JESSICA LOVE holds a doctorate in cognitive psychology and edits Kellogg Insight at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
When children arrive, nothing from our old lives is sacred anymore. Not sleep and not sex, not furniture arrangements or retirement plans or long-settled agreements about who washes dishes and who folds laundry.
And then, as our children grow into themselves, the disruption can feel weirdly personal. Bookworms find themselves raising budding athletes. Sworn night owls have a brood of early risers. Hog farmers land an indignant vegan. In the calm of night, we envision who our children will become and who we will become on their behalf but we plan and God laughs. Sometimes, God has a field day.
Seven years ago, I was an expert. I had a PhD in cognitive psychology, a postdoc in child development, and several scholarly publications under my belt. I studied how people of all ages learn and process information, particularly language. For three years, I wrote about what I studied in a weekly column for this magazine’s website. Eventually, I moved full-time into science communication, taking a job at Northwestern University as editor-in-chief of a magazine that translates academic research into articles for a general audience.
When I became pregnant with my first child, I recognized that I had a lot to learn about being a parent—namely, everything. But what I did know was the science of child development: the big debates among researchers, the hallmark studies and shiny new findings that shaped current thinking. I assumed that when questions of my own cropped up, I’d know where to turn for answers. I even envisioned leaning into my identity as a scientist-turned-writer-turned-new-mom, peppering future work with my daughter’s earliest words and charming misunderstandings as she inevitably and adorably did all the things that babies do, each at the developmentally appropriate time.
The videos had a trippy, surrealist quality. “Happy. Happy. I feel happy. I feel happy. I am happy. Haaaapppppy.” My daughter was intrigued.
Then, at a routine checkup, our pediatrician handed my six-month-old a small block. It slipped through her fingers as if it had no weight at all. As the doctor explained, and as a host of specialists and evaluations would confirm, almost no area of her development was “on track.” She appeared to be nowhere near the track. If every other six-month-old was on a direct train to Topeka, we were driving around the suburbs of Indianapolis, unsure how long we’d be out or whether we’d ever get home again.
I knew, going into that appointment, that my daughter was a late bloomer. A very late bloomer. But I also knew that development is notoriously variable, and that most kids do eventually get to Topeka, on their own route and timetable. Children are astonishingly innovative and resilient learners. The literature is full of studies that demonstrate how well equipped they (six to nine months!), or recognize familiar speech patterns (while still in the womb!). Read enough studies and you’ll get the impression that babies are like tabletop wind-up toys, born ready to unspool into walking, talking, Red Rover-playing kindergartners. To raise them right, all we really have to do is keep them from falling off the table.
