By Kevin Coughlin
‘Tis better to give than receive.
Hugs are better than drugs.
Every little bit helps.
Turns out all those dog-earred clichés are true, according to the Pulitzer Prize-winning couple Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.
Citing studies and anecdotes, the authors of A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunities kicked off the second annual Morristown Festival of Books on Friday by suggesting that altruism isn’t just good for society — it’s good for your health.
“There’s growing evidence about the benefits of finding a cause you believe in,” Kristof, a New York Times columnist, told an audience of nearly 900 people at the Mayo Performing Arts Center.
One study of seniors found that belonging to a church, or exercising, reduced their mortality rates significantly. But volunteering was best of all, slashing their statistical chances of dying by 44 percent, Kristof said.
The couple, who joked that delivering keynote addresses is a date night, won a Pulitzer together in 1990 for their Times coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square movement. Kristof won another one in 2006 for his columns about genocide in Darfur.
For A Path Appears, they interviewed ordinary people who surmounted extraordinary obstacles. One of them was a black youth determined to obtain an education despite bouncing among homeless shelters in Los Angeles.
Through perseverance, and with help from mentors along the way, the young woman succeeded, graduating from Kristof’s alma mater, Harvard.
The lesson there: Everyone can make a difference by taking an interest, the couple said. Their research suggests that simple, inexpensive approaches can be the most effective solutions to staggering problems such as poverty and teen pregnancy.
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‘GROWING UP POOR IS BAD FOR YOUR BRAIN’
WuDunn cited a study of Romanian orphans that discovered that children placed in foster homes before age 2 advanced farther, academically and emotionally, than those who remained in orphanages. The foster children received more human contact — hugs and tender loving care.
A Canadian study of lab rats found similar results. Baby rats that were licked and cuddled grew smarter than those who were deprived.
WuDunn, who works in banking now, explained that cortisol, a hormone triggered by stress, can impair brain formation at an early age if stress is not relieved via the comforts of “maternal attachment.”
She claimed that a “parenting gap” separating poor and well off parents may deprive poor children of benefits crucial to early development. Some poor parents may let their infant cry, for example, thinking it will make the child self-reliant and unspoiled.
“Growing up poor is bad for your brain,” said WuDunn, asserting that maternal attachment at age 3 1/2 is a better predictor of high school graduation than I.Q. at that age.
It would be cheaper and more effective for society to help poor moms develop maternal attachments for 6-month-olds than to provide remedial education and social services for those kids at age 6 or 16, Kristof contended.
In some developing countries, he continued, the best educational investment is not new schools. It’s spending a mere $3.50 per child for medication to cure children of worms, an affliction that keeps many from attending classes.
Likewise, Kristoff suggested that better access to contraception and improved sex education are practical solutions to teen pregnancy in the United States, where he said 30 percent of girls become pregnant by age 19, a rate three times higher than in Europe.
SLACKTIVISM, EMPATHY GAPS, AND GAMBIAN RATS
Rich and poor aren’t just separated by a parenting gap; there is an “empathy gap,” too — but this one cuts the other way, the authors said.
Poor Americans are more generous than their wealthy countrymen and women. The poorest 20 percent donate more than the richest 20 percent, as a percentage of income, the authors said.
They speculated that because poor people are exposed to the effects of poverty every day, they are more likely than insulated wealthy people to know worse-off individuals who need help.
Still, Kristof, 56, and WuDunn, 55, said “slacktivism” — supporting causes from the relative comfort of the internet — is a good first step for getting involved. The Ice Bucket Challenge raised money that is funding promising research for ALS treatments, Kristof said.
“If you find an issue that is compelling to you, and you can use your voice for advocacy, or your time for volunteering, it injects a terrific sense of purpose,” Kristof told a 23-year-old man during the question-and-answer session.
“The drops in the bucket are really important,” WuDunn said.
In hopes of cultivating social awareness and gratitude in their three children, the couple has exposed them to the real world from an early age.
Kristof brought one of them along when he was reporting on street gangs in Honduras. A Caribbean “vacation” became a trip to Haiti, one of the poorest nations on earth.
Although this elicited some pushback for a “real” vacation — “kids are kids,” WuDunn said — there are signs that the parents’ strategy has not been for naught.
For Father’s Day one year, the children chipped in and gave Kristof a Gambian pouched rat.
It’s detecting land mines in Angola.
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