Science to Humanity: Life Sucks and Then You Die

Once upon a time, I was an optimist. Things could be tough, I knew, but I always had a sense that they’d get better, eventually—that the world was, on some level, a good place.

According to science, however, I was wrong. Over the past few days, a number of stories have destroyed my faith in the future. Where do I begin? How about with this: 1,540 hours of footage of normal, middle-class California families, shot by UCLA researchers, prove that family life is “a fire shower of stress, multitasking and mutual nitpicking”:

Mothers still do most of the housework, spending 27 percent of their time on it, on average, compared with 18 percent for fathers and 3 percent for children (giving an allowance made no difference).

Husbands and wives were together alone in the house only about 10 percent of their waking time, on average, and the entire family was gathered in one room about 14 percent of the time. Stress levels soared — yet families spent very little time in the most soothing, uncluttered area of the home, the yard.

Mothers still do most of the housework, spending 27 percent of their time on it, on average, compared with 18 percent for fathers and 3 percent for children (giving an allowance made no difference).

Husbands and wives were together alone in the house only about 10 percent of their waking time, on average, and the entire family was gathered in one room about 14 percent of the time. Stress levels soared — yet families spent very little time in the most soothing, uncluttered area of the home, the yard.

Then there was the news that bullies—those miserable brats who made my childhood hellish—just want to be loved:

Bullies tended to divide their classmates into potential sources of affection and targets for domination. The latter were children who had already been rejected by kids the bullies cared about: They didn’t count. Interestingly, bullies cared only about the approval of classmates of the same sex. Boys pick on kids whom their male peers disdain, but couldn’t care less what the girls think. Similarly, mean girls disregard their male classmates’ opinions.

So, I see: That motherfucker Paul Bucksala used to slap me in the head in the hallways just because he wanted approval from some other fuckwit. I guess that makes it okay.

No, actually, it doesn’t. In fact, it’s enough to depress a preschooler—which brings me to my next study, “Preschool Depression: The Importance of Early Detection of Depression in Young Children”:

Research suggests that preschool depression is not just a temporary occurrence but may instead be an early manifestation of the same chronic disorder occurring later on — studies have demonstrated that depressed preschoolers are more likely to have depression in later childhood and adolescence than are healthy preschoolers. Due to the potentially long-lasting effect of preschool depression, early identification and intervention become very important. Young children’s brains are very “plastic” — that is, their brains easily adapt and change to new experiences and events. This plasticity may explain why developmental interventions are more effective if started early on and this may also prove true for psychotherapy.

Why are preschoolers depressed? Maybe because they face death with every bite of food, no matter how seemingly innocuous. We’ve covered hot dogs here before, but now pediatricians are calling for mandatory food labeling to protect kids from popcorn, carrots, and peanuts:

The pediatricians’ group began studying the issue nine years ago, when 17 children around the world, including several in the United States, choked to death on a gelatinous candy that had to be sucked out of a plastic cup the size of a coffee creamer. The F.D.A. eventually banned its sale….

There are no recent nationwide figures on food choking. In 2001, about 17,500 children 14 and younger were treated in emergency departments for choking, and 60 percent of the episodes were caused by food. In 2000, 160 children died from an obstruction of the respiratory tract.

Children under 4 are at the highest risk, not only because their airways are small (the back of a toddler’s throat narrows to the diameter of a straw) but also because of the way their eating abilities develop. Front teeth usually come in at 6 or 7 months — so babies can bite off a piece of food — but the first molars, which grind food down, do not arrive until about 15 months, and second molars around 26 months.

Luckily, there is a little bit of good news—and it’s not just that my Sasha is finally getting her first molars, and thereby staving off an early choking death. Actually, apparently, kids worldwide are not dying in numbers quite so high as they used to:

[Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation] and colleagues assessed information from 187 countries from 1970 to 2009. They found child deaths dropped by about 2 percent every year, lower than the 4.4 percent needed to reach the U.N.’s target of reducing child deaths by two-thirds by 2015.

Murray said death rates were falling surprisingly fast in countries including Liberia and Niger, but that progress had stalled in rich countries like Britain and the United States….

He was particularly impressed with progress in countries like Niger and Malawi, where there hasn’t been much economic growth.

So, good for you, Malawi, Niger and Liberia! While your children are growing up big, strong, and poor, ours are choking to death on nitrate-rich processed “meat” sticks. One day, however, you’ll be rich enough for us to start shipping our death tubes your way—and you know what that means.