Fed survey -- 40% of American adults couldn't come up with emergency expense of $400, without selling something or borrowing -- see my post: "Maybe I'm Not So Great, After All?"

“Pollen Comes from Trees”

How Language Transformed The “Terrible Twos”

William Sundwick

Language is power. It both requires a certain level of cognitive development and enables further cognitive development. The last entry in Warp & Woof that described my grandson was entitled “Glimpsing the Terrible Twos.” Seven months later, at two-and-a-half, little Owen has transformed himself from a willful ego monster, obsessed only with his own agency, into a congenial raconteur who is aware of his new-found knowledge of the world, and desires to share it with others. He’s a “big boy” … and, he knows it.

The first indication of the language explosion came for us two weeks ago, when his grandmother and I were regaled with his order for dinner. He likes hard boiled eggs but enjoys separating the yolk from the white before popping either into his mouth. He pointed to each part before doing this: “that’s yolk” – and, amazingly, “that’s albumin” – what!? I believe he taught grandpa a new word!

Last week, we watched him one morning when his home day care facility was closed. It was a beautiful Spring day. We went into our backyard to play. He noticed the white azalea bushes in full bloom – “flowers, it’s Spring,” and further elaboration, “it’s May.” He knows his months! (He wasn’t so sure of the day of the week, though.) Then, as he noticed the detritus from our large tulip poplar shade tree covering the patio, another nature observation, “pollen comes from trees.” He then abandoned his dirt digging project with toy dump truck and trowel and asked Grandpa to hoist him high enough to pick an unopened tulip bud from the tree, “can I get a flower?” he pointed to a low-hanging branch. He was fascinated by peeling off each petal until he got to the stem of the blossom. A future botanist in the family, it would appear.

Not only has he learned fascinating nature facts, but he knows how to apply them to his immediate sensory experiences. And, he can construct a meaningful sentence to describe the experience. It’s a sentence with subject, verb, preposition, and object: “pollen comes from trees.” This is cognitive advancement well beyond where he was seven months ago.

He is very polite. He has a pleasing habit of asking permission to “touch” and “see” things. Regarding our covered gas grill, “Is it hot?”

“No, we cover it when we don’t use it.”

“Can I touch it?”

“Sure.” When he reaches out tentatively to touch the burka-like grill cover, he jumps back, dramatically play-acting, and makes a sizzling sound between his teeth. He’s teasing us!

Potty training progresses nicely. “I have to poop” he declares – then demonstrates in the bathroom that he needs no assistance pulling down his pants and briefs and sitting on the “Lil’ Loo.” He asks for “privacy.” Before flushing (which requires intervention), he wants to count his feces in the potty. “One, two, three, four … no, one, two” -- some interpretation issues here, both answers could be considered correct. Further intervention is needed for him to reach the water in our bathroom sink for washing his hands (in his house, they have an extension for the faucet, so he can reach from a step stool without assistance). But, he has mastered the procedure.

His mind is still so uncluttered. He seems to have given up asking “why?” as a response to everything you tell him that is factual. Now, he appears to absorb it – even after one take. For instance, he asked about the air vent and door to the crawl space under our kitchen addition. I explained what they were. And, no, we don’t go into the crawl space because it’s dark and dirty (and, added grandma GiGi, there are chipmunks in there!). This was related only once. He did not respond, until fully two hours later, when his mom came to get him, and he eagerly told her everything that we said about the dark, dirty “crawl space” (his words now) with “chipmunks in there.”

It had been a few weeks since Owen had visited us at our house. Yet, despite his very busy life, he immediately slipped into the same routine he followed last time he was here. Digging dirt from the backyard foundation beds, denuded of ground-cover, putting it in the toy dump truck, then dumping it a few feet away. This was his routine – surely not duplicated anywhere else. He associates it with “Grampa” and “GiGi’s” backyard. (I have been officially renamed over the last seven months, from “Poppa” to “Grampa.” Grandma Gail has retained her cutesy nickname, however.)

To the best of my knowledge, O has not been exposed by his parents to any scripted drama -- animated, or otherwise. Yet, he has a dramatic imagination from somewhere (books, perhaps?). Some of it may come from his life. He was reenacting a scene, probably from day care, where two toy cars on the window sill were fighting for position in line, “I was there first” says the ambulance, “no, me!” says the crane. Or, siren sounds, as the ambulance speeds across the floor, “somebody sick, need to go to hospital,” he shrieks. 

Sometimes, he exhibits his instant retention skills, like making a reasonable facsimile of grandpa’s helicopter sound with tongue, lips and teeth – after hearing it only once. (We did hear a real helicopter outside earlier.) And, sometimes he plays the role of machine, like using his outstretched hand to receive a load of dirt from the trowel in the other hand, then rotating the receiving arm to the dump truck, and dumping the dirt – “I’m a crane.” “Diggers” have always been any heavy equipment like a front loader, backhoe, or excavator, since his earliest vocabulary days. Now, when he uses the garden trowel to dig in the beds, he acknowledges he is a “digger man.”

Among the things he absorbs are values. We had a conversation about sharing, after seeing the little play with the two cars fighting for a place in line. It seems that one of the cars was “Austin” (another two-and-a-half-year-old at his daycare), but not him. Because “Owen’s a big boy.”

He apparently had a satisfying experience that day at grandpa and GiGi’s house. His mom texted us later in the afternoon that he napped for three hours, she had to wake him up! And, we didn’t do anything to tire him out, either.

Maybe I’m Not So Great, After All?

Coming to Grips with Privilege

William Sundwick

“If they had to walk in my shoes." How many times have we thought this to ourselves? Even if we don’t verbalize it, we’re looking for sympathy.  Often, the burdens placed on us by real or imagined expectations and barriers seem overwhelming. We want that sympathy. Life is hard.

But, do we have a good understanding of just how hard we have it? Do we even know what it’s like to walk in our shoes? What if we stepped back far enough to see our daunting task objectively -- compared to the tasks of others?

We think life would be easier if we could claim some disability, or disadvantaged status. Something that would reduce expectations. But life really is easier when we have no disadvantages. That condition, called “privilege,” makes us special. It is not earned. It’s a gift. Since we don’t deserve it, conscience sometimes rears its head and motivates us to do something for others whom we call “special” – as compensation for their disadvantaged status.  At best, we may transition from wishing that they could “walk in my shoes” to walking in their shoes.

There are many measures of privilege. It consists of wealth, gender, race, ability. Some data:  if your annual household income is higher than $214,000, you are in the top 5% of U.S. income distribution. If your net worth (wealth) is $1M or more, you are not yet “wealthy” (you need at least $2.4 million to meet that definition now), but you are in the top 10 per cent of wealth distribution. You are financially privileged. If you are disabled, you are in a cohort that comprises 12.6% of the U.S. adult population (if you live in West Virginia, your cohort comprises nearly 20 per cent of that state’s population). You are definitely NOT privileged in this group, although the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has made some compensation.

If educational attainment is a sign of privilege, only about a third of U.S. adults have a bachelor’s degree or higher. But, it was only 5 per cent in 1940. Men are no longer more privileged than women in that statistic (in fact, the age 25-34 cohort has appreciably more women than men with bachelor’s degrees or higher). A higher percentage of Asian-Americans than any other ethnic group have attained this level of education – and they are more likely to be in a higher household income level than other ethnic groups, too – including non-hispanic whites. Are Asian-Americans privileged?

We learn about privilege from interactions with our fellow human beings. What sort of social contact do we have with people of a different ethnic group than us? With a disabled person, if we are able-bodied? With people in a cohort either much more educated, or less educated, than us? Do we even interact socially with the opposite gender, beyond our spouses? Whatever contact we have with different demographic groups, do we know what makes them happy? Sad? Angry? (The last is, of course, the trickiest – it may be us that makes them angry!) We know what elicits those feelings in us, but can we assume the same things motivate them? And, even if we can, how easy is it to come up with those ego strokes for somebody who is clearly different from us? Beauty? Brains? Strength? What flattery can we provide – while still appearing sincere, and not obsequious?

Privilege, it seems, is a scarce commodity. If you have it, you’re inclined to hide it from others – for fear they may steal some of it. If you confront someone whom you think enjoys more privilege than you, your approach is more likely to try inflating your privilege – to seek equal footing -- and committing the error of confusing social status with privilege. Social status is self-assigned, privilege is a gift. You are born with it.

Unequal privilege positions make social interaction very difficult. Sometimes, the tension can best be resolved by simply knowing when to sigh and give up. Inequality exists, full stop. It’s always easier not to walk in somebody else’s shoes, but desire to do so can be conditioned by either competitiveness or guilt (depending on whether you want to go up, or down, in social status).

If the challenge is too intense, and continued attempts at gratification fail, one typically finds the desire to alter the status differential, “to walk in their shoes,” diminishes over time. Desire tends to dissipate if unreinforced. Privilege, since it is bestowed rather than earned, is usually immune from desire.

Need does not dissipate. We may mourn our own lost desires, but that does not diminish the needs of our fellow humans -- in our neighborhood, our country, our world -- to obtain some privileged status. Surely, exercising some of our privilege to help others should not threaten our position. If we are part of a demonstrably less privileged group, we owe it to our children, if not ourselves, to seek improvement or empowerment.

If I were great, I would take a deep breath and start focusing my attention on groups who have real needs – the truly marginalized -- rather than assuaging my conscience about my own privilege. There are venues for action – churches, community organizations, politics. So, what’s stopping me?

Life on the Internet: No Fear, No Shame

Why All the Fuss?

William Sundwick

Why are so many people so afraid of sharing “personal information” with the world, anyway? Lately, especially with Facebook, it has verged on mass paranoia. Warp and Woof, the blog, was launched on Groundhog Day 2017. It is now 15 months old. And, I have been an active Facebook user for at least four years. Twitter about the same (but less active). Before I retired three years ago from the federal government, I was already well-acquainted with the public nature of the Internet, especially security risks – it was part of my job.

Let’s explore some of the risks of online presence in a cool, rational manner. As always, bad experiences can color a person’s feelings. But, I submit, so can positive experiences!

Fear and resentment of powers unseen manipulating you are a large part of the bad feelings people have. But, the only difference between what advertising and propaganda have always sought to do and what modern data analysis can do is something called “narrowcasting.” The more data that can be harvested about you, personally, the more precisely advertising can be directed at you. The hope of the advertisers is that this targeting will diminish your resistance to the message. The product being sold will appear to be custom-designed for you, even though it may just be the advertising message that is so customized.

The recent revelation about Cambridge Analytica stealing Facebook user data for political advertising reinforces the concept that there is a great conspiracy to manipulate your consumer behavior. There is, but it’s not new. True, social media together with “big data” can potentially be much more effective than the older “broadcast” methods of advertising. But, to think that you are less able to resist a narrowcast message is to admit weakness and defeat. Maybe it’s really all the “other people” and their ability to resist that concerns you? Hence, politics.

Then, there is identity theft – the idea that personal information can be used as a key to enable burglary. It has happened to some people.  But, again, the digital world has plenty of entry points for this kind of intrusion. Point-of-sale equipment has historically been the most common. And, Internet purchases via credit card certainly add to the risk. That’s hacking. Best defense: don’t ever buy anything with a credit card! (And, don’t use online banking or brokerage services.)

Perhaps even more compelling than either the manipulation risk or the identity theft risk, for many, is the fear of hurtful trolling – or, even physical harm. It’s likely because of bad experiences in the past, either online or in some other form of bullying, that many will foreswear social media altogether, and would never consider publishing an open blog. They also would not want to comment on anybody’s open blog, unless they could remain anonymous. Even then, they may let their fears of losing that anonymity consume them.

While most of us claim we want to be respectful of other’s feelings, it seems there are more than enough nasty trolls out there who are looking for an opportunity to demean and bully. What they engage in is a concerted attack on free speech. It can be either selfish (it makes them feel good, like the schoolyard bully), or strategic (they’re trying to suppress dissent). In either case, it seems that resistance is incumbent upon us. It may be that “resistance is futile” for privacy advocates, and we surely should support cybersecurity efforts to protect us from identity theft (businesses have good reasons to protect their customers), but to abandon participation in the digital world is tantamount to surrender to malevolent forces. Living “off the grid” means you have been defeated, no matter how refreshing it may feel as a vacation. Nobody wants to admit defeat!

Of course, it is possible to mitigate the potential harm of online conversations. Regarding social media, choose your Facebook friends wisely, and if discussion groups get abusive, go away for a while. I’ve reduced my Twitter activity for that reason. The other Digital Golden Rule is: don’t be stingy with the good stuff – there can never be too many compliments and validations. They likely will be returned in kind. My Writer’s Group knows this rule well. Congratulations to all, we self-enforce.

And, remember, if you publish online (including micro-blogging in social media) and your readers lose respect for you, it’s on you! The final judge of the value in your posts should be you. It’s helpful to keep your purpose and audience in mind – and write well. Sometimes, ruffling feathers is your objective. Don’t be shy if it fits your larger purpose. Just be deliberate.

To recapitulate, we need to be mindful of scams like phishing schemes, but psychological manipulation and identity theft pre-date the current state of the Internet – i.e., social media -- by many years. A more powerful fear for many seems to involve possible damage to their egos. Not to minimize real physical threats, but reasonable prudence about revealing our location, and being deliberate about what we say online, should alleviate most of those fears. Again, it’s not so different from the way life has always been. There have always been bullies. There have always been haters. And, it’s always better to confront a bully than to run away. You also confront by ignoring the bully.

Clearly, if I allowed myself to be consumed by these fears, I would not have started my blog. While my motivation for the blog is not to sell anything, I will admit to a desire to give something to my readers. Unfortunately, I can’t determine how successful I am unless I get feedback. Blogger stats are available which show me page views by article, by date, by operating system, and break it down geographically. But, page views do not necessarily equate to readers.

I promote Warp & Woof on Facebook, via email, in person to friends, and to my Writers Group. But, the responses, while always favorable, come back to me in the medium I used for the promotion – Facebook comments, email replies, in-person confirmations of reading or “seeing” the blog. Nobody makes comments in Blogger, itself (unless I beg them). That’s no fun. It’s true that the platform doesn’t allow for anonymous comments – but, I can anonymize the comment before I publish it, by making the comment myself, and quoting an anonymous reader. Perhaps that’s something I should promote, separately. Consider it done here. You must trust me, though.

So, consider this an invitation to follow Warp & Woof. Comment freely, I will anonymize before I publish your comments. It’s a blog with only one contributor (so far) – me! It contains my thoughts and expresses my interests. But, I’m interested in your thoughts as well. Help make it a conversation.