“What else? Well, nothing in American parenting is anything like the concept of ng’om, which is used by the Kipsigis people in rural Kenya to describe children who are especially intelligent and responsible. This concept of intelligence, as Harkness and Super have written, highlights ‘aspects of social competence, including responsibility and helpfulness.’ These aspects, they add dryly, ‘have tended to be overlooked in Western formal theories of children’s intelligence.’

Part of the lesson of parental ethnotheories is that when we look for certain qualities, we stop seeing others. It’s a cruel circle: Because our version of intelligence overlooks ng’om, we don’t prize it. Because we don’t prize it, we don’t see it. Because we don’t see it, we obviously don’t encourage it or acknowledge it—we don’t create its condition for possibility. And yet none of this stops us from wondering, years later, why our children insist on leaving their coats on the floor.” (er, this last part didn’t make me think of you…mostly the lovely part in the first paragraph that totally described Jack)

In my time at your house I was continually delighted by how kind, intelligent, responsible, and helpful Jack is, and incredibly impressed by you and Tyler as parents. When people ask my dad for parenting secrets he says it’s pretty easy: start out with good kids and don’t mess ’em up. You have started out with the best little kids, and with how much you love them and fight for them there’s no way you’re going to mess it up. I think about you often, Alie! You are a wonderful mama, and everyone knows it.