How Much Does a 4-Year-Old Know?

Well, At Least My Grandson …

William Sundwick

He does love to talk! From the moment his dad dropped him off Friday afternoon, duffel bag stuffed with changes of clothes and toys, until we took him back home Sunday afternoon, it was nonstop conversation! (Except after 9:00 P.M. Friday and Saturday nights.)

Four-year-old Owen got to spend the weekend with his grandparents, while his parents celebrated their wedding anniversary on the Maryland Eastern Shore. It was a new experience for grandpa and grandma “G.G.” Baby sister Mira was farmed out to the other set of grandparents.

Speech in children develops in interesting ways. Owen has always been a talker (like his dad at that age?) and seems to have modeled both parents. His grammar, including tense, use of pronouns, gender and number, all fit proper contemporary adult speech patterns. This has been developing for a while. Owen now seems to have even mastered verbal punctuation: exclamation points, question marks, commas for independent phrases, are all apparent in his oral arguments.

Somehow, he has also learned unique speech mannerisms that I must say I’ve never heard in other children. He habitually introduces a statement when others are speaking, even when talking to him, saying “Excuse Me!”– whether interrupting or not. Statements of fact are often preceded by “Actually,” as though he is providing surprising new information to his listener. Still evident in his conversation is his favorite interrogative from toddlerhood, “why?” This is typically a stand-alone sentence, neither preceded nor followed by any context – it’s been his favorite signal that he wants to continue the conversation, at least since he was two. He is seeking explanation.

Lately, Owen has also exhibited awareness of pop culture. This goes beyond speech mannerisms into real shared experiences with his parents and friends at “school” (their accepted name for the licensed family daycare facility down the street where he’s been since infancy). Action and characters from the Lego Movie, and Star Wars, are an integral part of his world. Marvel comics are now creeping in as well.

Would a more formal pre-K program enrich him more? He won’t be entering Kindergarten until he is almost six, due to his November birthday. His parents have discussed pre-K, but apparently rejected it, so far. His dad and uncle both had formal pre-school at Owen’s age or earlier. But I must say his language skills haven’t suffered!

What does Owen learn from observation? Where do his interests take him? At four, nature is the biggest draw. He notices the earth, soil, rocks, bugs. He helps Mom with her vegetable garden. He notices trees in the woods as well as people’s yards. And animals! He loves not only reptiles and dinosaurs, but everybody’s pets (he doesn’t have one of his own) and his favorite books are about wild animals, sea life, and dinosaurs. Owen even expresses concern about climate change and fragile ecosystems. He wants to build habitats for animals to “rescue them” from climate change, and thinks that people build “too many factories,” in his words.

Is Owen at a pre-reading level? He can print his name, and knows the alphabet, but familiar story books are memorized, the words aren’t read – including those “chapter” books his parents are collecting for him. He fooled me the other day when he appeared to read word-for-word the text on a page of one of them. But, when I asked him to identify specific words in the line of text, he couldn’t. It was the illustration on the page, and the sequence, that he had memorized.

Videos seem to be the best way to teach him concepts – much of his apparently deep understanding of complex things appear to come from educational videos that he’s shown me online. Some of them are brilliantly produced for preschoolers. Nonfiction children’s books are also a favorite, like D-K picture books, or National Geographic. Much factual knowledge in his interest areas comes from such additions to his home library. His dad loved pictorial reference books when he was Owen’s age, too.

Owen, the builder
Christmas, 2019

Analytical skills, including math and physics, are not yet apparent, except in primordial form, with Owen. The best exercise for this right now is building with Legos. He can now follow the pictorial instructions for small Lego sets by himself – meaning he can identify the pieces shown in the instructions and recognize the patterns of how they fit together. Larger sets still require help from dad, who was an avid Lego builder himself, and remains so today! (I suspect It’s now a stress-reducer, especially as a shared activity with his son.) Owen, so far, seems to limit his math to counting, some simple addition and subtraction, and he is finally beginning to understand gravity and balance when he gets creative in his building projects. But symmetry is now both a mastered concept, and a word in his vocabulary! “See grandpa, I made it symmetrical!” He was correct!

Owen has always been a physical kid, he loves outdoor running, and indoor yoga. He understands the difference between indoor physicality and outdoor physicality. Although, I haven’t been apprised of any interest in team sports yet. Outdoors, whether the terrain is familiar or not, he senses the opportunity to run, not walk, when he sees a path before him. His daycare facility deploys a Cosmic Kids yoga curriculum, and Owen confidently shows us his expertise, including naming poses, the horse pose from the farm “adventure” or the banana pose from the Betsy the Banana video adventure. All adventures begin with the secret Cosmic Kids word: “Namaste.”

His body awareness goes back to toddler days. I believe his mom has always emphasized it (his dad, not so much, if memory serves). He seems to be aware now of some grooming concerns – not just potty routines. He insisted, unprompted, during his weekend with grandparents, that we clip his nails! He instructed grandpa how to give a manicure! He also seems to know when to use a band-aid, and for how long, when he has a scratch or cut on his finger. He can now bathe himself in the tub, although he says he hasn’t had any experience with a shower.

Perhaps the greatest measure of early childhood development, however, is social awareness. Here, Owen, as can be expected, places the heaviest emphasis on his parents. They are the most important people in his life, and it’s critical that he get along with them. He expresses this by obeying their rules, and sometimes by showing genuine concern for their feelings. He seems to sense when his father is anxious, fading into the background as warranted (at least when grandpa is nearby), and I suspect he is at least as considerate toward his mother – I’ve noticed him asking when mommy is coming back, which is more likely than asking when daddy is coming. On the other hand, when confronted by a complex engineering (building) problem, he wants his daddy. Owen seems to see his grandparents as fun, somewhat lax in the rules department, which he works to his advantage – but he’s still amenable to the overall dictum, “when you’re with grandpa and G.G., we make the rules!”

Moving down the hierarchy from parents, Owen’s baby sister Mira (18-months) is becoming a playmate these days. There are competition and territory issues when they both occupy the same space at home – Mira isn’t allowed to play with Owen’s toys – but, generally, they interact well when the activity can be supervised and shared. When we brought Owen home that Sunday, slightly before his parents returned from Maryland with Mira, the first thing Mira did when she arrived was run to Owen and give him a hug! She hadn’t seen him for a whole weekend!

The outer circle of Owen’s world includes friends from “school,” children of his parents’ friends, and fictitious characters from play scenarios. The latter are invariably divided between “good guys” and “bad guys” – each playing a role, usually a function of their identity (policeman, “space guy,” or generic bad guy). Some school friends seem to be influencers as well – there are a couple older (or bigger?) boys at the daycare center. But I learned that “Logan is a troublemaker” – why? “Because Miss Eymy said so.”  So much for influencers.

As Owen relates his social experiences to grandpa, I can’t help but wonder if any of it portends a primal morality – or is it merely reflecting conflict? I haven’t heard Owen say anything about “fairness.” He seems to have all his needs met – for now! Neither can I see him parroting any sense of injustice from his parents, either. They seem to have their needs met, too. What am I missing?

Puzzlemaster Owen: two 48-piece puzzles all by himself!

  

State of the Race

Is the Path to the Nomination Any Clearer?

William Sundwick

We’ve now had two real contests in the 2020 Democratic Presidential primary. There are still polls which we are told are scientifically designed and administered. But, finally, we’re getting down to actual voting. What have we learned so far?

After the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 11, it’s now safe to say that there are five top tier competitors awaiting Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to buy the presidency. It appears that the early states (IA, NH, NV, SC) will eliminate any other contenders – they’re already “suspending” their campaigns at an increasing rate. Super Tuesday on March 3 is the crucial date. My prediction is that we will, by then, have the top two contenders. But I cannot predict beyond that. Will it be a brokered convention in July?

As of now, these are the five top Democratic candidates for president by delegate count:

Bernie Sanders:  Seemingly the overall best bet to win the nomination – except for one glaring problem. He is opposed by the entire Democratic Party establishment! He has the most avid supporters, and they’re young – hence represent the future of the Party. He has the most money (except for the billionaires who are self-financing), and his “base” is probably the most diverse of any candidate’s. The only groups reluctant (or fearful) of getting behind him are the old folks and the affluent. One complication in his path to the nomination: those groups are over-represented among primary (and especially caucus) voters. Traditionally, they’re the ones who show up!

Pete Buttigieg:  After a substantial boost in both early contests – largely because of the arcane first and second alignment rules in Iowa, where he picked up the most support from “non-viable” candidates – Mayor Pete has recently benefited as the “unity candidate.”  He’s probably the establishment’s best hope now of countering Bernie. Old people like him as that “nice young man, and smart, too!” He hasn’t said anything that is too threatening to anybody. And, his supporters can claim to be “woke” because he’s gay with a fine husband. Some polling indicates that young, prosperous, college-educated white people are also included in Mayor Pete’s base.

Elizabeth Warren: Sadly, Liz came in a weak third in Iowa, worse in New Hampshire. News from her campaign was that she was pulling ads in Nevada and South Carolina. Those of us who count ourselves as her supporters felt we needed to step up, both financially and time commitment. She needed us. Her base is apparently white, well-educated members of what is known by Bernie supporters as the PMC (“Professional Managerial Class”). Of course, this group knows best what is good for the country – and must educate everybody else accordingly. My whole family (two generations) are Warren supporters. But, alas, we may need to “check our privilege” – perhaps we don’t represent the heart and soul of America?

Amy Klobuchar: Suddenly, after the New Hampshire primary, Amy has finally realized the “Klobmentum” that commentators have been predicting. Her third-place finish, very close to Pete, and ahead of both Liz and Joe, has caused us to re-evaluate her campaign. Not only does she rip the women’s candidate mantle from Warren but has now transcended her Iowa message of running for “President of the Midwest.” Her message seems to be a positive one: “You’re great people and I like you!” This contrasts with Bernie’s more negative: “Let’s fight the bad guys together!” Both appeal to unity, but positive phrasing often trumps negative.

Joe Biden: Only a few weeks ago, the RCP polling average had Biden on top. What happened? Well, in short, it was Iowa. The fact that he could only muster fourth place in that very selective contest seems to have knocked the wind out of his sails. When Joe gets knocked off his easy-going style he tends to stumble. So, New Hampshire became a make-or-break test for his campaign. It was not good. His base has been much like Bernie’s, except inverted in one critical metric – age! And, a large swath of the Democratic Party elite (the Hillary wing from 2016) have been all-in for Joe from the beginning.

None of the other candidates matter at this point. Andrew Yang, Deval Patrick, and Michael Bennet dropped out after New Hampshire, only Tom Steyer and Tulsi Gabbard remain -- who cares? They may be angling for book deals, cabinet posts, future Senate elections – but, surely, neither expect to be president, or even nominees. And, Mike Bloomberg waits in the wings as we consume his barrage of advertising, even generating polling support and endorsements.

While I believe that any of the top five candidates mentioned above can easily beat Trump, assuming they manage half-way intelligent campaigns in the general election, we did also expect that of Hillary Clinton in 2016. Much attention has been paid by the media to the different “lanes” that these candidates occupy. It seems the underlying assumption in such talk is that some collection of policy positions, an ideology, is a more probable path to victory in November than some other such collection. I respectfully disagree with that assumption. I think most voters don’t identify with specific policy positions nearly as much as they have emotional reactions to the public persona of each candidate. But, if there were different lanes of policy among the top tier candidates, the campaign thus far has made Bernie the sole inhabitant of the Left Lane – he expects to blunt the attacks from Republicans by openly identifying as a “Democratic Socialist,” much as Mayor Pete openly identifies as gay. Once somebody comes out, the attack can easily be turned against the attacker. Not as much an issue as many in the media fear.

Warren has lately sought to move away from that Left Lane, thinking that her main opponent is Pete rather than Bernie. If she is seeking to rise to a solid second choice, that may work. She can attain that status by splitting the difference between Bernie and Pete. Pete is very slippery, hard to pin down to a single lane. Biden clearly dominates the Right Lane among top Democratic contenders. His long history in the Senate, as well as his role in the Obama administration, may allow him to call himself “progressive” by the standards of 20 years ago, but times have changed. Nowadays, the eight years of Obama look like years of moderation and compromise, even a betrayal to some Democratic constituencies. As we know, much of this is due to the astounding lurch to the right of the Republican opposition. And Joe still thinks his strength is that he can “work with” Republicans. Amy echoes much of Biden’s posturing in this regard but may have better control over her messaging. She could be the compromise between Pete and Liz if she works on that.

What about Bloomberg and Tom Steyer? The billionaires self-funding their campaigns may yet be the wild cards in this race. But, with Bloomberg entering the debates because of a rule change, we may see further scrutiny of his profoundly undemocratic quest for the presidency – if that is even his goal. While all candidates are trying to sell themselves to the American people, there seems to be something especially crass about doing it mainly through purchased TV (and online) ads. How many Bloomberg rallies have there been in primary states? How many Bloomberg canvassers will we see knocking on doors? One wonders if Bloomberg isn’t more interested in protecting his fortune from a new regime in Washington than anything else.

If Super Tuesday does not produce a wide delegate lead for one or two candidates, then the prospect grows for a brokered convention. This would mean that the final Democratic contest would be on the convention floor in Milwaukee. Delegates would be traded among candidates, and starting with the second ballot, superdelegates again rear their ugly heads, as in 2016. Today, with only two contests involving actual voting behind us, it’s too soon to speculate on such an event. Iowa was essentially too close to call for the top two, and New Hampshire has produced what will likely be equally short-lived headlines and bounce. Nevada caucuses and South Carolina represent two more peculiar, non-representative, states. March 3 awaits.

What Happens in Iraq Stays in Iraq?

What Really Did Happen in January?

William Sundwick

On January 3, we received news that a U.S. drone had killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani while he visited militias in Iraq. He was allegedly the second most powerful man in Iran, a national hero branded by the U.S. as a terrorist. For about one week, the news cycle was dominated by fear of all-out war between the U.S. and Iran.

Iran responded by launching 16 missiles into a U.S. occupied Iraqi air base near Baghdad, with injuries but no fatalities. Diplomatic notes relayed by Swiss intermediaries indicated that this would be the full extent of Iran’s retaliation, for now. Then, as if by Karma, an Iranian missile mistakenly downed a Ukrainian airliner near Tehran’s airport, killing all 176 aboard (many Canadians but no Americans). Street protests in Tehran again turned against the government – as they had been before the drone assassination – giving little respite for the Ayatollah.

News media promptly abandoned talk of potential Iranian cyberwarfare attacks and other doomsday scenarios that had been so prevalent in the preceding week. It was back to the Senate impeachment trial and a feud brewing between two Democratic presidential front-runners.

What happened? Was there really such confidence that nothing would come of such a brazen violation of international law as assassination? The Iraqi parliament overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution that all U.S. forces leave the country immediately. Are we so jaded that we just shrug off these incidents as a natural consequence of the still-legal Global War on Terror (GWOT)? In domestic U.S. law, if the killing is in war, it’s not illegal!

It’s useful to look at a consistently erratic U.S. policy toward Iran, and the Middle East in general, stretching back decades – arguably to the 1950s. In 1953, a joint MI6/CIA coup d’etat successfully overthrew the popular prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: seeking to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The young monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza-Pahlavi became a U.S. puppet, with newly established dictatorial powers (previously Iran had been a constitutional monarchy with most powers devolving to the Majlis and government). At about the same time, the height of the Cold War, U.S. and British oil interests began consolidating their influence over the absolutist monarchy across the Gulf – Saudi Arabia. At that time, control of the huge oil reserves around the Persian Gulf waxed very large in strategic western planning. It was imperative that the Soviet Union not gain control over the region, restricting access to those resources – any political instability in the littoral nations was actively discouraged.

That was then. Today, it is more difficult to understand the importance of that geostrategic principle. Both the U.S. and Russia are self-sufficient in fossil fuel resources, and the world in general needs to collaborate in reducing its dependence on all carbon-intensive fuels. Oil just isn’t a big thing anymore. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran realize this. Yet, their economies depend on oil revenue. And, that’s not the extent of the competition between the two regional would-be hegemons.

When Iran finally succeeded in overthrowing the American puppet Shah in 1979, their revolution was driven by two fundamental precepts, to extricate the Americans and to establish Iran, seat of the Shia sect of Islam, as the spiritual center of the Muslim world. The first of these put them on a collision course with U.S. foreign policy, the second with the Saudi monarchy which claimed full control of the holy cities of Medina and Mecca. Saudis hosted the Haj each year, just as the Ottoman Empire had done until its retreat from Arabia in World War I. It also claimed religious hegemony over Muslims worldwide. Now Iran was challenging that hegemony.

But it was the U.S. that ordered the assassination of an Iranian general in Iraq. Not Saudi Prince Mohammed bin-Salman. The U.S. had even encouraged and aided Saddam Hussein in invading Iran in 1980, leading to an eight-year-long struggle with thousands of casualties, and ultimate Iraqi defeat. Why?

This is where the intricate patchwork of weak nation-states, ethnic enmities, and fragmented alliances among the various nations in the region enter the picture. It’s an old story, going back to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Iraq and Syria, in particular (perhaps Lebanon and Palestine/Israel as well) have never been successful independent states – their peak prosperity and stability was in those late Ottoman days, and as European protectorates later. Ethnic and sectarian tensions have riddled those countries ever since. The oil era was characterized by a monopoly situation, where the region was the only supplier to many world markets. The petty players of the Arabian Peninsula (UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Yemen) also enter the picture. They are the periphery of Saudi power, always vulnerable to exploitation by the Kingdom’s rivals, like Iran. Indeed, since 1979, Iran has become far more aggressive in its efforts to do just that. The Quds Force of proxy militias in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, created and directed by Qasem Soleimani, became Iran’s vanguard for establishing regional hegemony over both U.S. interests and Saudi Arabia’s.

But none of this explains why the U.S. felt it needed to assassinate him. Everybody knew he would simply be replaced by another commander. There was no explanation given of any “imminent” threat. Was it simply a distraction from the President’s impeachment trial? By the final week of January, the episode remained a mystery. Iran, to its credit, responded in a measured, rational manner (perhaps merely due to embarrassment over the mistaken downing of the airliner).

The news media have grown weary of trying to solve the mystery. Perhaps it’s just “too complicated” to garner enough eyeballs or clicks. Adam Schiff’s eloquent summaries of the impeachment case and Bernie Sanders’ spurned handshake after the last Democratic debate make for much more entertaining speculation – they’re not so complicated!