market value; one kind of success, profit; one kind of existence, commodities; and one kind of social relationship, markets.”(2) Children now inhabit a cultural landscape in which they can only recognize themselves in terms preferred by the market.”

Another facet of the effect of TV on children are the consequences to parent-child interaction. TV is increasingly taking the place of active involvement of caregivers with their children. As Americans work longer and longer (a trend that seems to be also afflicting other parts of the world, especially India), they find themselves coming home tired and in need of a break. A TV provides a convenient cop out. Marketeers effectively use this knowledge to sell more products such as educational DVDs and programs to parents using techniques such as selective quoting of scientific publications, funding of studies to show results in favor of their products and anecdotal evidence. Parents rationalize the choice of seating their infants and toddlers in front of TV watching these so called educational programs. We’re all creatures of habit. Once we get into a habit of watching TV together as the way to spend time together, we have difficulty breaking this habit, especially since the habit is so easy to sustain. They take the place of conversations and other means of social interaction and enquiry. TV quickly subsumed all other forms of interaction when introduced in places like Bhutan, where TV was originally banned.

TV is the elephant in the living room. In a recent article about the deleterious effects of TV on children in the British daily, The Guardian, a telling paragraph discusses the size and nature of this elephant :
“Aric Sigman, a UK psychologist and author of The Spoilt Generation, a broadside against permissive parenting, says while governments are happy to offer advice on suncream and portions of fruit and vegetables, they are less willing to provide guidelines about TV. “Of course they don’t want to because it is a vote-loser,” he says. “It is society’s favourite pastime and it makes parents feel guilty. The convenience of us parents is seen as paramount as opposed to the wellbeing of our children. When it comes to our childrens’ wellbeing, our guilt as parents has to come second.”

Aw, you say, I grew up on a steady diet of love and TV. Did I turn out so badly ? TV for children today is a vastly different phenomenon than when I was growing up. Disney’s Mickey and Donald or Tom and Jerry were harmless, moral-empty romps in the park, the kind children usually indulge in. No pat messages about trusting your instinct, obeying your parents, loving your nation and such. Even the Lion King is hardly like the cartoons of the older days. Aric Sigman continues his missive in the Guardian article:
“Part of the problem, argues Sigman, is we have a nostalgic view of our own experience of television when we were young. “We say, ‘I watched Blue Peter and I’m OK’,” says Sigman. “But the editing speeds and the colours and the number of hours spent watching TV and the age at which TV watching starts are a whole different thing now. We can’t compare now with before.”

The debate is not completely over and more data points are always welcome. For Shanthala and I, however, this is enough evidence to throw TV out of our house. To own a TV or not was the first argument of our married life. She was against and I was for. For a while, we owned a TV exclusively  for movies. But when Maya was due, we got rid of it. So far, neither one of us regrets the decision.

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Ripples from The Swine Flu

Posted on November 9, 2009
by Dinesh Dutt

La Gloria village, Veracruz, Mexico

La Gloria village, Veracruz, Mexico, Image Courtesy of The Guardian

Mid-March, 2009. La Gloria, a town of about 2243 people, in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. Not much of town, though it looks pretty, perched amongst hills. About half of this small population works in Mexico City, about 200 kms away, during the week. About 60% of the town is sickened by a respiratory illness whose cause was unknown. Later, this illness is called the swine flu, caused by a virus, H1N1. Three children die, the cause unknown, because the swine flu has not been identified yet. Only one is later tested for swine flu, the other two buried before the disease is named.

End March, 2009. A nine year old girl living in a California county bordering Mexico is taken ill and is later confirmed to have suffered from the swine flu. Another 10 year old boy in nearby San Diego county also falls victim to the swine flu.

Mid April, 2009. The CDC receives mucus samples from the girl and the boy and identify the virus as a new strain of the swine influenza, A(H1N1).

H1N1 Virus, Image courtesy of Harvard University

H1N1 Virus, Image courtesy of Harvard University

April 21, 2009. The CDC alerts physicians of a new strain of an Influenza A virus, called A(H1N1). This news is the first report of the disease in an English media. The swine flu is also the cause of the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic in which 50 million people were killed and 500 million infected.

End April, 2009. An entire school district just outside San Antonio, Texas, is closed to prevent spreading of the influenza. About 53,000 students are out of school in Texas and more school closures are planned. Some schools in Chicago and New York close to prevent spreading of the disease. A 23-month old Mexican child in Texas dies, the first casualty outside Mexico.

May 1, 2009. Mexico shuts down for five days to battle the epidemic. Fear runs wild through the streets.

May 16, 2009. India confirms its first case of swine flu, in the southern city of Hyderabad.

August 4, 2009. A 14 year old girl in the western city of Pune dies of swine flu, the first reported death due to the disease. Her death is all the more shocking because it is caused by a delay in identifying her illness as the swine flu. The delay also means that a drug, Tamiflu, that could have saved her life, is not given. There is outrage over the incident. Ineffectual enquiries are launched as is the norm. Worldwide, about 800 people have died of the disease so far.

August 13, 2009. Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, begins a week long shutdown of all schools and colleges and a three day shutdown of movie halls to prevent the spreading of the epidemic. 19 people have died in India alone and 1,126 worldwide.

September, 2009. A second wave of the epidemic hits the US, prompting school closures in eight states.

October 23, 2009. US president Obama declares a national emergency over the swine flu.

Eight months after it first surfaced, the ripple effect triggered by the pandemic touches our house. Swine flu vaccines are in short supply and the demand is aplenty. Santa Clara county has received only 55,000 of the expected 211,000 so far. Pediatrician offices have not received any supply of the vaccine, and expect supplies to be delayed even further.

When the vaccine was first announced, Shanthala and I were skeptical of giving it to Maya. We were worried about the possible side effects of a new drug, hardly tested. In 1976, the US government provided mass immunization against a similar swine flu pandemic. 500 people came down with a neurological disorder called Guillain-Barré syndrome and 25 people died. The Daily Mail paper in the UK carried a story that said that a leaked letter by the Govt to senior neurologists linked the new vaccine to the possibility of acquiring GBS. The vaccine was withdrawn within ten weeks of its premiere and the US government paid out millions to settle with those who were affected by the vaccine. But despite intense scrutiny for possible side effects, the current swine flu shot seems to have no serious side-effects, at least not GBS. It’s well past ten weeks by now.

Shanthala is administered the vaccine in her hospital as she is a health care worker. We’re traveling to India shortly and she’d like Maya to get a shot as well. Shanthala rarely stresses on the need for medication and so when she does so this time, I take it seriously. Shanthala and I find out that the Santa Clara county is holding a vaccine clinic on Saturday in multiple places, including the Santa Clara county fairgrounds. We decide to try our luck at a local county clinic that is also participating in the vaccine program.

Saturday, 8:15am. I had read reports of vaccine clinics in New York city running quite empty as few people showed up to get the shot. So, even though Shanthala wanted to go early and wait in line, I dallied and we eventually ended up going around 8:15 or so. I expected some rush, but not the pandemonium that we encountered. The line had circled the building almost twice already. I drop Shanthala off and headed back home. Shanthala reports later that the line had started at 4 am that morning. By 6 am, the parking lot was full. The clinic was not slated to open till 9:30. At the main swine flu clinic at Santa Clara county fairgrounds, people started lining up at 3 am in the morning, according to reports.

9:45 am. Shanthala calls to say that there was chaos and that she and several others had approached the few police officers to fetch reinforcements. People were drifting in and trying to get to the head of the queue, to either sneak by or to ask questions and were pushed and wrestled by the people already waiting in line. She asks me to park the car some distance away and use a stroller to get Maya to the clinic.

10:15 am. Shanthala calls to report that about 70-80 pregnant women were first let in to be administered the vaccine and that the rest were waiting. She says that there was some talk of giving tickets to people in line with kids.

10:30 am. Shanthala asks me to head over right away with Maya because there was talk that the tickets would not be issued to people without kids, even though the shot was for a kid.

10:50 am. I park about half a mile away and walk to the clinic. Maya has had a little meal and is not very fussy, though she protested being put in the stroller. She wanted to push the stroller. As we approach the clinic, passersby tell me that the vaccine is over. When we arrive, Shanthala says that she got a ticket already. She is number 807. How long do we have to wait, I wonder. An hour ? I see an official looking announcer with a bullhorn and approach him for details. He says that only about a 100 people have gotten the shot so far. Someone else asks how long it would be till his turn came up. He has a number in the 500 range. At least four hours, says the official. Four hours ! Are those with a ticket at least guaranteed a shot, I ask. Yes, he says. There are a 1000 vaccines.

I drift back to Shanthala to report the news. She’s gotten acquainted with the other folks in the line. There is a Chinese couple with a three and half year old son and an Indian couple with a four year old daughter. We decide to take turns to go get lunch and relax a bit. The Indian couple take off first, we next. There is a nearby Indian restaurant we’ve not been to. I see a few colleagues from work also waiting in line.

1:00 pm. Lunch is long over as is Maya’s patience. We’ve walked her several times, had her push the stroller a few times. It is her nap time now and she’s getting tired. I had shrugged Shanthala’s suggestion earlier that I take her to the park. People in line are eating take-away meals, mostly burgers and fries. A kid ahead of us plays a mouth organ (harmonica) and Maya watches him in fascination. The official announcer comes around announcing that they’ve vaccinated up to ticket number 450 now. It is a little nippy in the shade, but comfortable in the sun. A mom sits down on the sidewalk and reads a story to her son. A few other kids settle down next to her and it is story time all of a sudden.

1:30 pm. Maya is getting more restless and Shanthala asks me to take her home for a nap. I argue that I can put her down right there, but Shanthala thinks Maya won’t nap with all the noise. Maya really loses it now and I hurry away to the car with her strapped in the stroller. She’s miserable and wails as loudly as she can all the way to the car and all the way home. Her wailing sets me on the edge after a while and I yell at her to be quiet. She falls asleep just as we reach home. She’s exhausted from the crying. It is almost 2 pm. I put her down on the bed and lie down next to her.

2:35 pm. Shanthala calls to say that she’s nearing the head of the line and asks me to head over right away. I pull everything together first before waking Maya. I expect her to start wailing again, but she is quiet. I park in the parking lot of the apartment complex right opposite the clinic. Maya doesn’t want to get in the stroller. I hold her and pushing the stroller race across the street, jaywalking right in front of the cop patrolling the entrance. We reach the clinic closer to 3.

3:25 pm. Maya is given the vaccine, a shot to the thigh. She wails for an instant before quieting. We arrive home by 4, exhausted.

NYT is running an article today speaking of this rift in behavior between parents who’re lining up to receive the vaccine and those who remain skeptical and refuse it. A friend I spoke to expressed similar skepticism and said that most people recovered quickly even if infected and so she didn’t want her three year old daughter to get it. In the NYT article, a historian, David Oshinsky, notes that when polio vaccination was first offered in 1954, more than a million people showed up with their kids for the trial. Dr. Oshinsky says of those parents: “They also had lived through virulent epidemics. That to me is probably the biggest issue of all. You’re dealing with parents [the current generation] who’ve never seen a smallpox epidemic, a polio epidemic.”. A doctor is also quoted in the NYT article saying: Dr. Offit wondered if people were more comfortable with sins of omission than of commission. Rather than inject a foreign substance into your body, he went on, “you’ll take your chances with a natural virus infection, which may or may not kill you.”

Lest you think that this behavior is East Coast schizoid, LA Times reports that only 5% of Californians intend to get inoculated, a number that remains constant across the socio-economic spectrum. And the reason the Californians don’t want to get vaccinated ? Not safety, but convenience (though among the most vulnerable, blacks and Latinos, safety was the number one concern). In the article, a 24-year old is quoted as saying: “A lot of people my age have the mentality they’re invincible and nothing can happen to them”.

Part of what is prompting these fears seems to be the ghost of 1976. Part of it is the drivel in the media from the likes of Bill Maher who oppose even pregnant women (the riskiest category for getting the disease) from getting a vaccine. In the article reported in NYT, I had to support the Republican doctor from Tennessee, Dr. Bill Frist over the unsubstantiated statements of Bill Maher. Maher seemed to forget that scoring points against unscientific Republicans may drive up the ratings, but not just opposing any Republican and unscientific liberals don’t come off sounding any less inane. The pundits in the US are remarkably ignorant and unscientific, be it on the issue of global warming, evolution or in this case, vaccines (I hope I’m not tempting fate by laughing at the skepticism of these people). The LA Times article reported that people who identified themselves as conservative Republicans were twice more likely to suspect vaccine safety compared to liberal Democrats. I guess, Bill Maher wanted to even things out a bit.

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A Toy Around Every Corner

Posted on October 27, 2009
by Dinesh Dutt

The past few weeks, when I go running, I stop midway and let Maya down from the stroller. Part of it is because I make the first part of my run so fast that I’m winded at the 3.5 mile mark (I run those miles at a 7 minutes/mile pace). The other part is that I let Maya down one day because I was tired for some other reason and since then, she insists on being let down. To run those miles non-stop, I try a different route.

At the 3.5 mile mark, we’re at the edge of the Shoreline marshlands. This close to the bay, Stevens creek is rarely dry, even in summer. I usually lead Maya away from the main track and onto a dirt track that parallels the paved track, but is broken up in places by the creek bed. Some sections are a little steep as they head down closer to the creek. The loose gravel and the descent makes things a little slippery for a 20 month baby. In the beginning, Maya took little steps, bending down the moment she her grip slipped, holding her arms out to balance herself. But, she didn’t want any help as she descended or ascended the path. Only sometimes did she reach out for my hand. Last week, the path was still muddy from the storm of the past week, but Maya went down like a pro, hardly slowing down and continuing to look around as she walked instead of being focused on taking the next step.

As the track levels out, it is quite close to the creek, though the creek is still hidden by the undergrowth in places. I take Maya closer to the water, especially when there are mallards and teals. Maya watches them fascinated. They waddle in the water, a little wary of the sudden interest so close. Maya says “quack, quack” pointing at them. They sometimes fly away from this attention. Sometimes, they put on a show for her. They dip their beaks in the water, to catch some food, becoming almost perpendicular to the liquid plane, their tails pointing straight up at the sky. Sometimes, they quack at each other. A couple of times, they flew in, using their feet to break their fall, making a big, splashing sound. Maya is enthralled.

If it isn’t the ducks, Maya is fascinated by the dead leaves that carpet the path in places. I can’t name most of the plants they belong to. But, Maya knows the word leaf. She points at them as she walks, picking one or two up for a closer examination. She usually selects one or two to carry back to the stroller. Most leaves are dry and brown, but some are still green. Maya examines them all closely, looking at me as she does so, asking me to explain them or name them. I say leaf and yeleh (leaf in Kannada).

This past Thursday, a crane and an egret were resting in the shallow creek. The crane was still on the bank, a little distance away. The white crane looks so beautiful and fragile, with its reedy legs. Maya can hardly contain her excitement after the initial surprise. She breaks into a run to get closer. I ask her to stop a little distance from the bird, to not scare it away. She heeds my message only for a moment or two. Seeing her too close, the crane spreads its wings and majestically glides a little distance away.

Maya’s also drawn to rocks and pebbles. She picks them up and examines them closely, her eyes gleaming. I tell her that we cannot take them with us and she reluctantly drops them back. She then reaches for the trees and massages her hand against the bark, feeling their texture.

These are Maya’s toys. Pebbles, leaves, sand, kitchen utensils. I dramatize. She does have a few of the more mainstream toys (mostly hand-me-downs) and a few puzzles.

Juliet Schor writes in “Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture” that a typical first-grader in the US can identify 200 brand names, accumulates toys at an average rate of seventy new toys per year, and spends an average of two hours in front of a TV per day. In 2002, children between the ages of 4-12 spent $30 billion of which toys were the number two spending category (sweets, beverages and snacks was the numero uno).

This is the the age of smart toys and edu-toys. When I was growing up, toys were meant for play, not to train (or educate as we like to say) or be smart. Living in the age of anxiety and dog-eat-dog, no instruction can start early enough. 62% of parents surveyed by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2004 said that educational toys are very important to children’s intellectual development. The anxiety has gotten so out of whack that there are toys such as those made by BabyPlus, which allow a pregnant woman to strap a device to her belly, twice a day, that then proceeds to produce sounds that are supposed to make for smarter babies right out of the womb. In the movie, Baby Mama, Tina Fey’s character wants the surrogate mother to listen to Mandarin tapes, based on the idea that learning a second language helps babies get smarter.

A Fisher-Price advertisement says: “We all want to be parents of the next Einstein” and markets their toys on the mantra that “the right toy at the right time will enrich the play experience of your little genius”. Another toy maker, Neurosmith, says that their toys “..stimulate key areas of the brain and actually help teach your child how to learn”. And parents are lapping these messages up. LeapFrog, a major educational toy vendor, alone notched $640 million in sales in 2004, according to Pamela Paul, author of the incisive “Parenting Inc.”. Baby Einstein, which dominates the baby media market has sales of $200 million annually. $200 million. Just for baby CDs and DVDs. According to a 2003 study, a third of all American babies from 6 months to 2 years old had at least one “Baby Einstein” video.

Are these educational toys “educational” or helpful or are they turning kids into passive consumers who demand that the world entertain them at the press of a button, rather than entertain themselves. Pamela Paul writes: “Many toys on the market today may as well have a sticker on them that says “Imagination Not Included”". She says that these toy manufacturers and parents are misguided in their understanding of “interactive” toys: it is the children that must interact with the toys and not the other way. She tells the story of a kid who asked “What does it do ?” when given an old-fashioned toy, puzzled that play didn’t involve pushing a button. She quotes my favorite pediatric anthropologist, Meredith Small, who fears that we’re either overstimulating our babies or stimulating them in wrong ways. Research supports her concerns.

  • A Harvard researcher, Chuck Nelson, who monitored what goes on inside infant brains, says that babies filter out a lot of what the toy is putting out, that they’re not like a sponge, absorbing everything.
  • Elizabeth Spelke, a famous developmental cognitive scientist says that her studies have found that attempting to teach infants things such as learning to read or count is useless at best, but possibly harmful. We evolved to learn about the world from real people, not the TV or DVD. Patricia Kuhl, a leading expert on child development especially w.r.t language conducted a study in which a native Mandarin speaker played for an hour with one group of babies. Three other control groups of babies were setup: one watched a video of the native Mandarin speaker playing with the babies, one heard an audio recording of the native Mandarin speaker speaking and the third group had no exposure to Mandarin at all. Of these, Dr. Kuhl found that only the group that only the first group of babies (with the live Mandarin speaker) tested as being capable of distinguishing Mandarin sounds from English.
  • Andrew Meltzoff, a co-author of the excellent “Scientist In The Crib”, says that his research has found that a key to language development is the baby’s ability to read the mother’s face, her reaction to various events and actions by the baby. These so-called interactive dolls/toys have an unchanging expression, no matter what the baby does. Another researcher, Catherine Tamis-LaMonda, concludes similarly based on her research with parent-baby interaction in “naturalistic” environments.
  • Laura Schulz, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT says that once children understand the causal relationship of a toy, they move on (pressing a button produces one of these six sounds). She says that children with these smart toys become passive absorbers and even develop impatience.
  • Alison Gopnik, another prominent developmental cognitive scientist, wrote an op-ed piece in NYT in which she says: “The learning that babies and young children do on their own, when they carefully watch an unexpected outcome and draw new conclusions from it, ceaselessly manipulate a new toy or imagine different ways that the world might be, is very different from schoolwork. Babies and young children can learn about the world around them through all sorts of real-world objects and safe replicas, from dolls to cardboard boxes to mixing bowls, and even toy cellphones and computers. Babies can learn a great deal just by exploring the ways bowls fit together or by imitating a parent talking on the phone. (Imagine how much money we can save on “enriching” toys and DVDs!)”. She writes that kids younger than five have a hard time being goal-oriented which is what so many of the so-called educational toys attempt to do.

On Sunday, NYT reported that Disney is offering refunds to parents who bought the Baby Einstein products, admitting that they did not produce the geniuses they promised.

All these so-called educational toys cost so much more than the old-fashioned ones. What’s worse in the modern world is that with the outsourcing of much of the manufacturing to China, parents are subject to the yearly scare of recalls because many of the toys are toxic. To avoid this, well heeled parents have begun to search for toys not made in China, hand-crafted toys, which are more expensive. No wonder a modern family cannot be supported on a single income. Worse still of course is the lack of time that parents have with their children. An absence that fuels the guilt that causes them to indulge in all these expensive toys. The executive VP of Chicco toy division explains the success of his division:
“My viewpoint is that with so many dual working parents, the guilt factor steps in. They’re looking for toys that make them feel good. They think, if I’m not around enough, something can fill in that void for me, maybe if the toy teaches them something.”

What does help babies ? In the article on Baby Einstein, Vicky Rideout, the VP of the Kaiser Family Foundation says: “To me, the most important thing is reminding parents that getting down on the floor to play with children is the most educational thing they can do.”. Alison Gopnik writes: “But what children observe most closely, explore most obsessively and imagine most vividly are the people around them. There are no perfect toys; there is no magic formula. Parents and other caregivers teach young children by paying attention and interacting with them naturally and, most of all, by just allowing them to play.”

This is what my parents and many parents of my generation and older did. This is how we evolved. Surrounded by people from whom we learnt to make sense of the world.

Maya runs around the dirt track by the Stevens creek, stepping on dry twigs and leaves, relishing the crackling sound that it makes. Sunlight dapples in the creek. A plane flies by overhead and Maya points to it. “Bye Bye”, she says. She spots an acorn on the ground and picks it up. She can’t say acorn yet, but I’m guessing that the smile on her face and her pointing at it is an indication that she recognizes this from the pictures she’s seen in her books. To her, there’s a toy around every corner and the world is a playground.

To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour - William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
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