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Comment by lukan | Hacker News Reader

"With a fear in his eyes that I only later discovered came from the fact that his own sense of safety depended on being the smartest person in the room, he said, "You're only 3. I don't think you're supposed to know how to do that yet.""

I feel like that episode describes most of common education. In theory outstanding excellence is wanted, in reality often not so much, as this causes problems. Better teach them how to stay in line.

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I figured out far too early that I was thinking on abstraction levels different from my teachers. I say "far too early" because it was before I had the social maturity to know better than to point it out. I didn't mean to be a pain in the ass. I genuinely wanted to know if they had thought about the things I was wondering. I didn't mean to make them look stupid. I didn't even know enough to realize it was how I asked questions, not their own stupidity, that was making them look stupid.

School was rough, though not as rough as having a parent who felt threatened by me.

I feel like this story of a memory reimagined by an adult from the perspective of himself as a very precocious three year old sounds more like projection of the OP's current relationship with their father back onto a childhood memory mixed with arrogance and a desire to brag about how smart they are online for attention.

It's downright unbelievable to me that anyone would have this detailed of a memory of when they were three, or that a three year old could detect subtle and repressed jealousy for intelligence -- if such an emotion was expressed and not imagined by the child in the first place -- and additionally the emotion allegedly detected is extremely advanced for a toddler to understand.

Unless the OP is thirteen. That would explain the arrogance and being able to remember being three so well.

"or that a three year old could detect subtle and repressed jealousy for intelligence"

He did not claim that. He claimed he interpreted it later like this.

Apart from that, there might be projection, but I know that I have some very clear memories from being 3 as well. Now I obviously do not know, how far my memory matches reality. But I would not just dismiss the story. Many people are insecure about their intelligence. And when there is an actual intelligent beeing - the common reaction of the crowd is not cheering, when the smart person is so stupid to show he is smarter than the crowd.

I think it's central to the story that it was highly unusual. My dad couldn't believe I could do that, so it doesn't surprise me that you can't either. Many children aren't speaking clearly at 3, much less reasoning about what is likely to be in another person's mind. I do remember he reacted by growing cold, which surprised me because I thought it was a great cool new thing I had discovered. But as I said, I didn't interpret at the time. I only realized why he reacted so differently from how adult me would react to a 3-year-old today because I know so much more about him now.

I was an unusual little kid--and a girl, not a boy, though that's not terribly relevant to the story. Not really sure what else to tell you. I don't think I progressed intellectually any farther than most people do, but I did progress faster, which was especially noticeable when I was young. I have the handwritten list my mom made of the 100 words I could use correctly by my first birthday. My earliest vivid memory is of my 2nd birthday party. For all I know, I may also have been very close to turning 4 at the time this story took place, but I know my being 3 contributed to his unease, and I know I was reading at 3. It's not a brag. Being an unusual little kid (honestly I usually just say "weird") just added another perspective to the parent comment.

"I was an unusual little kid--and a girl, not a boy,"

Sorry about that, I usually write "he or she" in my comment, but thought I read something about boy above, apparently not.

I thought your anecdote and commentary were relevant and extremely thought-provoking.

The person you're responding to here was clearly emotionally triggered by your anecdote. I wouldn't spend too much time trying "convince" them that what you wrote is true.

Those responses have puzzled me the most. Like, OK, there was an odd little girl somewhere in the world back in the '80s. So what?

We know there are kids who earn graduate degrees in their early teens. Why is it implausible that the occasional 3yo could have thought about picking 1, but then suddenly had a flash of, "No wait! That's exactly what he will expect! He'll never expect me to pick 3 again!" and remember it?

I believe you, why? Because I sat in the back of a friend's car next to her 3 year old that started conversing with me as fluently as a grown up.

It was extremely jarring to have a small child in a booster seat converse with me as if she was 16. Her mother laughed at me: "Oh yeah. She's very advanced for her age."

I've heard stories of 3 year olds who speak 5 languages. Even writing this it makes me recall children who can write / play symphonies.

The "3 year olds aren't smart" thinking is quite limiting.

One of the things I wish people had realized about me back then was that just because I had the verbal fluency and reasoning ability of a much older child, it didn't mean I had the maturity and life experience of one. I still had such an incredibly limited knowledge pool to draw from, having only been on the planet for 3 years and only able to move myself around in it (and even then, not through basic things like doors due to handles I couldn't reach) for an even shorter time.

It's so tempting to treat kids who are precocious on one front as though they're older than they are, and expect them to do things like recognize dangers, or navigate social situations, or even know how to manage their own limits, but they're still also really little kids who need the adults in their lives to love them and care for them!

You’ll be censored but are nevertheless absolutely correct. I suspect many of those downvoting you have never had a 3 year old.

I have several children, and great relationships with all of them. A couple are definitely smarter than me, and I’m on roughly equal footing with the others. That said, 3 year old children are simply not capable of the complex thought and emotions described here.

I buy it. There are 8 billion people in the world. That's enough of a sample size for some profound variation and extreme ranges of ability.

My first memory starts when I was 3 and a half. I know people whose memories start much, much earlier.

I don't even think it means I'm particularly "smart," whatever that means. I just picked up one specific set of skills extremely early that happen to be highly valued in young children.

It may also be related to trauma. All of those I know with earlier memories were almost always in an unsafe home environment, eg: narcisstic/abusive parents. Probably kicks your memory into high gear because suddenly it matters that you remember what to do and what not to do to avoid injury or pain.

Hmm. I could definitely see that. Learn to speak early because the parent obviously isn't recognizing and responding to your needs the way you're already trying to communicate them (not that it'll help; not being able to understand isn't the narcissist's problem). Do your best to create extensive mental pattern lists of safe/unsafe things to do or say (not that it'll help; narcissists aren't consistent even with themselves). Do everything in your power to seem like those bigger people who are safer than you (not that it'll help).

It's amazing how much growing up with a parent like that can mess you up. I actually thought I had undiagnosed high-functioning autism for awhile, because I thought I was terrible at reading social cues, and was so easily and frequently overstimulated. It took some serious therapy to discover, no, I'm fine at reading nonverbal and social cues. I just spent the entirety of my formative years being gaslit at every turn about what my dad's expressions meant, so learned I couldn't trust myself. And I'm much more highly attuned to my surroundings because I spent the entirety of my formative years knowing threats loomed around every corner, because ANY wrong thing could set dad off. It was trauma, nit autism. My parasympathetic nervous system never learned to come online and down-regulate, because the threat was never over. My body and brain developed in the constant presence of cortisol and adrenaline. That does make it so I'm easily overstimulated.

One of the things I'm working on is cultivating gratitude even for the worst things in my life, in light of the goodness in it now. I wouldn't be the same me were it not for those things, and if I'm grateful for who I am now, I can't really pick and choose which parts of that history I'm grateful for. I don't really like that it's all-or-nothing, that I can't be completely grateful for the present if I still reject my past, but it's working a lot better than anything else has. I do not and will never condone many of the things in my past, but being grateful for all the parts has been part of my journey to gratitude for the whole.

This gels so much with my experience, thank you for sharing. The lack of down-regulation is exhausting at times.

Your work on gratitude mirrors my experience as besides that and some psychedelic experiences to help process from a less traumatic dissociative state were some of the big keys for me helping to process the grief and anxiety coming from those experiences. I wish you the best! Breaking a trauma cycle is beyond difficult and tiring.

Huh? I read that comment and didn't find it problematic at all. I myself remember scenes, in detail, from before I was three years old. Some things will stick forever in memory, under certain circumstances.

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