Rest in Peace, Marshmallow Man

Walter Mischel, father of the Marshmallow Test, died this past year. I read about his passing in the New York Times end of year article, The Lives They Lived.

Rest in peace, Marshmallow Man.

The Marshmallow Test, Part II and De Trop

My friend Laura recently shared an article about the famous Stanford Marshmallow Test from The Atlantic. I have a subscription to The Atlantic, but stopped reading it because it has become way too fucking depressing since Trump became President. A recent cover:

A new set of researchers tried to replicate the Stanford Marshmallow Test with a different population. The study found that preschoolers who could delay gratification by not eating the marshmallow and waiting for a second one would become more successful later in life. Instead of only looking at ninety kids who went to pre-school on the Stanford campus as the original study did, this new group looked 900 kids from a variety of backgrounds.

And the results did not hold up to the degree they did in the original study. Could there have been bias in the original study? Yes. Low income children did not want to delay gratification because they might believe the promise of a second marshmallow might be gone in fifteen minutes.

Alack and alas. While the first study wasn't fraudulent, neither was it completely true. Here it was, I was believing a lie. I wrote about the Marshmallow Test a few years ago. When I was a kid--and even and adult--I could have held out for a second marshmallow forever, so much so that it begs the question--not if I should delay gratification--but how long?

Alan Naiman from Seattle was at one end of the spectrum. This guy put me to shame. When he died last year, he left $11 million to local children's charities. No one knew he had that much money. The guy was frugal to an extreme. He would duct tape his falling-apart shoes even though he had millions.

Now that I am approaching the Queen phase of my life (post-princess and mother), I've pretty much stopped delaying gratification and saying "Fuck it" to just about everything. The condo is Exhibit A. I bought myself some bling for Christmas, a ring with three flowers made of sapphires, Exhibit B.  I am sure there are Exhibits C (Prada shoes from last year), D (trip to London with Claire-Adele), E (seeing Hamilton three times) and F around somewhere as well, but I'll stop here.

My drawing. I didn't want a picture of my really cool ring on the internet.

When I asked Jack if I could get it, he said, "If you want to...", showing no preference either way. My marriage has reached the phase of "Whatever." So I got it.

The ring is a little much, but lately I have been a little much, over the top, excessive. Or as the French say, de trop. I was reading an article in yesterday's New York Times about a grandmother feeling lost amid her son's new family. She feels de trop, which can also mean "in the way" or "not wanted."

Oy. How can one phrase mean such different things? I want to be the cool de trop, not the old pain-in-the-butt version.

Why am I letting loose after living such a restrained life? Why now?

Death?

I have two friends (out of hundreds) who are dying of cancer much earlier than they should be. One is my age and the other is sixty-four. I've been saving and delaying gratifcation for such a long time, what if I die in a few years and never lived? A friend was talking about his bucket list and he asked about mine.

"I've seen Hamilton in New York, Washington, D.C. and London," I said. "I have always loved living in walkable places and now I have a condo downtown."

"So you have finished your bucket list?" he said. I never really thought of it that way. I still have more I want to see and do, but I keep moving my bucket list moving along at a rapid pace.

My ninety-eight year old friend Eleanor helps tether me back to reality. "It is nice to be ninety-eight years old and not have to worry about money," she said the other day at lunch. What better time to embark on a money diet than New Years?

Maybe in 2020.

NZ, or Cheaper than Divorce

Joan Didion wrote The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir about the year after her husband and long-time companion died.  In it, she talks about the good times and the rough times she and her husband had.  Once when they were having a difficult time and nearly broke, they went to Hawaii.  Why?

"It was cheaper than a divorce."

Jack and I face a similar situation in our marriage, and are meeting our challenge with similar relish.  This weekend, Jack booked four tickets to New Zealand for our winter vacation.  The Boy wants to go to Peter Jackson's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.  (The Boy is wildly excited that The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies will be released days before our trip.  He plans to see the movie in NZ.  He is dancing/stomping around the house at the thought.)

Jack and I are clipping through books on marriage repair.  One book, His Needs, Her Needs, was recommended by several friends.  The Five Love Languages is another we have read.  Jack, to his credit, is dutifully providing me with "acts of service" to help me feel loved (i.e., making dinner, folding the laundry without being asked, etc.)

In this vein, we went for a bike ride yesterday and contributed to the "Recreational Companionship" bucket from His Needs, Her Needs.  The Big E is in Japan for a week, so Jack, the Boy and I rode from the University District to Woodinville where we had lunch at the Red Hook Brewery.  (Jack worked the past two weekends, and next week The Boy is in a soccer tournament.  In a given month, this was really the only day we could have made the trip.)  Jack and I had lunch there in 1997 when we were in the Pacific Northwest on a bicycle tour vacation.  I had been dreaming about riding there since we moved to Seattle, but there had never been a good time.  That, and The Big E is not an avid cyclist like the other three.  (The Boy is not an avid traveler, so he has times of being the odd man out.)

I didn't realize how far the Red Hook Brewery was -- eighteen miles from our house, or thirty-six miles round trip.  With breaks, it was about a five hour trip.

So, it was good.  We didn't talk much, but that is the nature of cycling, which is fine.  Jack shared a thought with me on the trip.  On many long cycling trips or even skiing, there is a plethora of middle aged men out exercising on their own.  If I am ever divorced, I will spend every winter weekend at Crystal Ski Resort.  The last time I was there, there was an 8:1 ratio of men to women on the mountain.  The Burke-Gilman Trail had a similar ratio.  There was one man maybe ten years older than me at the brewery, taking his new bike off his Audi station wagon.  As Jack was fixing my flat tire, Jack noticed this and shared his thought with me.  If she is going to start over, why not start over with me instead of with one of these other guys?

That is a reasonable question.  Why shouldn't we start over with each other?  I am inclined to say yes, but there will need to be some significant repair in the meantime.  After all, none of those men on the Burke-Gilman had lied to me for about a year on various topics.  By lie, I also mean lack of openness, honesty and transparency.  If I am the person who is supposed to know him best, why did he withhold significant information from me?  The answer to that still remains unclear.

And Jack wrestles with another problem.  Until this year, he has generally able to choose what he works on and when.  His new position has considerably more responsibility.  One thing he has been slow to accept is that in life many of us don't get to choose what we do.  We all don't have the freedom to do as we please.  Therein lies the primary basis for responsibility.  I struggle with whether or not to get a paying day job, but after losing a daughter years ago, I am still conflicted about motherhood and career.  Yes, I would prefer to have a day job, wear a suit and collect a paycheck.  Instead, I am spending the summer with my kids and taking then back and forth to camp.  Even people high in power don't have much choice.  Take Queen Elizabeth I.  As queen, she could do whatever she wanted.  Did she want the Spanish Armada to attack England?  No.  Could she sit back and watch?  Yes, but that would have been disastrous.  Instead, she called upon her navy to defend her country.

Dear Jack,

Sometimes we do things because we are called to do then, even when we'd rather be doing something else.

Lauren

Did Steve Jobs Eat the Marshmallow?

In the late 1960's and early 1970's, Walter Mischel from Stanford University conducted his famous marshmallow experiment. Groups of four years olds were given a marshmallow and told if they waited for 15 minutes and did not eat the marshmallow, they could have a second one. If they decided to eat it before the grown up came back, they would not get another one. It was a longitudinal study. Mischel followed the children and discovered that those who waited were more successful in life, including generally having higher levels of education, a healthy weight, and higher SAT scores. The children who ate the marshmallow had more problems and engaged in risky behavior, like drinking, taking drugs, or becoming parents as teenagers.

This study has been referenced in two books that I have recently read: How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough and Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goleman. These authors cite the Stanford study of impulse control in their analysis of ways to improve educational outcomes (Tough) and become more functional, efficient and excellent adults* (Goleman). Passing this marshmallow test seems to be a major indicator to success in life. I am sure there are crazy parents out there reading these books, training their preschoolers not to eat the marshmallow. (I bet dessert is lots of fun in those homes. You can have two puddings if you wait 20 minutes. Daddy, set the timer.)

I am sure this study is valid for a vast majority of people and the conclusions are reasonable. Nevertheless, I wonder about the outliers, and at what point does too much impulse control become a bad thing.

First, let's look at too much impulse control. For my test subject, I will consider myself. While I did not take this test as a four year old, I am sure I would NOT have eaten the marshmallow. Ever. I was the type of kid who would save a candy bar until I forgot about it, which is not necessarily a good thing. If I were in the study, I'd probably still be sitting there, looking at the marshmallow. Yet, I would be considered a "success" according to people who interpret the results: I have a college education, I had a good job in my pre-motherhood life, and I am good at saving money.** Ta da.

But look at the carpeting in my house. It's needed to be replaced for years. My husband and I have this circular conversation that ends up nowhere. We want to replace the carpeting with hard wood floors, but are also considering remodeling the house. We don't want to install the new floors if we are going to remodel, but remodeling is a massive undertaking and we'd have to move out for six months.  The cost difference between the two projects is huge. We go around in a circle and then do nothing.  My infinite patience is kind of a problem here. I wish I had a bit less impulse control and a little more "Just Do It."

Now, let's look at an outlier. Did Steve Jobs eat the marshmallow? We can't go back and test Steve as a four year old. My guess is he might have been at an extreme. He might have eaten the marshmallow in the first ten seconds, looked to his mom and said, "I am done. I have better things to do.  Can we go home?" Or, he might have sat for three days looking at the marshmallow, beating it down, proving to the little puffy pile of sugary fluff that he could dominate it. "I am not going to let some little piece of candy defeat me." A third possibility is he could have been philosophical. "Do I really need two marshmallows?  One is enough..." From what I read, Jobs lead a minimalist life. Look at his wardrobe of black turtlenecks and jeans. My husband thinks Jobs would have cut the marshmallow in half. "Now I have two..."

According the Stanford's criteria for an organized life, Steve Jobs was a botch. He dropped out of college and he fathered a child in his early twenties with his girlfriend. My guess is that coming of age in the 1960s and 1970s in northern California, he probably smoked some pot. Wait, let me google that. According to the internet, he did. Given this behavior, my guess is that he probably would have eaten the marshmallow.

If he had eaten the marshmallow, he would have skewed the results. While he would have been consistent with some of the markers like not finishing college, he would have blown away how much money he saved or overall career success.

One outlier (and one that I am fictionalizing as well) does not discount the rest of the data. I'll acknowledge that impulse control is in general good to have. But what about times and places where too much impulse control could be a bad thing? Are there times when we should just carpe the marshmallow? Pretend you are living in the middle ages, hunting a deer. Your family hasn't eaten in days, maybe weeks. You had better think fast and shoot the deer, or else you might never eat. You do not want to wait and hope for two deer. Or what about the doctor or nurse that has to perform CPR You don't want them pondering if you really need CPR when your heart is stopped and you are turning blue. In a pre-industrialized society, perhaps lack of impulse control was good thing. Farmers needed large families, so waiting until they were thirty and stable to have kids might not have been a good thing. Or maybe you just want new flooring in your living room before your kids leave for college.

I am going to take the interpretation of the marshmallow test results with a grain of salt based on my analysis of myself and my fictionalized and speculative analysis of Steve Jobs. He invented the iPhone, iPad and co-founded Pixar. I did not. Which begs questions for future social science research: Are there positive attributes for eating the marshmallow, and what are the downsides for those who waited?

* I am not sure if that is how Daniel Goleman would characterize his book, but that is what I am taking away from it.
** Before we had kids, I asked my husband what he liked best about me. His reply: "Your ability to manage money." He was sincere and serious.