Fan Bias – Ignoring the Evidence Part 1

My daughter being silly.

I was supposed to take my daughter to school this morning,  but in my rush to sleep I set my alarm later than I should have. My wife woke me up a few minutes after it went off, and I moped off to the shower and spent way too much time daydreaming about upcoming projects (that is not a euphemism). When I dried off, I realized I was late. I knew right then that it was too late to get my daughter to school on time, but I refused to believe it.

My daughter was groggy and slow-moving, and I was curt in my attempt to speed her up. I had the data, but I ignored it. I knew who was to blame, but I blamed my daughter. Every muttered question had a perfectly logical answer:

Q: “Why is she so slow?”

A: “She’s six years old.”

Q:”Why is she so groggy?”

A:”Because she was up past her bed-time?”

Q:”Is she going intentionally slower every time I ask her to speed up?”

A:”Yes, because all you’re giving is negative reinforcement so she’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t  you idiot.”

All these questions were being answered somewhere back in my subconscious, but I forged on determined to get her to school on time…even though I KNEW we would not make it.

At some point all this registered and I realized that I needed to ask for her forgiveness. It was my fault we were late, and my behavior is the type of stuff that complexes are made of. Kids all-to-readily accept blame for sins of the father, and here I am reinforcing that destructive tendency with my behavior.

Even after all that I still forged on. I was self aware enough to realize:

A. That we were late.

B. That I was not acknowledging this and making matters worse with my brusqueness.

C. That I needed to ask for forgiveness.

It was not until we arrived in the school parking lot that I turned to her and apologized. In her typical cheery voice she said, “It’s okay Daddy.”

It’s not really.

It’s not.

Next time I want to examine how this tendency to ignore the evidence contributes to Fan Bias, a phenomenon I will be exploring in detail in upcoming posts.