internet anthropologist / hacker larp / n=1 experiments in parenting from first principles
elon’s 𝕏
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one time as a kid, my dad told me about some old research he'd read
he said, maybe asian kids are better at math because they just try 50% longer
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> i have a dude friend, he's 28ish and dating a girl
> she goes to pilates every morning at 6am
> i've been yelling at him to marry her since date one
> he keeps wanting further assessment from me
> she does pilates every day at 6am are you retarded
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the girl is hot, with grit and discipline to make a 6am class
what else are you selecting for
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i just got this odd little book, it's roughly the size of a passport
this photographer went around calling the biggest european companies, asking to show up at their office and shoot their boardroom
this is unilever in 1993
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i agree with @yacineMTB: "fairness does not exist in marriage"
the media ruined marriages by programming women to think they should be ‘fair’
tldr it's bad code:
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> swede marries american, moves to small town midwest, after kids she's shocked at how little time american children spend outside
there's a scandinavian saying, there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing — she moves her family to sweden to get back to that
notes:
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whenever lofi girl protocol goes viral, people assume i'm anti screens –– it's really quite the opposite
i decided to run a new experiment: i gave the now 4 year old an ipad, exclusively for texting
a bold move, given one notable constraint
he can't read
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my intention was to find a way to condition him that nothing on screens is particularly interesting or engaging
i spent time thinking how to do this and remembered reading about public access channels in norway
i decided to run an experiment with slow tv
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what is slow tv?
in 2009 a norwegian producer puts a camera on train, records out window, and broadcasts the whole thing, uncut
you watch scenery go by for 7 hours
cbs interviews the guy and tells him it’s boring, and he says: “yes — like much of life itself, it’s boring”
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it’s time to whitepill x on parenting books, and i say let’s start with bringing up bebe —
> american marries englishman, moves to france for reasons, slowly realizes she's raising french children, while she (for better or for worse) remains Very American
notes:
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we bought all these singapore math books before our kid was born
for some reason we thought the series started at 6 years old, he's 4 and it's clear we should've started at 3
he blew through the first two workbooks in two days
and i've done a 180 on the power of worksheets
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i've long noticed that elite private schools all have the same specific failure mode –– one that's particularly insidious for gifted kids
alpha school is most notable for, as far as i can tell, its rare immunity
let's call it the 'good for your age' trap
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i had no strong opinions on screens, going into parenting
here’s what worked for me (my friend @anabology called it lofi girl protocol) +
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it seemed to work immediately
as soon as we started, he started to ignore screens
at breakfast time, once he started to talk, he’d ask for train or lofi girl
and then he’d look out the window instead, watching the cars on the street or the birds in the trees
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my dad's a mathematician, and this stuck with me
when i do hard things, i mostly try to just keep going, at least 50% longer
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a professor of media at university of oslo says slow tv is like “opening a sort of window, an escape valve”
the new yorker says “instead of drowning out its viewers’ inner lives, it seems to want to be a backdrop that can give rise to their own reflections”
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men demand competence from each other, while women demand compliance from each other — it goes poorly when demanded from men
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he's 2 now, and he still thinks my iphone is just a phone that calls people
we aren’t planning to be no screens forever –– a linux box is in his near future
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needless to say, there will be no more smart tvs
this leaves scarce choices:
–– old tv
–– projector (surprisingly hard to find dumb)
–– commercial signage display screen (dumb but notably low quality)
i picked d/ none of the above
i decided to lobotomize a smart tv instead
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he kept pointing at the tv and turning back to me, saying lofi girl? lofi girl?
he’d generalized that all screens should be playing lofi girl :’)
other than that, he wanted to connect with her and us instead
the eye doctor was fascinated
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> be 4yo boy at camp
> hate mandatory morning handshake
> hate montessori social normalization cues et al
> wear good outfit today
> get compliments, twice
> hold head high
> see girl at dropoff
> execute handshake performance of your life
> oneshot social normalization
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i’m doing notes on all these parenting books but, i’m unironically inspired by unhinged @yacineMTB
the more i read his parenting posts, the more they arrange themselves into book form in my head
so i compiled it here and called it:
SENDING YOUR KIDS TO SCHOOL IS INSANE
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i looked at youtube channels and picked two
one with movement and no music (train through snowy swiss alps, 8.5 hours)
one with music and almost no movement (lofi girl, 3ish hours looping ““animation””)
and then we played one of these nearly 24/7/365
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we didn't want a smart tv, but there's no more dumb ones
out of the box, it was so slow we joked it had north korean spyware
joke's on us, it did
a man in the middle attack compromised every device except, strangely, mine
all because i'd bullied google into deleting youtube
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anecdotally, at 18 months we took him to the eye doctor
at that young, the exam is done by playing pixar’s cars and saying look over there! keep looking over there while i’m looking at your eyes!
she quite literally COULD NOT get him to look at the screen
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i write about all these things a lot, and i think this is the best reply yet: what if the husband is dead? the overkill is precisely what makes visible the meme
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this is abb, an electrical engineering company
the cherrywood table was less than two weeks old at the time
they offered her coffee, and gifted her a swatch watch
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this book is not about running
it’s about deciding today is no different from yesterday
notes:
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this is what worked for us
i like creative problem solving in parenting and want to spend more time working on it
dm to chat parenting
ps i read hundreds of parenting books, so dm especially to chat parenting books :)
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next up is holt, the father of unschooling
> yale-educated engineer turns WWII submariner, later leaves state department to pursue career in teaching
this is the first of his many books — all broadly dismissed by legacy educators as 'too radical'
notes:
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footnotes on screens!
i did research to form an opinion –– i have many thoughts, tldr it’s simply not optimal stimulus for critical developmental stages
in forming your own opinion, i recommend jane m healy’s books, endangered minds (1999) and your child’s growing mind (1999)
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this is mercedes-benz, then daimler-benz
you had to pass through chambers of expensive art to get in
inside is andy warhol
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we also hope that he’ll share our sports (basketball with husband, climbing with me)
we started showing him recordings (no commercials) of 90s lakers games and various ifsc tournaments
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i'm slogging through all the original montessori books again so that you don't have to
this one's about agency
and how parents lose the plot by doing too much:
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another i’m not sure would be published today —
> first-generation american poster child (harvard-educated yale law professor) turns to ‘tiger mom’ traditional chinese discipline (hours of math and music practice, no sleepovers) in hopes of avoiding Very American kids
notes:
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> competitive gamer goes from MIT to winning street fighter to leading street fighter remakes
in his own words — it's not advice for everyone; it's only for those interested in winning
a negative review calls it underground and insists, "it shouldn't even be for sale"
notes:
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my view of marriage is that it's taking two paths and deliberately making it one
and thus anything that threatens the oneness of marriage, i pretty much see as the enemy — of which, this book is one
notes:
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you can see that it’s not about husbands being ‘not good’ at things — it’s about wives mandating arbitrarily ‘right’ ways of doing things
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this is akzo, a chemical engineering company
the photographer noted no coffee was offered
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and there’s a lot of rules invented by women, enforced only by women, which exist almost entirely to control other women
judgement is deftly wielded
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we can easily see what it looks like in the reverse: if the wife dies, and the husband’s left with the kid, he doesn’t quit his job under the supposed crushing weight of all this 'invisible work' and 'emotional labor'
that would be absurd –– he simply finds a way to make it work
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some lofi girl protocol updates (and more on how he currently interacts with screens)
he’s 3 now, and he still thinks the phone is to call people
he’s really not captivated by screens — he’ll look for a minute or two, but he’s much more interested in physical play
my intention was to find a way to condition him that nothing on screens is particularly interesting or engaging
i spent time thinking how to do this and remembered reading about public access channels in norway
i decided to run an experiment with slow tv
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i can muster that the book is brave –– no face is saved in making the message pretty loud and clear for the wives who need to hear it: fairness is a meme
this is inadvertently the story of her falling prey to the meme, martyring herself, in turn crucifying herself
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men are generally not consensus seeking — women are more oriented to harmony and social cohesion, thus much more susceptible to groupthink
judging is part and parcel of that, as is guilt
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marriage is all about husband and wife together against the world — and the big problem with the fair play book is that it pits wife against husband
this book does not do that
notes:
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this is renault
there were formula 1 cars parked at the entrance of the building
strong coffee was served in small plastic cups
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this is siemens
the boardroom was just redone
they wanted the table to be much smaller and rounder, so people would not feel distant
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that’s it, time for a ‘have kids’ mega thread
let’s collect all the brilliant one-act play posts here on x, the everything app — now including *perpetuating humanity*
send me the best you’ve got, i want to whitepill our species into survival
starting with mermaid store
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the divorce data supports that wives get this social contagion — in 2015, a stanford sociologist did the most oft quoted study on divorce, and it tells us that in the US, divorce is initiated by wives 70% of the time
make it college-educated wives, and it goes up to 90%
Community note
The "90% in college-educated wives" statistic is incorrect, and went viral in media reposts. The author of the relevant study himself states that this is not supported by the data and they don't know where this claim came from.
More info:
nitter.app/SarahAMcManus/…
Original study with note:
web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rose…
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the media sold you the lie of fairness in marriage, but what you actually need is agency
marriage is not 50/50, it’s 100/100, that's the game
why argue about fairness when you can just do things:
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ciba-geigy, more chemical engineering, now defunct
the table was ordered from a furniture catalog
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ok time to whitepill x on montessori
all the decent primers are ineffective in getting you to *care* — and all the source materials are too dense if you don’t care yet
i want to get you to care — and i think i can do it without talking much about montessori at all
notes:
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'chores' don't create good outcomes, it's parents who model agency, self-discipline, and nobility of work, that create analogous habits and thus good outcomes
this is precisely the basis of montessori
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wives get infected with this mind virus of ‘unfairness,' and it seeps in, perniciously and widely and deeply
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this is eni, an energy company
apparently there was confusion on which table to photograph
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this reads like satire from bablyon bee: wife lets up on micromanaging husband, husband starts doing more things; wife doubles down on micromanaging husband
memetic capture is hard to shake
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if the book escapes containment (read: outside of x), it’ll be crucified for its anecdotes, perhaps justifiably
that said, it’s more or less exactly the way i was parented — no limits on screens, on school, on sleep, not even on sugar (unlimited ice cream)
full agency
notes:
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by chalking this up to 'higher standards,' mothers may even be actively undermining fathers
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you can see that husbands do not do ‘half as much’ housework and childcare as women — wives choose to care about twice as much *scope* in housework and childcare as men do
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totally, we (still) aren’t planning to be no screens forever
the immediate goal at hand was to inoculate against the effects (known negative and yet unknown negative) of exposure in early childhood, on both brain development and also sleep
sleep needs by age:
babies (4-12 months) — 12 to 16 hours
toddlers (12-24 months) — 11 to 14 hours
preschoolers (3-5 years) — 10 to 13 hours
not enough sleep in early childhood is like too much screen time in early childhood — easy to tell yourself it’s fine (it’s not fine)
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fathers prioritize their children becoming mostly self-entertaining, whereas mothers feel pressure to prioritize constant entertainment, or “enrichment,” for their children
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the hard truth about health is more or less the same as parenting — the buck stops with you — and that said, it’s worth updating your dogma
this book is written by a doctor, not for other doctors, but rather for high agency ‘patients’
notes:
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you can see that new mothers complain that they want help, yet do not make way for help
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you can see that a woman's free time is not more likely to *be contaminated* — a woman is more likely *to contaminate* her free time
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i did a bunch of research and found the only idea proffered was basically, abstain
i was surprised by this
abstaining is fine, but i wanted a more proactive and antifragile plan
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men do not have immunity from judgement because it's not 'directed at them' (and women do judge them) — men have immunity because men are more impervious to 'judging'
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above all it's super clear that a marriage that caters *to the children* is not what creates resentment — a marriage that does not cater *to the marriage* is what creates resentment
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i've helped a number of friends find husbands, and now they pay it forward, helping their friends get married too
one girl (married a year) sent a screenshot today, of a dating app reply, to ask for an exception to the rule
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the marriage must come first –– not only before *the child,* but also before *the husband* or *the wife*
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some companies refused, but still have pages, just left black and blank
notes in the back detail the declines
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i tell people to read this one first — mostly because it’s practical, but also because it’s wildly entertaining
if i were to venture a tldr, a decent working one would be:
american parenting is a lot of researching and worrying
french parenting is more trusting the process
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i've compiled more @yacineMTB, book II of his parenting posts
this one's called:
REGULAR PARENTS DON'T STAND A CHANCE
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i'm in 6th grade, advanced english
we're given a new book, it's maybe 200 pages in size 16 font
i read it in the first hour of the two hour class
i hide my own book behind it, and go back to reading
the teacher's mad, she calls on me
When I was a freshman in high school I had to take the normal 9th grade algebra because my pre-cal class THAT I TESTED INTO from middle school didn't transfer over.
In that 9th grade class, every day 5 minutes before the end of class my teacher would go around the room and hand us all the daily homework. By the time the bell rang I would finish the homework and hand it back to her before leaving for lunch.
By SEPTEMBER half a dozen latino and black kids were asking me for help on their homework. When I tried, they wouldn't pay attention or try themselves, they would just wait until I was annoyed so I would give them the answer.
After a few weeks of this, I would just finish my homework, and they would all crowd around the desk after I finished and copy it.
All of this was in front of the teacher who couldn't care less.
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montessori requires a context shift, and this book may help bridge the gap
it's not necessarily for me but that's luck of the draw — for the people who need it, i want them to find it
> parent rejects the “angry home” of her childhood, resets defaults with child in tow
notes:
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the study assesses first graders
the japanese kids range in age from ~6.5 to ~7.5
the age variance of the american kids is greater
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i wasn’t one to talk –– my parents got me my own mac on my own kid sized desk at 6 months old, and i’d ‘work’ right next to my dad
but then when our kid was 3 months old, i watched his head swivel to track the tv and i was like, nope
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you can see that wives do not need to be 'doing housework' while husbands are relaxing –– it's farcical that this is anything except 'we're pretty much all happier doing one thing at a time'
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“le pause” is technically a sleep thing, it’s also very montessori — i would broadly propose any parent try it on almost any parenting thing
maria montessori says: “do not disturb a child who is earnestly engaged in an activity — the process is more important than the outcome”
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fair warning, i found this one a bit too left-coded (the writer is formerly at the new york times, now at the atlantic) — it largely operates on the "children are our bosses" notion
that said, there's some takeaways — some on parenting, curiously maybe more on marriage
notes:
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revealed preferences show wives want to feel needed — why do we feign shock when grown children can’t make doctor appointments? husbands are not eschewing these tasks, wives hoard them
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a book on improving marriage without talking keeps going viral — i mostly see it as the intersection of love language / attachment style
indeed it's powerful having even *very* simple awareness of how these two things play out
and it's useful at work as it is at home
notes:
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literacy hasn't happened yet, but in the meantime he's opened a secure outbound channel to report live on the home front:
THE DOG IS IN A CONE
TODAY IS NOT A SCHOOL DAY
with recurring segments on the latest in preschool plagues:
I HAVE A LITTLE COUGH BUT I DON'T HAVE A FEVER
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ok that was fun, let’s do another
this is a theory of objectivist parenting, which might be the book i recommend next most often
and it’s not even available online
notes:
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every company is in two businesses: the one they’re actually in, and talent
the worse founders are at talent, the more risk they have to underwrite
notes:
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i read battle hymn of a tiger mother right when it came out in 2011 — i read pretty much all the media on it then, and pretty much all of it since
someone sent this one to me after the last book notes
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when he wants to reach people i haven't yet added, he directs delivery to me, like i'm some midcentury telephone girl operating a switchboard
here's an average evening scroll of my chatbox with him
yes, there's 19 more unreads, waiting to be properly routed and patched through
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it can't be 'fair' if wives don't let go –– fairness is an insidious meme that leads wives, especially mothers, to perceive unfairness where none exists
this particular type of projecting (the mind constructing motives) is what brene brown calls “the story i’m making up"
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here’s another parenting book you’ve probably never heard of
> pregnant professor walks across the street and gets hit by a car — brain surgery derails her plans for cosleeping, and sleep training is now nonnegotiable
she then turns a critical eye to attachment theory
notes:
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over his winter break, it took me less than a week to teach him the alphabet, and since then he likes to text his favorite people, tapping out very short words on my phone
that said, it's clear he still loves voice messages more, and thus the use case i was testing against
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this is a story of a ~month on mentava, the $500/mo toddler reading app
fair warning, it's an off-the-wall perspective, as early literacy is lowish in our stack rank
i picked mentava for the same reasons we picked climbing: failure is clear, impartial, and exacted in real time
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