The weekly podcast where we think about happiness, creativity and the human condition.
Ali
Hello, and welcome back to Not Overthinking. Taimur, how are you doing today?
Taimur
I'm doing great. Today we have a couple of special guests joining us this episode, we have our cousin Shaaz and his wife, Zara. Do you guys want to say hi?
Shaaz
Hi, everybody.
Zara
Hi, everyone.
Taimur
So Shaaz is actually quite a big deal around here, Shaaz was a role model of mine growing up, and he changed my life trajectory when I discovered that he studied maths at University, I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before, that was like the thing that opened my mind to being able to study maths. So this is that Shaaz.
Shaaz
Yeah, it was interesting seeing that on Ali's Instagram. And I was like, whoa, "I'm being mentioned on here." That's new.
Taimur
Yeah, that's good stuff.
Ali
Apologies if I didn't get your consent before mentioning you on the Instagram.
Shaaz
Oh, no problem at all.
Ali
Fantastic.
Taimur
Alright, so today we're doing a part two about being nicer to kids. We didn't have an episode last week, sorry about that. Ali was being lazy. But the week before that, we were talking about how we're actually treat kids kind of immorally. And this is a follow up to that. Before we get into like the follow up though. I'd be curious to, so Shaaz you listen to the episode from two weeks ago, right?
Shaaz
Yes, I listened to that one. So that was the one where I think the first half was about some other stuff Ali is being unemployed and stuff like that. And then the next half was about how to treat kids, or how kids are treated in society.
Taimur
Yeah, exactly. So I think that the main point I was trying to make was that, we just don't really take kids seriously. Is that, what do you remember from your childhood and how you were sort of treated?
Ali
Before we get into Shaaz's childhood, we have a very important message.
Taimur
Ah, that message is from our sponsors this week, which are Skillshare. Indeed, Taimur, what is Skillshare?
Shaaz
[SPONSOR] Skillshare is the best place to learn anything online, except for math and computer science, apparently. So what is it, you can learn about cooking and video editing, and you can do Ali's class on something.
Taimur
Nailed it.
Ali
That was pretty good. Yeah, as Shaaz says, Skillshare is the best place to learn anything online. It is a very reasonably priced monthly subscription. It's less than $10 a month free, you know, the annual premium membership and on Skillshare, you've got 1000s of classes and all sorts of things. From creativity to entrepreneurship to even cooking, I learned how to cook a mean roast chicken on Skillshare. The best part is if you go to skillshare.com/notoverthinking, you can check out my own classes, there's four of them so far, I filmed a fifth one yesterday, and we've got a sixth one being edited as we speak. So that'll give you a two month free trial. So you can watch hours and hours and hours of my content. And Taim actually features in some of the classes, especially the ones we talked about productivity, isn't that fun?
Taimur
Great stuff.
Ali
Great stuff. So head over to skillshare.com/notoverthinking to get your two month free trial. And then $10 a month afterwards, it's sick, totally worth paying for much better for you than Netflix. Was that alright?
Shaaz
Sounds like a good summary. I might have to actually start using it now.
Taimur
Nice. Alright, so Shaaz back to your childhood. What do you remember about like, how, whether you were taken seriously, do you remember any like particular interactions or sort of stories?
Shaaz
So I'm actually someone who, I consider myself to have quite a good memory for when I was a child. So I can remember quite well back to almost before I could talk. So this is around the age of two years old, perhaps. And so I remember a lot of things about kind of the layout of the house we used to live in, for example, and the kind of relationships that I had with people. I lived in quite a big family. So as I still do, which was with my parents, and then my mom has so many siblings, so that all of them were around. And I think the, I think there were two main, two main ways in which I was treated, so there were there were some ways in which I was probably taken more seriously than I would have expected to have been. And in other ways, probably less. And it depended on the situation and the circumstances at the time.
Taimur
Cool, let's hear about, so in what kind of context were you treated more seriously than you think you deserved?
Shaaz
I wouldn't say more seriously than I deserved. I'd say more seriously than children tend to be.
Taimur
Ah, okay, interesting.
Shaaz
So, I often used to have a lot of questions when I was young about the most pointless random things ever. And my mom always gives the example of things like I just asked her questions like, "Mom, can you see that tree? How many leaves do you think are on?" And, you know, whereas most parents would just be like, "I don't know." Or they just, you know, give a stupid answer, like, lie and say, "Oh, yeah, there are a million leaves on that tree or something." My mum tended to have this attitude that I can't just straight up lie, I have to, or I can't just dodge the question. I have to say, "Well, I don't know. But this is how you would find out." So maybe there are a certain number of branches on the tree, maybe each branch has, I don't know, 20 leaves on it or something and work it out that way.
Taimur
Fermi estimation technique.
Shaaz
Yeah. And I thought that was really, looking back on it, I think that was probably really good for me because it meant that I wouldn't feel hesitant in trying to amass more knowledge about the world later on.
Taimur
Right. Okay that's pretty good. Yeah. If I asked a question like that, yeah, I don't know if I would have been entertained quite as well.
Ali
I feel like for me the circumstance, I feel like I never really asked questions like that. But it was only when preparing for, you know, the Cambridge interviews, that you know, the classic chestnut of you know, can you estimate how many molecules of oxygen there are in the room? Okay, that's interesting. What if we do this and this and that, and, or things like, you know, what's the volume of a human head? I feel like those are the sorts of questions you were asking when you were a kid. You were way ahead of the times.
Shaaz
Well, some questions like that, but also, you know, how kids often have this habit of, they'll ask question, you'll give an answer. And then they'll say why? And then you'll give an answer. And then they'll just keep asking why. And to the point where they're probably not even interested in the answer anymore, they're just trying to be annoying now. But I don't think I ever got the sort of " oh just be quiet
Taimur
Okay yeah, you were never like dismissed for asking questions.
Shaaz
Yeah. It was, it was very much encouraged that I should ask questions, find out more about the world and just how things work in general.
Taimur
That's good stuff. Zara, what kind of questions were you asking when you were younger?
Zara
Can I watch more TV and not go to sleep? Can I skip school?
Taimur
Do you feel like you were taken seriously?
Zara
No, I wasn't.
Taimur
Okay.
Ali
So Taimur, with the new stance on morality, do you feel Zara should have been taken more seriously when asking, "Can I watch more TV and not sleep and skip school?"
Taimur
Yes, I think I said this in the last episode, as well. And in having conversations with friends about this topic in the past couple of weeks, I think you can make a mistake in conflating taking someone seriously and sort of doing whatever they want, or whatever they're asking. Like, you can take a child, if a child says I don't want to go to school today, you know, I think there are ways to respond to that, which recognize the child as as a person, and in which you take the child seriously. Even though the end result might still be that the child is going to school. So I think taking someone seriously, taking children seriously, is sort of a separate thing from like, once again, like the practical aspect of what the end result is, which is that the child probably goes to school.
Ali
And so when it comes, and so for example, to take Zara seriously, in that example, you would have as a parent, you would have sat her down and explained the reason as to why she had to go to school tomorrow or kind of find out her ideas, concerns and expectations as to why she was saying I don't want to go to school.
Taimur
Yeah, potentially. I don't know, look, I don't want to get too bogged down into that stuff. I'm not going to try and opine about what makes good parenting. And I think it depends on the person, It depends person to person. I'm not too interested in like getting bogged down into like, here is how you should actually respond to your child when they ask question x. But I think the taking things seriously is something separate to that, which we can opine on and should, and that's kind of what we're doing here. Alright, so, Shaaz, you mentioned you said there was like two categories, there were times when you were taking more seriously than you think the average kid would have been. Like, when you're asking how many leaves are on the tree? When do you think you were taken less seriously than, than average or less seriously than you would have liked?
Shaaz
I think I would have been taken less seriously in the context of autonomy. Now, there's an obvious reason why kids don't necessarily have the same amount of autonomy as someone much older than them because they, you know, might make worse decisions. You obviously, you know, if a kid wants to play near a window on a high apartment building floor then you would not give them the autonomy to do that. But I think there are a lot of situations where there isn't a specific correct answer about how you want to live your life or how you want to approach any particular situation. It's a lot down to taste and preference, and just what happens to suit the individual and what they're feeling at the time. And I think pretty much every child, including myself, parents often tend to think that their way is the right way, even when there isn't a correct way or a wrong way to do it. So for example, if a child is having some food, a parent might say, "Okay, you've got to eat this, this is what you have to eat for dinner, you're having, I don't know, rice." But suppose the child wants to have noodles, maybe they like noodles more. Now, it's not that one is objectively better than the other, for the most part they're the same thing. But I feel like a lot of parents would think that, giving that level of autonomy to a child isn't necessary. Because they, it is kind of their, their view of what's normal, or preferable or tasteful in this situation or even if it's something like what a child wants to wear that day, now, it doesn't really make a difference. Like literally you can go out and nobody in the world cares what you're wearing. But I think some parents would think that their taste matters more than the child's taste in that situation.
Taimur
Zara, you're shaking your head?
Zara
No, I think parents think that that's a reflective sort of them how they are as a parent, if their child is hasn't showered, or isn't clean or isn't wearing proper clothes.
Taimur
Ah, so you think that parents are not necessarily limiting the child's autonomy about hey, you have to wear these nice clothes, it's more about like, you have to wear these nice clothes to the party, so that the hosts don't think I'm a bad parent that I let you do random stuff, you know?
Zara
Or I don't take care of my kids
Shaaz
But does it make you a bad parent, if you let your kid do whatever they want in that sort of situation? I mean, if your kid is going to, I don't know if they're 20 years old, and they're going to their first job interview, then of course, you would say to them, "No, wearing your pajamas to this interview is not a good idea." But if they're I don't know, they're five years old, and they want to go to a random Auntie's party, wearing a dinosaur suit, then, you know, who's really being hurt by that? I don't think anybody.
Ali
I don't know. Like, I feel I've had this situation happen a lot more recently. Famously, anytime I come home for the weekend, and we end up having these like last minute, like lunch parties and stuff to go to. And usually I don't bring decent clothes, I bring kind of my jeans and my T-shirt and my ripped trainers because I have no other shoes. And my mom often gets annoyed that I'm not wearing proper clothes to go to this fancy party. Well, it's.. just to go to someone's house. Possibly because she thinks that it would it's a sign of disrespect or something for me not to wear proper clothing. And therefore, in that context, even though I'm not a kid anymore, my autonomy is, you know, held up against the potential to disrespect the host of the party.
Taimur
Yeah, look. One of the reason I don't like getting bogged down into the practicalities of this is that I think all of these questions around like, you know, what's the right thing to do? Is this okay? Or not? It all comes down to where you stand on the like, individualism versus collectivism spectrum, you know? If you're like, maximally individualist, then you might think, you know, screw like these other people feeling disrespected, or whatever, you know, like, I do, what, yeah, I do what I want, my kids can do what they want. If you're more collectivist than you might think, okay, look, there are there are norms and stuff, there are expectations, you know, we're in this community, we have to play by their rules, that's kind of, you know, that's important. And so, I think the answer to all these practical questions is like, it depends on where you are on that spectrum. You know, I mean, the four of us are all sort of, you know, Indian..
Shaaz
One spectrum? (laughter)
Ali
We're not allowed to say that...(laughter)
Taimur
I mean, it's not completely false..
Shaaz
Maybe three of us.. (laughter)
Taimur
Like the four of us are all from you know, Indian and Pakistani sort of backgrounds, which I think are those cultures are a bit more collectivist than this sort of prevailing Western norms nowadays, and so we might have like different views on that, then sort of like a white person might do. I actually think the practical stuff is that useful to get into, it's interesting to get your thoughts, Shaaz. Zara, like tell us a bit more about I mean, so were you taken seriously as a kid? Like do you do you remember any incident? Are there any like strong memories you have of like being taken seriously or not being taken seriously? When you were a kid?
Zara
I think I've more strong memories about not being taken seriously. Most of the time when I was really young, and I wanted to wear something, and my mom would just say, "Okay, we're not taking you because you're not wearing what I asked you to." So I got left sometimes.
Ali
And you felt in that context you weren't taken seriously?
Zara
Yeah. I wanted to wear like, I don't know, a random, nice top or something, but had to wear like a wedding clothes. Because..
Ali
You're going to do wedding.
Zara
Yeah. But I wanted to just wear casuals and she said, "No, you can't, because that's a wedding. And we don't wear that." So I think most of my childhood is just fighting with my mom to do one thing, and she wanted the other thing.
Ali
Okay, but it sounds like this is another example of Taim's thing of individual versus collectivism.
Zara
I think so.
Ali
I think it's hard, it's hard to disentangle that from, because it seems like often if you ask kids, you know, were you taken seriously, kids will look at examples in their own lives where their own autonomy was infringed upon for the sake of what the parents are saying. And generally what the parents are saying would be more in line with the collectivist you know, there are social norms honey, you can't just turn up to this wedding wearing your dinosaur suit. Which is actually a large chunk of memories that people have about their childhood.
Taimur
Yeah, I guess it's tricky because, I think that the feeling of being taken seriously or not being taken seriously, is probably more sort of, more down to like, lots of small things, and like little signals and stuff like that, that won't be tangible enough for you to remember of like, "Oh, my mom said this to me" but it's like subtle things of like, you know, you asking your parents something, you ask an adult something, and they just having like a dismissive tone, or they just kind of, you know, really sort of subtle things that I think you do pick up on as a kid, that won't be sort of salient enough for you to think, "Oh, yeah, that time, I wanted to do this thing. My parents just kind of ignored me or something" you know? So I think it's tricky. I think it is tricky to recall these things.
Ali
I think one of the issues as well with the phrase kind of "being taken seriously" is that for most people, when they run the search, when they run the search function for, you know, times in which I was taken seriously. The only things that will really come to mind, "I wanted to do something and I wasn't allowed to do the thing" therefore, I wasn't taken seriously. Like, for me, I don't remember specific moments where I asked a question, and it wasn't taken seriously. I remember once when I asked my mom, you know, our mom, where babies come from? And she said, kind of down below, and I kind of assumed she meant like the bum (laughter) because what else is down below. But it's, you know, what would being taken seriously in that context kind of look like, as well. So it's when you start getting into like asking into specific examples, you then get kind of bogged down in the practicalities, as you say, but feel like you're trying to get people to arrive at some kind of conclusion which you're peddling that, you know, "Damn, man, the kids these days are not taken seriously enough." And the kids actually look at their memories and think, well, I don't know really I guess, you know, sometimes I wasn't allowed to do the exactly 100% what I wanted to do" and then you would say, "Well, actually, bro, you're being bogged down in practicalities right now." (laughter)
Taimur
Yeah, look, it's true, maybe that's a bad question, that's maybe that's a bad prompt. But I think like, I don't know, I think even I'd probably have trouble recalling specific instances where I feel like I wasn't taken seriously. But I think I do have a general sense, an overwhelming general sense of not being taken seriously as a child.
Ali
As defined by what? By wanting to do stuff that you were then not allowed to do, or?
Taimur
No, just not, you know, not treated as a sort of..
Shaaz
I think the phrasing you used in the last episode was as a full human being.
Taimur
Right. Yeah.
Shaaz
Or a full person.
Taimur
Yeah. I think the thing, the thing I said about, like, being treated as an object, I think like objectification is probably like, you know, how I felt.
Ali
Okay, and in your sense being treated like an object equals not being taken seriously?
Taimur
Yeah, I guess not being taken seriously kind of means not being treated as a human being, and that kind of means being treated as an object instead, in many ways.
Shaaz
I mean, when you say that, treat as an object. One thing It reminds me of as a child when I was about three or four years old or so. A lot of family members like distant relatives or people like that. I think for children, they feel as though they're completely entitled to just come up to you and like, pick you up and start like throwing you around, and grabbing your cheeks and doing whatever, and..
Taimur
Manhandling you, basically.
Shaaz
Yeah. And there's kind of, I don't think much thought goes into, does the child actually, like the fact that I'm doing this, are they comfortable with me doing this? I don't think any thought goes into that at all. I think probably what they might think is that the child doesn't have a sense of being comfortable or not comfortable with close contact with people who are often a stranger to them. Just the fact that you see a child and you think they're cute or whatever you can kind of do whatever you want, and it's all fine. Which for many children probably is; I just so happened to be one that kind of avoided physical contact with other people quite a lot, and probably still am to be honest. And you know, people who I barely know, would not think of doing that now. But for a child of that age, I think they're kind of the way they might take it isn't really taken into account.
Taimur
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's, that's a really good example of like the objectifying thing. And I think situations like that, of like, especially like sort of semi public or group situations where the child is almost like, passed and passed around as an object as a way, I think those are the most like really obvious cases where you're sort of being treated as an obje t. But I think the other stuff around the object thing is kind of, we mentio ed this in the previous episode about how there's this sense that the child s some kind of product that the parent has to sort of craft and give the right a d sort of mold into the right shape, until they're sort of like a successf l product or whatever. I think there's a general sense of tha
Ali
I think, but I think people might object to the, you know, classification of being passed around, essentially. As being a sort of objectification here, sort of with negative and connotations, for example, one of our friends has a one and a half month, one and a half year-ish old child. And for example, in group holidays and stuff, she brings a child along, people want to play with the kid want to pass around and kind of be like, smile at the kid, the kid loves, the kid is all happy. You know, 19 years from now, I think it would be unfair for the kid to be like, "You know what, Mom? When you were hanging out with your medic friends, when you were like, you know, 24 you know, I was tossed around a little bit. I think that was very objectifying, because you know, though it helped develop my own social skills and helped me like learn interaction with strangers. I just don't appreciate the fact you objectified me to that extent." I think that would probably be a bit a little bit unfair.
Taimur
Look, I think there's definitely part of this kind of stuff, which is just sort of normal healthy socialization of babies and children, but..
Ali
In a way requires them to be treated as an object.
Taimur
Sure, I think, you know..
Ali
To be crafted and molded, as the parents see appropriate.
Taimur
I think it's probably, I think it's more defensible for the, in this example of the one and a half year old kid. But I think I mean, this happens, you know, for sure to kids, more than even five years old, at which point the kid definitely has awareness of things, the kid can definitely communicate, the kid definitely has preferences, all of this kind of stuff. And so I think your example is a bit extreme. I think, you know, your example seems fine to me. But I think people definitely take this much further than that. And then even like, you know, go and give someone so a hug or a kiss or whatever. Anyway, let's not get too bogged down in these things. Because today, last week, two weeks ago. I emailed the author of the essay that we were discussing, to ask her for other interesting things to read. And she sent me a really good PDF, entitled "Epistemic Injustice and the Child" by Michael D. Burroughs and Deborah Tollefsen .
Ali
What does epistemic mean? I feel like I've heard it in many contexts, but I've never quite understood it.
Taimur
It kind of means just relating to sort of knowledge. Yeah, epistemology is like, I mean..
Ali
Is that like where words come from.
Taimur
That's no, no..
Shaaz
That's etymology.
Ali
Oh, damn.
Taimur
According to Wikipedia, epistemology is a branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. It's anything about like, knowledgey type stuff. You just like chuck the epistemic sort of adjective in there to tell it, to say that we're talking about this kind of thing.
Ali
Okay.
Taimur
I feel like it's the kind of thing that you just need to hear in enough context to understand like, what it's referring to. Anyway, papers entitled "Epistemic Injustice and the Child" let me tell you about it. And I think it does a reasonable job of actually making this idea of what does it mean to take someone seriously a lot more concrete than I have managed to so far in these discussions. So to start off, it introduces the idea of epistemic credibility, which is basically like, you know, how much credibility you give someone for being like a thinking human being kind of thing. And so there's a lot, you know, there's lots of instances, increasingly that nowadays we're becoming more sort of, is becoming much more of a public thing, where, for example, a woman is taken less seriously because in a boardroom, because she's a woman compared to the men, or a black person has taken less seriously in some context, compared to a white person. This is like epistemic injustice, you're sort of, you know, treating someone's sort of knowledge or status as a person who has knowledge about things that you're sort of treating that in a biased or unfair way, okay? And this thing about being taken seriously, you can kind of think of being taken seriously as being part of this idea of epistemic justice, you know, like, giving someone the same like epistemic status as someone else if you're treating them seriously. Whereas, for example, if you're biased against women, you wouldn't give a woman the same epistemic status as a man, all else remaining equal, in say a business context. And so, you know, we're now becoming much more aware of all the different ways and different groups that are sort of targeted by epistemic injustice. And the paper basically argues that children are a severe target group of epistemic injustice, and that they're really not taken seriously. And so probably, yeah, probably, like, the main point of the paper is to try and say that children receive less epistemic credibility than they deserve. And, you know, we have these stereotypes about kids as being like irrational and suggestible and unreliable and stuff like that, right?
Shaaz
But when you say that they're not given as much epistemic credibility, does that mean that they're not taken seriously in terms of how much knowledge they have about a particular subject? Or is it more general than that?
Taimur
So I think like the credibility you give someone is very context dependent, for example, you should give me no credibility when it comes to..
Ali
Talking about parenting, for example.
Taimur
Yeah, you should give me very little credibility when it comes to parenting. So it is all very like context dependent. But the point that the authors are trying to make is that we consistently give children less credibility than those of within specific contexts. And..
Ali
For example?
Taimur
So like the most, the most like concrete example that this paper sort of often talks about is the legal context, partly because I think basically because, it's one of the few areas in which there's like actual data and records of things related to children. So a legal context would be, you know, some kind of court case where a child is testifying against someone. And then, you know, lots of people have looked at, you know, a bunch of court cases involving children and looked at how the children have given testimony and stuff like that. And so the paper talks a lot about this idea of testimony, which is kind of like a technical term in philosophy or wherever. But you can really think of testimony as just like, you know, someone is making a claim this child is saying something, and like, "Do I believe them? Do I think I should take that seriously?" And I think one of one of the sort of, I think one of the main points of the article, actually, before I get into that stuff, I think the article has a really good story, which I think will resonate, it certainly resonates with me a bit. Alright, so this is a little passage from a book called "A Circle of Quiet" that is the autobiography of someone called Madeleine L'Engle, and.. How do you spell that? L apostrophe Engle .
Ali
Okay. Okay, that's fine.
Taimur
Thank you. All right. I'll read out the passage.
Ali
Sorry, I was giving you very little epistemic credibility when it came to pronunciation of names.
Taimur
You were.
Ali
I do apologize.
Taimur
(..) All right. All right. So this is the autobiography of this, of this woman. She says "I was about eight certainly old enough to forgotten what it was like to wet one's pants. One day in French class, I asked to be excused. The French teacher must have been having problems with children wanting to leave the room for other reasons, and using the bathroom as an excuse, because she forbade me to go. I asked her three times and three times I was told No. When the bell for the end of the class rang. I bolted from my desk and ran, but I couldn't quite make it, and spend the rest of the afternoon sodden and ashamed. When my mother heard what happened, she demanded to see the principal. I remember with awful clarity the scene in the principal's office, after the French teacher had been summoned. She said, the French teacher said, but Madeline never asked to go to the bathroom. If she'd only raised her hand, of course, I would have excused her. And the French teacher was believed. I was reprimanded gently, told to ask next time and not to lie about it afterwards. To have an adult lie and to have another adult not know that it was a lie, to tell the truth myself and not be believed.. The earth shook on its foundations." So this is a story about how this kid, she was eight. The teacher basically lied and said, no kid didn't do that. And all the other adults basically believe the teacher because she was an adult and the kid was a kid. And so I think like, this is obviously like an extreme account where something very clear cut has happened. But I think it's the sort of sentiment is representative of like, the widespread experience of, I think children in relation to adults, and certainly it feels like, that would be the general attitude that I would have sort of faced as a kid kind of thing.
Shaaz
I think what particularly strikes me from that story is something more basic, which is, if you're in school, why is having to ask permission to go to the toilet even a thing? And the possibility of being denied that? I mean, if I'm going to work now, I never have to feel like I have to ask anybody, or, you know, it would be absurd. But I don't really understand why that should ever be considered okay for a child for them to have to ask permission, to have the possibility of them being refused, especially given the fact that it's something they have less control over than an adult.
Taimur
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's bizarre. I think it's like, yeah, symptomatic of the general, like, children are sort of objects to be controlled by adults kind of vibe. But yeah, I think that's a pretty harrowing, harrowing tale. So I think that's a good anecdote story, just to put the rest of this stuff into, into context. Now, alright look, let me try and make sure I make these points in a structured way.
Ali
Oh, I remember I had a situation similar to this. It wasn't quite, it wasn't quite identical.I was a lot older. I think I was 17. (laughter) This was in math class with Ms. Marsh.
Taimur
Oh, I remember Ms. Marsh.
Ali
And I was absolutely desperate for poo. And who was it, I think, I think I put my hand up. And I was like, I was being systematically ignored because I feel like I put my hand up for a few other things that lesson. And Ms. Marsh felt that I was taking a piss (laughter) Really, I needed to take a.. And so at one point, it got unbearable. And so I was like, "I'm so sorry, I have to go to the toilet", and I bolted, and I tried to do a speed poop, and I came back to the classroom as the bell was going. And Ms. Marsh said that I was going to come back at break time for like 10 minutes or something to make up for lost time. I was like, "Cool, that's fine." Then Ms. Marsh phoned Mimi at work being like, "I'm really concerned about Ali. He did run away from the classroom. And also his general attitude has been a bit problematic." And I think mainly this was because, this was, oh, and I think was the upper sixth, where C-3 was like surprisingly hard. Like I kind of breezed through C-1 and C-2 without doing any work. And like actively taking the piss in class and just hanging out the boys.
Taimur
Legend.
Ali
Exactly. And then in C-3 I got like, I don't know 63 out of 75, in like the end of year test. And apparently this was a big deal for Ms. Marsh. So she rang Mimi at work, but I felt like this was a real injustice because I couldn't control my bowels. And I felt like I hadn't been taken seriously. It's probably not quite as harrowing story as Ms. L'Engle, but I just thought I'd share that.
Taimur
This doesn't seem, I mean it seems like you are taking the piss, generally. And being sort of a disrespectful twat at class. And yeah, we I don't think she was complaining that Ali went to the toilet. And that was, it wasn't the complaint.
Ali
Yeah, fine. I just wanted to share that.
Taimur
Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing in the circle of trust. All right, on the topic, I actually wet myself but I was like, this was a year 9, I was like 14. We were on school trip. We were on a school trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare, if he existed, am I right?
Ali
Very good. (laughter)
Taimur
And I think basically, I think that the teachers are, like we stopped off at a service station or something. And the teachers had fairly recently said, like, "Alright, if anyone needs to go to the bathroom, do it now." And I didn't go at that point. But then after that point, I needed to go to the bathroom. And we were like queuing up outside the, I don't know, hostel or wherever we were staying. And I was really desperate. And I didn't want to like be a pain and like say, "Oh, can I go to the bathroom now even though you just like asked everyone to go to the bathroom 15 minutes ago, and I didn't go." So I tried to hold it in. And then I couldn't do that. I wet my pants.
Ali
Yep. And do you feel like this was symptomatic of you not being taken seriously, or were you just sharing a pant wetting story?
Taimur
I was just sharing a pant wetting story while we're all doing that.
Ali
Fair enough. Shaaz and Zara? (laughter)
Shaaz
I don't know, I can't think of any particular occasion. I'm glad that probably happened earlier than I can. Oh, no, actually, this is not something I remember. But it's something that my mom tells me is that I as a child, I learned to talk very early.
Taimur
Okay.
Shaaz
So, I used to be able to speak and that was assumed to be a sign of intelligence. So, and I'd still be completely, you know, wetting myself like a normal child does (laughter). And what my mom tells me is that, you know, I'd be having full on conversations with people saying, "Yes, I did this today and I want to have that for for dinner, and by the way, I just went to the toilet while we were speaking (laughter)." And, then I get pulled off like, "Why didn't you say so from beforehand?" And looking back on it, I think, you know, maybe the ability to speak does not represent intelligence as you might want to think.
Taimur
That's such a power move.(laughter). "While we were talking, I just wet myself." (laughter). Right, Zara?
Zara
I dont think I have any pant wetting story.
Taimur
Shaaz, is she telling the truth?
Shaaz
I don't know, I honestly don't know the answer to that one.
Zara
I think I have a really good bladder control. I'm very proud of that.
Ali
I was getting excited for a moment, because I thought you were gonna say I've got a really good bladder control story. (laughter) Genuinely, strong pelvic floor.
Zara
Very. (laughter)
Taimur
All right, good stuff, I'm glad we went on that tangent about wetting one's pants.
Ali
Have I told you about the time I pooed my pants at age 17. (laughter) We'll save that for another episode. (laughter)
Taimur
Okay, all right.
Shaaz
I guess the listeners don't know this. But like Taim just had to go to the bathroom before starting on this podcast, and I think Zara asked something like, "Are we not allowed to go in the middle" or something like that? Thankfully, we are allowed to.
Taimur
All right, let's get back.
Ali
Moving swiftly on.
Taimur
Moving swiftly on. Let's get back on track, okay.
Ali
That was a harrowing experience, though, when I was 17.
Taimur
Alright, just tell the story.
Ali
Nah, nah, I can't, I can't do it. It's too much. I'll do it when we're off the record.
Taimur
All right. Well, if you're listening, and you have any stories about yourself, wetting your pants, just do send them in.
Ali
Yeah, please send us a voice note. And then we can potentially have a bonus episode that we compile all of the pant and boxer wetting stories.
Taimur
To be honest, I don't think it's actually like, a trivial thing. I think like, it takes real vulnerability and like authenticity, to share that kind of thing with other people. And I think hearing people tell these stories that have like emotional significance to them, it's actually quite like an interesting thing.
Ali
I agree. So if you'd like to be more courageous, and leave your name, and you know where you're from and all that stuff, so we can identify you when you're telling the story, that would be even better.
Taimur
All right, good stuff. Right. Okay. So just give me a moment here.
Ali
skillshare.com/notoverthinking. Just as a quick reminder.
Taimur
All right, right, okay. I think there's a, right, so I basically said, like, the point of this paper is to try and suggest that we have prejudices against children as being irrational and suggestible and unreliable. And as a result, children as a class are subject to a lot of epistemic injustice where they're not taken seriously enough. And they're not taking it as seriously as it should be, within given context.
Ali
I had a very specific example of this very thing.
Taimur
Oh, yeah?
Ali
This was in a year two, when we were going at a school in Lesotho, a country in southern Africa. And I remember me and some of the boys, or rather, I was hanging out with some of the boys. And they discovered, you know, there was a tree growing in the school yard, and they picked some fruit of that tree and ate and ate of the fruit. And I was about like, "It's disgusting, 'cause you haven't washed it, mate" because I was that kind of guy. And then we all got hauled up to the principal's office. And the principal accused all of us of eating the fruit from the tree. Apparently, this was forbidden fruit, and we were not allowed to eat the fruit. And I maintained that I didn't eat the fruit. And the principal said, "No, I saw you, I saw you definitely ate the fruit. And I remember thinking, "Why the hell would I eat the fruit? It's like, clearly disgusting and not washed. And why on earth would I eat fruit from the thing, like it just isn't feasible for me to eat that fruit and yet you're saying I ate it." And I remember just kind of getting a bit kind of stuck because I didn't quite have the language capabilities to argue my case. So this was also the principal and Nani, our grandmother, also worked at that school. So now the principal was telling Nani that Ali ate this fruit from the tree and then he was lying about it. And I was like, "No, like, there was no world in which I would eat the fruit from the bloody tree." I couldn't say it, so that I feel this was an example of epistemic injustice.
Taimur
Yeah, for sure man, for sure. Classic tale of adult versus child. And yeah, look, the reason this is so bad is that I mean, there's a practical thing of like, it's bad if in society, like people have useful information that isn't like being made use of, you know, if a child has some useful information that's not sort of taken seriously. It's bad, you know, useful stuff might come out of that. But probably more than that, I think there's a real like, cost to this, you know, you're sort of treating someone as subhuman, sort of that have made you feel less human. The paper quotes another paper saying "the capacity to give knowledge to others, is one side of the many sided capacity so significant in human beings, namely, the capacity for reason, when someone suffers a testimonial injustice" they're calling in this other paper, "they are degraded, they're degraded qua knower" I think qua means like as a knower, you know, they're degraded as a knower, someone who knows things.
Shaaz
Oh ok, I thought you were talking about the guy with.
Taimur
Oh no (laughter). I'm sure he had his own set of problems. And they're symbolically degraded as humans. So this is like a really, this is a really bad thing we should, we should be worried about this basically.
Ali
This reminds me, there is a game called "Avalon", which is a board game that is very similar to "Mafia" or "Werewolf", if you're familiar with that. The main premise of this is that there are some people in the group who are bad guys who know who each other are, so they have knowledge of who the bad guys are. And everyone else is a good guy and doesn't know the identity of other people. And so as a bad guy, you have to kind of make your case that you are in fact a good guy and to try and kind of hoodwink the rest of the group. And there is a very clear example of injustice that happens. In order for the bad guys to win, they often have to point to one of the good guys who's actually good in the group and knows they're good as being bad, and they have to sell to the rest of the group that that person is in fact a bad guy. This is an extremely harrowing experience for the person in that position. And I remember the first time we played this game, we had some new comers, this was in Bali after like a medical conference in Singapore, that me and some friends went to. And the two bad guys were me and my friend Paul, who was also very experienced at playing the game. And the mark, you know, the target of our con..
Taimur
The patsy.
Yeah.
Ali
The patsy, was one of the people in the group, who was a first timer
She knew she was a good guy. And by the end of it, you know, in playing the game. And we really, you know, in order to win the game, we really had to kind of degrade her qua knower everyone was convinced that she was bad. And she just had no idea how to deal with that, just fully, completely, yeah, completely wrecked. And she was like, really, really shaken up afterwards, like, visibly so and didn't wanna play the game. And then 20 minutes later, she came back from bed, which was like, "All right, guys, round 2."
Taimur
Yeah, it's incredibly frustrating, there's really nothing, you know, a few things as frustrating as yet not being taken seriously, as someone who knows things.
Shaaz
I think with children as well. A big problem that a child has is the lack of capacity to communicate what they're thinking as well as an adult can. So just based on that, because they can't get their message across. But it's still all there in their mind. That's, that can be a really frustrating experience. And I think I used to find this, sometimes when I was a child as well, when I'd be annoyed about something I don't know, anything stupid, like my toy broke, or I don't know, I wasn't allowed to watch TV or something. But the fact that I was in a bad mood would often be put down to the fact that he hasn't slept yet, or he hasn't eaten yet, or he's just feeling too hot or cold, or it would be completely put down to something unrelated. And in my mind, I would have an actual thing that no, this is the specific thing I'm annoyed about. I want something to be done about this. Whether something is done about it or not, the fact that you can't communicate it, is a particularly frustrating experience. Now, obviously, there could be a possibility that children misattribute their mood to something other than what it really is, you know? There is every possibility that I really was sleepy and that's why I was more upset about something than I would have otherwise been, but the fact remained that I still had a thing on my mind, that I'm upset about this particular thing. And either I'm lacking in the ability to communicate it, or just lacking in the ability to get people to focus on that, as opposed to side issues, like how much I ate or how much slept or something like that. So and I think there's not really that much that can be done about it, because children, it's a matter of fact, they lack that capacity for communication. So, there's not really much you can do I think, parents and guardians and caregivers are in the sort of unenviable position of having to try and guess what their child is trying to say. And, you know, obviously, it's not an easy thing to do.
Taimur
So I'd like to push push back against that a little bit. Specifically, the thing you said about like, it's just a fact that children are like bad at communicating. I think children are definitely not as good as when you're very young, you're not as good as someone who's older, and specifically stringing together words to describe how you're feeling. But one of the big things that this paper argues is that it is on the adults in all these situations to be active listeners and responsible heroes. And to sort of, you know, there are good and bad ways to try and communicate with a child. And oftentimes, I mean, once again, the only context in which there's specific data and actual records for things is court cases. And I think a bunch of people looked at a bunch of high profile court cases. I think there was like, a bunch of like child abuse cases, in like the 70s, or something, until there were a bunch of kids who had to give testimony as part of this. And I think someone, a bunch people looked into, you know, all of these cases and how the testimony went and stuff like that. And it was kind of found that, you know, you might, for example, you might say, "No, kids are just, like, inaccurate when they recall things. They can't recall things accurately, like adults, you know, they're really.." you might say stuff like that. But the people who looked into this stuff found that the inaccuracies in the kids testimonies mostly arose, because of sort of the wrong techniques being used by the adults who were sort of asking them questions. And so, there's like a general assumption in the legal literature, that basically kids are stupid. There's like this general assumption. And so when when kids were being asked questions, the questions would often be like leading they'd often, sort of use incriminating language to try and incriminate the per on who's being accused of child abuse or whatever. And that would be the thing t at would lead to inaccuracies, whereas if you sort of use the right, sort f communication style when talking to kids, they are, you know, look, I don t really care for studies in general, I buy most of what this paper is sayin , based on my own sort of, like experience, and sort of, yeah, basically, based n my own experienc I see the studies is like, okay, yeah, you know, some supporting evidence for that. But there are studies that strongly suggest that, from like the age of two, kids can actually recall stuff as accurately as adults. And certainly by the age of six kids are like hands down, as accurate as adults, when recording things. And when you ask them questions in an appropriate way, that are not necessarily more suggestible than adults, the thing that gives people the perception that you can't trust the kid giving testimony in a court is that the courtroom environment is just a really stressful place for anyone, but especially kids. And so the kids might be like fidgeting, they might be like looking around, their posture might be weird. And this is all like body language that we generally take to mean that someone is lying about something. But like, if you put a kid on the stand, and you're like grilling them in a courtroom, they're gonna be nervous and uncomfortable. And just because they look nervous and uncomfortable, doesn't mean they're actually sort of lying to you. And so, Ali, do you want to say something?
Ali
Oh, yeah, a couple of points on this. So, Shaaz, when you were describing this feeling of being frustrated that your testimony was not being given the appropriate seriousness that it deserved, based on other mitigating factors, like the fact you might be tired, or hungry, or sleepy, or whatever. That reminds me a lot of what a lot of my female friends have said about how they get annoyed that they're not taken seriously, based on external factors. And I'm curious, Zara, if you've had an experience of this, because stuff that I've heard is, for example, like a female friend would be saying that it's really frustrating arguing with men about topics like sexism or like racism. Because, you know, essentially, I can't help that it makes me feel angry and frustrated, because I've had these experiences happen to me. And then, and I can't really help the fact that I kind of tear up a bit when this happens. And as soon as that happens, my point is completely discounted. And it's the fact that I've teared up where I'm getting angry: that is the sort of sole focus sort of thing as, you know, here she goes again, and she's crying now, we can no longer take her seriously. And I imagine there must be incredibly frustrating as a woman in that position. Zara, have you got any experience with this?
Zara
I think I have.
Ali
Would you like to elaborate, or I'm happy to just rest the case there.
Zara
I don't remember. But it often happens that if you're trying to talk if you're trying to say something, and then after a very long conversation, if somebody is not listening, I just start crying because you know, "Oh my God, please listen, please listen to what I'm saying." But they think, oh, are you angry because of something else, Is it because of this reason? But it's not, it's just because you're not listening.
Ali
That must be pretty harrowing for you in that position.
Zara
I suppose.
Ali
So that's point number one. Point number two is, this is a book, a book that I listened to recently called "Talking to Strangers" by Malcolm Gladwell. And he makes this exact point about in a related case, he tells the story of a court case where a some college girl got murdered, and the roommate was falsely accused and convicted of committing this murder. And the thing that made everyone believed that she was actually was the murderer is the fact that she behaved in a sort of shifty fashion based on body language and all that kind of stuff. And for example, she did not seem to be showing the appropriate levels of grief as one would, when you know, a close friend has died. And for example, she would like nervously laugh or kind of would fidget and things like that. And the point that Gladwell makes throughout throughout the whole book really is that we are absolutely terrible at reading the body language of others, even though for some reason we have this view that "Oh, yeah, obviously, you know, if someone's fidgeting, it means that they're lying. This is something that Mimi does a lot as well, she says that, you know, why are you looking so down? Or you know what, you know, you're moving your hands right now, you must be anxious, and then..
Taimur
My leg is shaking right now. It's been shaking for the whole thing.
Ali
Yeah. I mean, it's probably not the case that you're anxious talking about the kids. It's just kind of the way that you behave, exactly. And he argues that in about 50% of cases, again looking at the studies, which you have said that you don't really care for. But in about 50% of the cases, people's body language is kind of unmatched to what they're actually feeling internally. And yet, we systematically think we can actually read more into their body language. And so that's a side point about the thing about kids, the kind of this happening also to non kids, but I can see how in a court in a court situation, kids would very much fall under this bracket of everyone thinks they can actually tell a lot more about the kid purely by the fact that the kid is fidgeting and looking around.
Taimur
Yeah, exactly. And so just to round off this point about, like, the courtroom context, which I think extends outside the courtroom as well. The paper says that, you know, if you're thinking about like, are we get, you know, are we in danger of giving children too much credits, or like, take them too seriously? Right? There's like two components of this says, like, competence of like, can this person actually give testimony? And then there's like sincerity of like, you know, is this person sort of trying to lie to me basically. And the paper basically says that the sincerity thing is, you know, it's a complicated thing. It's not very well defined. Are adults sincere? Almost certainly not like, don't worry about that. If you look at the competence thing. Look, it's very, like domain specific, I think one mistake that people make is like, basically that, you know, I wouldn't trust a kid to like, give me financial advice, therefore kids are stupid, overall. Whereas it's really like a context specific, and yes, kids might be worse at giving financial advice. But there are plenty of domains in which they can very reliably tell you things that are useful and meaningful, particularly when it comes to their own experiences about things.
Ali
This is something the psychiatrist that I used to work for, this time last year, used to say a lot. We were in an old age psychiatry placement where a lot of the patients had dementia, Alzheimer's, you know, stuff like that. So a lot of the patients that didn't have capacity to make certain decisions. And this consultant was always annoyed by how people wouldn't take them seriously enough by saying, "Oh, you know, this patient doesn't have capacity." And he will always be like, "No, capacity is decision specific. She might not have capacity to decide on you know, to manage her finances, but she certainly does have capacity to accept or reject a cup of tea." And that was his like, point and basically every single day, someone with a badge would say "you know, that patient doesn't have capacity". It's like, and I think this definitely applies to the kids as well.
Taimur
Yeah. 100%. Mate, once I'm done with the kids, old people are next, old people are not taken seriously systematically. We'll get to that in a few episodes time. Anyway, basically, whether you should take the kids seriously about what they're saying, I mean, you should was taken seriously, but like, whether you should give credence to whatever the kid is saying depends on the context, there are plenty of contexts in which kids are very well qualified to talk about something. And, you know, if you look at studies and things, basically, you need the right communication style in order to successfully communicate with a young kid. And there's actually a really great anecdote, which was really eye opening for me. This is from like another book or study or somebody it's quoted in the pape . The quote is, "Young children are often uninterested in conversation. They wan to be on the move, and they are often bored at the prospect of hearing words an being expected to use them. It is not that they don't have ideas and feelings o need to express them to others, indeed, their games and play drawings and finge paintings are full of energetic symbolization and communication. It's simpl that as one eight year old once told me, talking is okay, but I don't like to o it all the time the way grownups do So like, kids basically need a different approach and communication style, it requires active listening and responsible hearing from the adults involved. But, you know, kids are very competent at giving testimony, i.e. at saying things that you might want to believe. So that's point number one, right? So that's one thing, now I think the thing that makes this so tricky, how are we doing for time?
Ali
58 minutes.
Taimur
Damn, okay. Look, the thing that makes all this so tricky is that I think this is really like a self fulfilling prophecy. Like, if a kid grows up in an environment in which every message they get from an adult is, "you're a kid, you're deficient and stupid, and you're not worthy to be taken seriously." It's going to affect like, how the kid performs, for example, you know, when giving testimony and things like that?
Zara
The kid doesn't take themselves seriously.
Taimur
Yeah, I don't have the mic pick that up, Zara just said that the kid doesn't take themselves seriously. And yeah, that's exactly it. I think like, when we think about childhood, the literature seems to call this the deficits model of childhood where like, the primary characteristic of being a child, or of childhood, is that you are a deficient human being compared to an adult. If you think about childhood, most of our ideas around what it means is that, like, ah, it's the period in which you are a deficient human being until you become an adult, and then you are not deficient anymore. And all the narratives and all the messages that we give kids are that you are deficient, basically. And yeah, it's like a very self fulfilling thing, you know, once again, if you care about studies, you know, they show that children, children's views of their own competence are highly dependent on the appraisals that the other people give them. Like, if you tell a child that they're stupid, they will think they're stupid, if you tell them that they're not trustworthy, they will think that not trustworthy, all of this kind of stuff. And so it's like, really cyclical, whenever you have. I feel like a lot of the issues around taking kids seriously are very cyclical. When we were talking about some friends, I think, a week ago, I visited Cambridge with with some friends. And we were talking about this topic. And one of them was saying something like, "Man, have you spoken to a four year old?" You know, they're so stupid, why should I take a four year old seriously, I wasn't taken seriously as a four year old." And it was the right thing to do, this kind of stuff. And again, it's like cyclical if you're, and actually anecdotally, the people I know, like, through like family and friends and stuff, the situations in which the kids have obviously been like a babied for far too long, it really seems like the kids development is hindered, you know? Yeah, I've definitely known like eight year olds, who have kind of been excessively babied by their parents, and they behave in a way that many other eight year olds wouldn't. So I think like, whatever messages you're giving the kid, the kid is gonna kind of internalize that. And if you take them seriously, from a young age, you know, they're gonna take themselves seriously, rather than kind of seeing themselves as an incompetent baby kind of thing.
Ali
Yeah, just a side point, was somewhat related, this also applies a lot to adults. The context in which I've seen it most often is in the study is around intelligence, and kind of comparing the intelligence different groups like, for example, women, and for example, black people. And a lot of the studies showed this idea of stereotype threat, that if you give men and women like a math test, for example, and you split the groups up into two, and you prime one group to think that women are bad at maths, and you don't do that thing to the other group, the primed group will perform worse. Equally, if you be for example, if you have a group of students of different races. And you say that, you know, this test will tell us something about, you know, how your type of people perform, you know, that sort of stuff. The ethnic minorities in that group will perform systematically worse than the white people in the group. The theory being this is down to stereotype threat, like, you know, the fact that they are concerned about the stereotype makes them in a way play into the stereotype and perform worse.
Shaaz
I would have guessed it's also to do with perhaps in a way you're being given permission to perform badly on the test as well, if you're told that people of your type generally don't perform well on this test, then you might feel as though, well, I don't really need to try so hard then because, you know, maybe it's an unconscious thought, but you might think that if it's not expected of me to perform very well, then I don't particularly need to.
Taimur
Yeah, I hate to be a party pooper, but I think the stereotype threat study was actually recently debunked, I don't think it's legit anymore. We can look into that if you're interested, but I don't think it's legit. Yeah, whatever we can look into it, I do seem to remember, seeing a sort of debunking of this actually doesn't really replicate and the study was kind of dodgy or whatever.
Ali
Which is true of most of the studies in psychology.
Taimur
Yeah, exactly. Once again, I didn't really care for the study in this case, I just, you know, I think it's true, I think it's convincing. So yeah, I think that this deficit model of childhood, where we see childhood is like primarily a thing of time during which you're deficient, I think this is really bad. And kids internalize this, and it has an effect on how they perform, you know, when it comes to giving testimony, when it comes to saying things and thinking about things and stuff like that. And now, like, I think the other thing about this testimony stuff is that we often you know, when you think about it, you almost see it as like, a sort of isolated property of the child like, can this child, you know, can this child give testimony about this thing, it sounds like, it's a property of the child. Whereas it's really a property of the child and their environment, and specifically, is a property of the child and the adult who's trying to take testimony from them. You can, you know, if the child and the adult, you know, have, you know, a sort of good relationship where they can communicate well, in the right style, that appeals to the child, the child can probably give very good testimony, if like, you know, if the child has been raised in an environment where they develop an identity as being a reliable testifier, environment where they're heard and listened to, and taken seriously, by sort of responsible and actively listening adults, the child will be better at giving testimony. Whereas if they're being grilled in a courtroom by someone asking leading questions, that probably not as good. And so we shouldn't really think of sort of, you know, can we take kids seriously, should we take this kid seriously? We should think of like, you know, what is our role in this two way interaction? And how can we foster an environment in which we can actually take this child seriously. So I think it's very much like a two way street, and I think, yeah, it's, it's just so tricky, because, by default, I think we just like hammer this idea into kids, like, you're stupid, basically. And, you know, you're sort of starting from a very weak position at that point. And there's a lot for the kid to sort of overcome. There's another couple of good stories around not taking kids seriously that basically suggests that kids are a lot more receptive and a lot smarter than we give them credit for. So in the context of, n the context of sort of dying children in sort of hospices or hospitals, apparently, I don't know if this is still true in the majority of these hospitals today. There's a book from 1978, called "The Private Worlds of Dying Children" where the author tries to like, yeah, I think they visit like a leukemia children's hospital, just to kind of see what's up, basically. And the author notes that I quote, "she was repeatedly struck by the failure of adults to recognize children as knowers, knowers as in, not like Noah's Ark but knowers, people who know things. And to recognize children as people who already know a great deal about their condition. And the author says, "I was struck by how totally unaware or what a state of denial, the staff was about the extent of the children's knowledge. The most striking example was in the oncology clinic. There in front of the children, some doctors and parents would exchange information about cancer cures, blood tests, deaths of other children, then they would deny that the children knew anything about what was happening. Many adults stated that there was no way for the children to know anything about their diagnosis, because they had not been told anything explicitly." But yeah, basically, the adults were sort of assuming that because we didn't explicitly say to the kid, "Hey, man, you've got a week left to live," the kid is like completely oblivious, they think they're chilling in a bed, you know, watching TV, there's a few other kids floating around. And it sort of supports the conception of children as like passive and unknowing and lacking the capacity for understanding themselves. And the author says, since the children did not ask the adults about their conditions, researchers assumed that the children either did not know or were not interested in finding out about their condition. Children would indicate their awareness, felt by the researchers by discussing it with adults, as many older children did. But the investigators didn't entertain the possibility that perhaps the children obtained information from other sources, or that they were in fact expressing awareness but in a symbolic way that the adults not understand or that by not talking about their condition. The kids were observing social taboos and attempting to save others face, i.e. like the kids are picking up on the fact that like, "oh adult is not telling me about this thing, and not explicitly talking to me about this, this is something we shouldn't talk about." And the author says, "these alternatives do not occur to one who fails to see children as willful, purposeful individuals capable of creating their own world, as well as acting in the world others create for them". So basically, like, I don't know how much this still happens, like, do you, Ali, in medicine have much experience of how people behave around kids?
Ali
No.
Taimur
Okay. Yeah, but I mean, certainly in this one hospital in which this this author visited in the 70s, or whatever. Like people were treating kids as complete idiots, basically, even though the kids were well aware of what was going on.
Shaaz
I think that sort of reminds me of something that happens a lot with. So the fact that in society, we often try to hide from kids the fact that, well we try not to tell them where kids come from, and it's a question they often ask a lot about. How our babies made, where do they come from? And I feel like a lot of people give them an answer, which is either a blatant lie, or a sort of glossing over the facts, which may be a reasonable thing to do. But I think kids often don't get enough credit for the fact that they probably realize exactly what's going on that, you know, something is being kept from something. And something is supposed to not be spoken about so they actively make that choice, that I'm not going to speak about this thing because clearly nobody wants to. Whereas I think a lot of people just assume that this kid is stupid, I've completely got away with it. Which is not always the case.
Taimur
Yeah, for sure. I remember in like, year three, my friends and I were like, you know, I don't know, reading about like, sex. I don't know how this came up. But I think we were curious about like sex and stuff, were must have been like seven years old at this point. You know, we just kind of did our own research on the topic that, you know, wasn't told to us by a responsible adult.
Shaaz
I think one thing we haven't talked a lot about, though, is perhaps the other side of the coin, in which you spoke about the fact that we consider kids to be deficient in some way. And there are many ways in which that's probably a false stereotype and in which they aren't. But there is also the fact of the matter that all kids are lacking in experience of the world, compared to an adult. And I think one thing that I didn't realize as a kid was how much experience of the world matters to when you make decisions later on. And I think we've all had this experience, where we think back to something that we did a long time ago, maybe in our teenage years, or maybe before that. And we think, "Oh, my God, I was so stupid back then, if I had known this, that, or the other, I would never have behaved in that way, or I would have never made such a big deal out of this thing." You know, maybe this five year old boy didn't invite me to his birthday party, and I got really upset by that, and to just look back on it with a lens of experience and think that if I knew what I know now, my response to that would be completely different. And I had this conversation with my mom, when I was really young. I said, I actually asked her that, why are kids not taken seriously, in so many respects? The context was, I'd seen, I'd seen Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on TV, and I saw that you have to be a minimum age of 18 to apply to be on it. And I asked her why is that the case? Why can I not apply to this before I'm age 18? And more generally, why are people not treated as legitimate people as adults are? And she said, it's because kids are really lacking in experience, and don't necessarily make good decisions, you know, if if I give a million pounds to a kid who knows what he's gonna do with it, he might do something good with it, might do something bad with it, might might waste it, might throw away. Children don't --
Zara
What if a parent thinks that my child is really intelligent and could go on you know, "how to be a millionaire", win money and then I can use it. So kids don't know, kids would trust you with anything.
Shaaz
Yeah. So that the conversation that we had was, you know, I was told about how kids lack experience. And then I said, "Yes, but kids don't necessarily lack intelligence. They might be the smartest kid in the world. Why would you not trust that kid to be able to make a good decision?" And then I was told experience is more important than intelligence. And obviously, as someone very inexperienced, I didn't understand why that was the case. I don't remember getting an answer that was satisfactory to me at the time. But I think now if a kid asked me that, I'd try and come up with a concrete example, to demonstrate that that's the case. You know, I'd say something like, okay, maybe you're really intelligent, do this hard math problem for me. I know, 26 times 58, what's that? And it'll take them like, five minutes to work it out, and they'll tell me the answer. But then I'll say, okay, but this whole time, you've been speaking English to me, you've been doing a much more difficult task of recalling 1000s of words, what they all mean, how they fit together grammatical rules, you've been doing this much more complicated thing than a simple math question. But you find this so much easier than that. Why is that the case? And it's purely because of experience, because you've done this so much more? That it, you don't even need to think about it, it comes naturally. And I think that applies in real life as well, that a lot of the time, a kid does not have the experience to make a decision, but doesn't know that they're lacking in experience, because of their lacking of experience of having experience. Which I think was, yeah, I think it's interesting to think about it that way many years on from that conversation I had.
Taimur
Yeah, yeah, I think the experience thing is a tough problem to solve. I think the problem being like, how do you convince someone that they're inexperienced, that they should sort of listen to your experience, whatever. I think like, I think this is like a perennial problem, like every kid disobeys their parents until they like learn the lesson themselves kind of thing. So you're not just going to trust when someone says that. In my experience, I think the whole experience thing, certainly with the adults around me has kind of been weaponized, to be more far reaching than it should be, for example, I've had various adults claiming that I think, particularly in a lot of like, a lot of fields are very, like domain specific, they're very, you know, they change quite a lot. I think careers is one of them, and I think in previous episodes, I've advocated for not taking old people's advice on careers very seriously. Unless they have like, very specific domain knowledge that you're trying to get. And I've certainly, you know, seen it many times where an adult would claim like, "Oh, you know, you haven't seen the world and I'm, like, 50 years old, I have seen the world, I have experience. And that's why I know that this this thing is like good or bad or whatever." I've seen that kind of weaponized in contexts where it's actually not relevant. For example, like career advice, the older you are probably the worse your career advice is, because you don't really know how the world operates today, stuff like that. And so I'm generally skeptical of that. But yeah, I don't feel like I've ever had that communicated when I was younger, I don't feel like I ever had the whole look, trust me, because of my experience thing, communicated in a way that actually like appealed and resonated with me that I'd actually listened to it. I think it's tricky.
Shaaz
Yeah, I think with the experience thing, from a point, from the point of view of the, quote, less experienced person who's being told, I have so much experience, listen to me. I think we should be able to develop a filter for that, to be able to see what exactly is it that the person has experience of, because there are certain things that change and certain things that don't. So the way the economy works, or the way the careers market works, has changed quite a lot over the past few decades. So maybe an older person's experience might not be as relevant. But certain things have not changed that much, probably human nature hasn't changed that much. So if you're kind of, if you're kind of teaching your, I don't know, 12 year old child, you know, don't get distracted at work, don't get distracted at school by, you know, people of the opposite sex, you're gonna have all these thoughts about them. But actually, they're not that important yet, because you've got more important things to focus on. That has probably not changed for 1000s of years, and it's probably not going to anytime soon so maybe that's a point where experience is more relevant.
Taimur
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think it's all about like, what relevant experience does this person kind of have. On the experience thing, I feel like I just don't think the adults in my life have had enough like, I'm gonna use the word epistemic again, but like epistemic humility, about what they're saying, I think that kids, if you're a kid, I don't know, by default you probably kind of trust the things that someone older than you is telling you. Ali, I remember used to make up all sorts of crap and I just like bought i'd gobble it up, just because like he was my older brother or something. I was like seven, he convinced me that he had a superpower of seeing germs on people's hands or something. And I was like, "Damn, alright, wow, this is so cool man."
Ali
And I convinced you that yours had a superpower.
Taimur
I can't remember what mine was.
Ali
Your power was fighting because you were a violent child, and that fed into your, into the story that you're telling yourself about your, your own skills. And I think that was partly why you bought it. And I convinced you that our cousin Zainab had the special power of being able to write essays very well, because that was what Nani kept telling you and me, she was like "Zainab's really good at essay writing."
Taimur
Oh damn, okay. Yeah, I mean, look, I think I think adults have a real responsibility for, yeah just having some epistemic humility. And I think raising kids in a way to say, look, you know, giving them an idea of like, how confident you are and what you're saying and how much they should probably trust what you're saying.
Ali
On that note, check out Causal.
Taimur
Yeah, but yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think by default when you're young, you'll just believe anything, someone older than you tells you and that can have like, bad consequences, you need to protect against that.
Shaaz
So when it comes to things like the lack of experience, is it you're talking about testimony in court earlier.
Taimur
Yeah.
Shaaz
Is it possible that one of the reasons a child might not be taken so seriously in court is, maybe they don't have the experience to know that here is a situation where it's of paramount importance to tell the truth, compared to another situation where it may not be so important, you know, it may be fine to embellish the truth or use your imagination or make something up in another situation?
Taimur
I don't know. I think this comes back to like the sincerity the you know, so there are like two components to like, should you take this testimony seriously, the first is like, competence, like, can this person actually accurately recall events or whatever? And the second is like sincerity, like, is this person going to be honest with me? You know, in this, in a court cases and stuff, if it, you know, often, these are cases where a child has been abused by someone and the child is the only person who can testify against the adult. It's basically like their word against, the word of person A, against the word a person B, right?
Shaaz
I think also in that sort of situation, there's absolutely no reason why a child would just invent something off the top of that.
Taimur
Yeah, yeah, I like, I'm inclined to think that by default, a kid would not just like lie about something. Especially like, if you ask them sort of in the right way with the right incentives, for example, if a six year old is on the playground, and the kids are having like a bragging contest. Yeah, they might lie about like, I don't know, "oh, my dad did this" or whatever. I don't know, I don't know what kind of stuff a kid might lie about. But yeah, I think like, yeah, in a courtroom context, I find it pretty hard to believe that a kid would randomly decide to lie, butI think they can appreciate what's going on, they can like actually recall things. Anyway, that was sort of some brief summary of "Epistemic Injust and the Child" by Michael D. Burroughs and Deborah Tollefsen .. I'll try and link to a PDF in the show notes. I don't know if that's possible, but I guess we'll see. Yeah, thank you guys for listening to my ranting.
Ali
Thank you for ranting.
Taimur
Alright, I guess we should read out a review, and then call it a night. Let me just get up a review.
Ali
I wonder if we just played this podcast into two halves.
Taimur
Why would we do that?
Ali
Because then we didn't have to do one next week.
Taimur
Come on, mate.
Shaaz
How much time have we spent on it at the moment?
Ali
This is an hour and 22 minutes.
Taimur
All right, this a, actually didn't understand this review. So I'm going to read it and maybe you guys will be able to shed some light. Alright. This review is entitled "Worth a Listen" by someone in Great Britain. They say "new FY1s recently started on my hospital ward. The consultant asked one of them, are you Ali? To which the FY1 replied, No, I'm Taimur. I was expecting Taimur to follow up with this could be problematic. My mind was subtly blown. Keep up the good work, from an EAU nurse." Can you make any sense of this?
Ali
I can tell you what the acronym stands for, but I can't make any sense of what's going on.
Shaaz
It sounds like they probably just coincidentally heard somewhat, someone was named Taimur which doesn't seem to be that common a name I don't think, and yeah, it's a common thing that you say on the podcast like, "Oh, this is deeply problematic."
Taimur
Okay, yeah, maybe that's it.
Ali
I was, wait, so is this, is the person saying that he saw the situation play out? Or is the person saying that he is called Taimur?
Taimur
No, he saw the situation play out.
Ali
Oh, okay. That makes sense. So he's a new doctor working on the ward, the consultant is the..
Taimur
EAU nurse.
Ali
Oh, he's the nurse?
Taimur
He's the nurse.
Ali
Oh, he's the nurse and he saw the new..
Taimur
New FY1.
Ali
The consultant being like, Is your name Ali and the other guy is l ke, no it's actually Taimur, which is .. like a funny coincidence, and then he's pointing out that, or she is pointing out that, you know, he expected someone to follow up with, "but this deeply problematic" because the fact that he th ught it was one name, but it actually wasn't the other. So might have been, oh, eople look the same. There's a lo
Taimur
Oh, okay. Yeah, I think that actually makes sense.
Ali
EAU often stands for Emergency Assessment Unit.
Taimur
Ah, good to know. All right. Well,
Ali
Thank you, EAU nurse for the review.
Taimur
Thank you for the review. That's it for this week. See you next time.
Ali
That's it for this week, thank you for listening.
Taimur
If you liked this episode, please leave us a review on Apple podcasts on the Apple podcast website. If you're not using an iPhone, there's a link in the show notes.
Ali
If you've got any thoughts on this episode, or any ideas for new podcast topics. We'd love to get an audio message from you with your conundrum question or just anything that we could discuss.
Taimur
Yeah, if you're up for having your voice played on the podcast and your question being the springboard for our discussion, email us an audio file mp3 or voice notes to hi@notoverthinking.com.
Ali
If you've got thoughts, but you'd rather not have your voice played publicly, that's fine as well. Tweet or DM us at @noverthinking on Twitter please.
