Noticing the little things

One of the things that I’ve learned from my toddler is just how many little things I’ve stopped noticing. It’s normal, of course, as adult humans, the things that are “usual” and not threats to us become basically invisible. But watching my baby run around and then pause to look at how a wheel turns, or how a closet opens, or how a plant looks, or how a light switch works… it’s magical. It’s all new, and that has made those things “newly new” to me.

Care doesn't scale

To get that individualized care, though, they had four social workers and four children. One-to-one.

Of course, you could probably add a few more children, or subtract a social worker, as a cost-saving measure. It’d be less sustainable, but it wouldn’t significantly change the experience. But you couldn’t stray that far from one-to-one without changing the nature of the experience, without industrializing it to the point that individual care is lost. With four kids, the kids can feel like kids; if there were forty kids, they’d probably feel like they were cattle.

We’re pretty limited when it comes to care. In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person.

How to win an argument with a toddler

I don't want to spoil this short post with a quote — so I won't! Just read it.