The "Toddler Effect"

by Phil Stott

Just last weekend I noticed-not for the first time-one of the major benefits to having a child of toddling age: getting away with stuff. For some reason, having a bundle of cuteness with me wherever I go seems to make people more amenable on those  occasions that I get caught acting like a complete jerk-something that never quite seems to be as rare as I think it is, as my wife will surely attest.

The most recent example of the toddler effect happened, of all places, in my local library. Having finally returned a book that had been in my possession for almost two months, I was appalled to get a phone call a couple of weeks ago from said library alleging that the condition of the book had deteriorated so much in my care that I would have to pay them for it.

Being busy with work plus the fact that I really wasn't looking forward to the encounter, it took me a couple of weeks to get down there to sort the problem out. Being the kind of guy who likes to run through a million different scenarios of how a scene is likely to play out, the two weeks between the call and me presenting myself at the lending desk were filled with all manner of variations on the theme. Ideal scenario: I'd get some teenager who couldn't care less, and would just take the money. Worst case scenario: I'd get a stern lecture from some withered spinster (in my imagination only bored teenagers and sharp-eyed spinsters work in libraries) while other library-goers paused from browsing the stacks to look up and tut their disapproval. Even worse was the prospect that I'd hand over the money and have to argue over the fate of the book; in my estimation, paying for it meant that I should get to keep it, especially if its condition was such that they would rather call me in than lend it to someone else.

Having spent most of Saturday manfully trying to find ways to put off the encounter yet again (grocery shopping, getting a new tire, feigning an interest in college lacrosse on TV), I was eventually propelled towards my fate by my wife's insistence that she needed some peace and quiet to get on with her grad school work. Running through a mental checklist of Maeve-friendly errands that needed running (as opposed to Maeve-unfriendly ones like, uh, going to the driving range), I realized that there was no way I could put off the library encounter any longer. Packing her into the car, then, I headed off towards my fate, mentally rerunning both the best and worst case scenarios as I drove.

As it turned out, the encounter fell somewhere between the two extremes. In fact, thanks to Maeve, it ended up a lot closer to "best" on the scale than I had any right to expect. When I went in and announced myself, I was met with a frosty "Ah. Yes" by a distinctly matronly character, before she flounced off to grab the book as if I'd done her a personal injury. Returning with it, it wasn't difficult to see why-or how I'd thought the book was okay to return. It was a nightmare. A giant coffee stain, with grounds in it, adorned a significant cross section of the pages, and the cover was bent in half, the unbound edge pointing skywards at around the same angle as the screen currently sticking up from my laptop.

Fortunately, just at the point she brought it out, Maeve started fidgeting on the floor beside me, and I picked her up. The change in the woman when I set Maeve on the counter next to the offending book was a sight to behold. From stern and matronly, she morphed into a kindly grandmother right before my eyes. Not only did she forget what she was doing, when I reminded her she seemed distinctly sorry to have to be taking the money, and I left the place carrying not only the book (which was surrendered without question), but a much lighter load of guilt and shame than I'd expected.

Since then, a colleague told me she'd read something about how people with kids have been less likely to lose their jobs in the recession than childless people. I don't know how true that is, having seen couple of parents canned at my own office of late, but if it is, it's another example of the toddler effect in action. Regardless, it's something I'll be trying to harness in future-I could use all the help I can get at the office, whether it's in asking for a raise or (more likely) avoiding yet another round of layoffs.