After a long winter (shorter than a real winter), I’m back here. I must admit I have been having some issues with the concept of “science” and specially “science communication,” and sometimes if put me off writing. This is not new, but I’ll try to explain it this time.
I once read a best seller book called Freakonomics , which most of you may have already heard of. It uses the economic mindset and economic theories to study and understand non-economic topics, like the trends in naming children, frauds in sumo championships and the behaviour of real state agents.
It was written by an economist and a journalist, who I suppose was the responsible for making the text really fluid and easy to understand. It’s not a life-changing book, but I found it interesting.
Well, that’s how I feel about science. We should approach things scientifically – anything. Instead of just focusing on Physics, Biology, Mathematics and so on.
For example: just the other day I had a huge discussion with a friend about families, and how much should family interfere in people’s lives. I believe that the extreme of too much interference is preferable to the other extreme – no interference at all, you die alone and you will be found when the body begins to smell and the neighbours notice.
She was adamant that there is no reason to think in extremes, although her family history is on the non-interference extreme. My experience, in the contrary, is of being raised by a stereotypical Jewish mother (although we are not Jewish, as long as I know), and I don’t think it’s that bad.
Interestingly, I’ve never met any other son/daughter of similar mothers saying that this is terrible. But those who have distant mothers usually say that having an overprotective mother is the worst, most damaging thing in the world.
And no, I don’t believe in balance. I think all societies tend to exaggerate in a way: too much interference or no interference.
Well, the thing is that I got so mad with all that friend said that I decided to try and analyse the situation scientifically, instead of just focusing on how I feel about that.
I don’t know very well how to do it,but I would really appreciate comments on that. Does anyone share my feelings? Any idea on how to approach the topic scientifically?
PS: Here’s a Slate magazine slideshow about Jewish Mothers.
First of all, Barbara, you have to come up with some kind of null hypothesis, such as whether having a Jewish mother is a good thing or not. This might involve a kind of experimental design which would involve statistically significant numbers of people
1. who are Jewish and have Jewish mothers;
2. who aren’t Jewish but have Jewish mothers;
3. who are Jewish but don’t have Jewish mothers;
4. who aren’t Jewish and do have Jewish mothers.
From which you’ll ses that you’ll run into a slew of trouble even before you start. Case 2 is probably impossible; case 3 runs into obvious problems of halacha, and case 4 rests on one perception of oneself as Jewish.
So while you’re trying to figure that out, I shall offer the traditional Jewish response to such knotty problems.
Q: How many Jewish Mothers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. I’ll just sit here in the dark. Nobody cares about me. They don’t phone. They never write…
Q: What’s the difference between a Jewish Mother and a Rottweiler?
A: The Rottweiler will let go, eventually.
I’d have preferred to have sent some
Scott Kierchicken soup, but I don’t think Windows supports it, so here is a nourishing picture instead.Overheard at a particularly bloody road crash scene in Crown Heights
“I think that some chicken soup would be a good idea”.
“Mrs Goldstein, it wouldn’t do any good.”
“It wouldn’t do any harm.”
Henry, I knew you would be the first to comment here.
(My mother, in a bad day, would definitely sit in the dark and suffer.)
What about a mother who is or was an advocate of Arnold Gesell, author of The Child from Five to Ten (1946) and other similar?
The slight problem I see with Henry’s approach is that it is purely observational. It also doesn’t adequately control for genetic factors.
I think you need to look to a twin’s study to deal with this question. Look at a control group of genetic twins seperated at our close to birth one of which has been raised by an SJM while the other isn’t.
Of course the essence of the scientific approach is to distrust subjective observations and unique occurrences. So we have to define objectively ‘good’ and ‘bad’ outcomes for our observations. I think in this case I might suggest that comparing children who become doctors (the proper sort of course), lawyers and accountants, and bad outcomes as musicians, writers and PhDs.
My hypothesis is that those who have Jewish mothers don’t see it as such a bad thing as those with distant mothers. And vice versa (children of Jewish mothers think that having absent parents must be terrible, but those with absent parent don’t think it’s that bad).
Does it make any sense for you?
I would have to find out what kind of parents my subjects had, what they think of their experience and what they think of the opposite experience.
@ Chris: I think in this case I might suggest that comparing children who become doctors (the proper sort of course), lawyers and accountants, and bad outcomes as musicians, writers and PhDs.
When I got my Ph.D. my father said that he’d have to practice saying ‘my son, the palaeontologist’. But it’s not just Jews, either – the parents of F1 immigrants of any ethnicity are always keen for the F1s to do well, to join a profession. I have it on good authority that jokes about British Asian mothers are precisely congruent with jokes about Jewish mothers.
@ Anna: seriously, other factors are at work, both familial and societal. I know Jews who are quite happy to have their mothers come round every five minutes witrh a steaming dish of latkes – and others who had to cross continents to get away from them (the mothers, that is, not the latkes).
How do you think I ended up in France?
I used to pray for absent parents.
As for the original question, “How can I approach scientifically a Jewish mother?”
I think standard nuclear protocols should suffice.
Henry, is #4 supposed to say “and don’t have Jewish mothers?” Otherwise it’s the same as #2, right?
(I seem to be giving you a hard time today. Sorry, I’ll try to stop).
Female Science Professor had an interesting post about Helicopter Parents recently (helicopter as in they hover over you).
Cath, you’re quite right. 4 should be people who aren’t Jewish and don’t have Jewish mothers. Thank goodness for peer review, eh?
Henry, case #2 is perfectly possible. That’s me (I guess probably my ancestors who went to Brazil escaping from anti-semitist or something like that – I started to believe this theory because of my mother, of course – but it doesn’t matter now: officially, we’re not Jewish).
Jeff, my brother prays for an absent mother as well. With no success at all.
And I think that HP are a bit different, but there are some similarities.
What I think is that people are really quick to judge an over-protective mother and say that to you, but you can’t say things along the same lines to those who had an absent mother.
If I ever get a scholarship for a PhD in Sociology, I will research the topic further.
Those who are convinced that Dr Gee’s muse is not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste should look away now.
It strikes me, reading this thread and others like it, that the proportion of people on NN who are practicing Jews (and as we all know, practice makes perfect), or people who claim some Jewish ancestry, or people who admit to Jewish heritage even though they are fervent atheists, is very much higher than in the population at large. I guess the same is true for science in general (although this proportion will diminish as time goes by, as science becomes populated by the children of other cultures or ethnic groups who, like Jews, have historically,
had mothers whoplaced a premium on eduction). If you take a broad enough perspective, even Christians are Jewish. After all, we know that Jesus was Jewish becauseI might think up a prize for anyone who can tape the following conversation.
“Professor Dawkins, I’ve heard a disturbing rumor that you are, in fact, Jewish.”
“Of course I’m not. What a ridiculous notion.”
“Well, won’t you at least think about it?”
Hi There,
this is an amazing subject really…
Today at my course we were talking about Melanie Klein and why her children somehow turned back and were emotionally disturbed, and my answer was, well she was a jewish mother, as she was jewish, and I am jewish too somehow that was such an easy cliche to bring up…. but was wondering would it be the same if I would not know this background information… however, background does matter….
now I felt really dumb actually at the end of the day, that I came up with this answer as it is just a stereotype….