Daddy Days: Trying not to lose count of the kids
As you may have heard, we’re expecting this summer. (No, this column isn’t a rerun). And there’s a strange phenomena that I had noticed when we were expecting our last few kids that has started happening again.
It goes like this. The whole family will be at the dinner table and I’ll suddenly feel like one of the kids is missing. It’s bizarre because I can literally see everyone’s there, but I’ll have this strange feeling that one of them is unaccounted for. Maybe it’s my brain’s way of practicing keeping track of the future additional child. Maybe I’m so used to one of the boys being under the table I expect one to be missing. Maybe I just can’t count.
Whatever is going on, I think it’s related to the idea of subitizing. Subitizing is the ability to quickly recognize a small quantity of items without individually counting them. If I showed you a domino with three dots on it, you would instantly subitize three dots without counting, “one, two, three.”
Subitizing is a new term (coined in 1949) of a very old term from Latin, subitus, which means sudden. While this perceptual mathematical ability excels in speed it’s very limited in quantity. For adults (according to Wikipedia) the max number one can perceptually subitize is five.
Try it out and you’ll likely find at five or six, even if you can recognize the quantity quickly, you’re relying on a pattern, quick addition or other knowledge to assess the items as opposed to a sudden recognition of the quantity.
OK, pseudo-math class dismissed. Back to the dinner table (or anytime I need to take a headcount). Subitizing is definitely no longer an option. Even with five kids, since they are incapable of staying still, their movements alone make even theoretically subitizable numbers a guessing game. And this is one area where estimation is not good enough.
Wife: Do we have everyone?
Me: Yeah, I think so. There are about six kids in the van.
This is the stuff that makes the first two "Home Alone" movies somewhat believable.
And it’s what makes me think my dad-brain is doing practice runs to encourage an actual headcount. Is everyone here? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Check. I count heads to six so often, if anyone ever has a chance to develop a six-item subitizing ability, it may be me.
There are shortcuts with the headcount-to-six method, though. Our pod of six isn’t going to include any girls so, especially when leaving somewhere with lots of kids, pigtails on a head bobbing inside the group is a quick signal I need to recount.
However, this shortcut of close-cropped boy haircuts has its own pitfall. Several of the boys’ friends and cousins pass this general screening process with flying colors. More than once I have counted six crew-cut heads and been walking to the van from church only to realize my nephew or my friend’s kid was number six. Meanwhile our real number six was playing in the nursery.
I don’t know if I’ll ever develop the ability to subitize to six (much less seven) but I guess counting twice is always a good idea. But it looks like my brain knew that already.
Harris and his wife live in Pflugerville with their six sons. Please email comments or suggestions for future columns to thoughtsforcaleb@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Daddy Days: Trying not to lose count of the kids
