A new angle on the Curve

The more I hang around afflicted folk the less inclined I am to judge them or their condition. This doesn’t mean I’ve left my accountability bag at the door.
I am still very much steeped in the notion that we are responsible for our behavior, despite our afflictions. However the more I learn an individual’s story, the less inclined I am to judge them.

Dr. Walton and I visited a familiar patient yesterday, let's call her "Rosa". Rosa is a 22 year old Latina mother of a wonderful 2 year old girl. Yesterday was the first opportunity I had to meet Rosa's daughter as she’s been in San Antonio, where Rosa is from, with her aunt. Rosa is a quadriplegic. Her recent car accident left her with permanent damage to the degree that she can only slightly move her legs. She will never walk again. She does have pretty good use of her arms though. However this may be the least of her problems right now.

She is a Heroin addict.

She’s on lots of meds and we think she is not using now. However that is not really any of our business and not why we’re there. Her child is wonderful, she was engaging and got the biggest kick out of playing with my blood pressure cuff. I like to let kids play with stuff, I think it may encourage them to explore and actually try stuff. I know it worked for me.
Anyway, Rosa and her daughter have a tough life ahead of them. They live in a ‘house’ that is about as worse I’d seen. While reasonably clean it isn’t somewhere I’d like to hang. Just above the baby's bed was an open fusebox that had wires hanging out of it. She wasn't tall enough to reach them yet... but man. Anyway, as we drove away I wondered what the next 15 years of that little girl’s life would be like? If she dropped out of school, became an addict, had a kid, where would my personal responsibility mantra kick in?

I recently read an article on the New York Times site, After the Bell Curve, about the linkage between environment and IQ. Geneticists and social scientists are nibbling around the notion that growing up in poverty, and all the complications that go along with it, may actually impact IQ.

Apparently Poverty may stunt intellectual capacity.

Traditional thinking suggests that genes rule in the intellect game, only when children spend their early years in the most difficult of circumstances does environment make a notable difference. That may not apply to poor children. In fact they found that the IQ’s of identical twins, who share the same genes, can vary as much as the I.Q.’s of fraternal twins. The impact of growing up impoverished overwhelms the kid’s genetic capacities. They found that home life is crucial factor for kids at the bottom of the economic scale.
One researcher explains,

If you have a chaotic environment, kids’ genetic potential doesn’t have a chance to be expressed. Well-off families can provide the mental stimulation needed for genes to build the brain circuitry for intelligence.

Yet another datapoint I’ll try to consider as I evaluate the circumstances for others while maintaining that whole personal accountability thang. I do know that research and exploration, with an open mind and heart, can only build insight and potentially get me closer to what the heck to do about some of society's more difficult issues.