WEIRD parents are not just focused on our children, we are focused on the metrics that are easily recorded and conveyed to others: the when of our child’s first smile, word, or step. Once we have such metrics in hand, we are easily confused into imagining that the when is a critical measure not just of health, but of future capacity. Once again, the easily measured thing—the calorie, the size, the date—becomes an inaccurate stand-in for a larger analysis of the health of the system. By believing in the false notion that when a benchmark is met is the salient measure of health and progress, we
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