Before you read this column, please scroll back up and look at the face of three-year-old Kairi Ketler.
I’ll wait here. OK, you’re back?
Did you see that smile? The sparkle in those baby blue toddler eyes?
That’s not just a little girl being a little girl, nor is it just the metaphorical warm glow one gets from engaging in a charitable act.
There is science and evolution behind those eyes.
The smile, and ones like it, elicited by little Kairi who got her first ever haircut last week and donated 12 inches of hair to the charity Wigs 4 Kids, has been studied by scientists for years.
The abstract of one such study conducted at UBC from a decade ago starts with highly scientific language: “Evolutionary models of co-operation require proximate mechanisms that sustain prosociality despite inherent costs to individuals.”
Translation? Human evolution was helped in part by being nice and generous even when there is a personal cost to the giver.
“The ‘warm glow’ that often follows prosocial acts could provide one such mechanism,” the abstract continues.
The hypothesis was that if this is truly part of evolution, it should be observable from a very early age. So, the study’s authors recruited toddlers from Vancouver libraries, hospitals and community events to test the hypothesis.
What researchers found in the admittedly small sample size of 20 toddlers, was that these kids, who were under two years old, actually exhibited greater happiness giving treats to others than receiving treats themselves.
“Further, children are happier after engaging in costly giving – forfeiting their own resources – than when giving the same treat at no cost.”
All this is to say that in this holiday season, giving isn’t only a good thing to do, a nice thing to do for the recipient in need, but you probably will feel good about it. Talk about win-win.
Our page one story in print week is about the 19th annual Toyota-Fix Auto Christmas car giveaway that we participate in. I was there along with representatives from most of the sponsor companies to hand the keys to a refurbished Toyota Camry to Kim Dixon, someone who greatly deserves a hand up given all the good charitable work she herself does.
And our page 15 story is one I attended on Monday, where Wilma’s Transition Society, supported by their sponsors, gave $6,000 in grocery money and $500 in gas cards to a deserving family in need who have suffered several unfortunate life hurdles in the last seven years.
READ MORE: VIDEO: Chilliwack Toyota-Fix Auto Christmas car recipient ‘the first person to help someone in need’
READ MORE: Chilliwack family facing numerous life hurdles receives $6,000 in groceries
Everyone was smiling at Fix Auto on Tuesday when Dixon received her ‘new’ car, many of us even laughing when she pointed out that she needed a screwdriver to drive her mini-van.
And it was a full-on “I’m-not-crying-you’re-crying” moment on Monday as workers at Wilma’s got emotional along with father of the family of four Matthew Dekkers expressing how the money was not just a great gift, he called it “life-changing.”
Got that warm glow yet?
Over the past few years, so many people have endured so many hardships through the pandemic, floods, heat waves, and now inflation and global instability is making life harder particularly for those on the margins.
So if you have the means, give what you can and the good news is, it’ll make you feel good, too.
As singer/songwriter Kimya Dawson put it in her song “Sunbeams and Some Beans” on her amazing 2008 children’s album Alphabutt:
“Grandma said to me,
“If you only have one bean,
“And you meet someone with no bean,
“You should give them half your bean,
“Cause you will be less hungry,
“If you eat just half a bean,
“Than if you eat a whole bean in front of somebody with no bean.”
Great advice.
Merry Christmas.
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