How statistics hurt

How to explain the prevalence of accidents within our family? As young as I was I had heard of statistics. As I understood it then, it was a way of telling us of what we were part of, or not. An example I remember, watching an annual television show for a ‘telethon’ (Fundraising 24 hour programme where celebrities and others do things to help raise pledges and donations for a cause). The shows focus was for ‘mental health’ and when they gave us the statistic that one in ten people would suffer some form of mental illness (This was the 1970’s and yes, that figure has since been hugely revised) I was curious. I must have worried about it, for later I looked around our dinner table of a family of ten.

I obviously had some strange expression on my face as I recall my mother looking at me slightly concerned and asking what was wrong. “I was just wondering which one of us” was my simple reply. “Which one of us what, dear?” My mother tried to continue the thread of the conversation. This in itself was a major achievement for our mother, with such a large family gathered along both sides of the table and multiple conversations, requests for passing of dishes, management of table skills and maintaining an equal, or fair (and there is a difference), division of shares of the bounty, echoing around the room, she was usually able to answer, address or spot some infringement simultaneously. Right now for a moment she was focussed on my concerns.

“I was wondering which one of us would have the mental problems?”

All noise ceased. Cutlery frozen in mid movement. It was probably one of my older sisters who snickered first, understanding the full implications of my innocent remark, and, it was enough to trigger a quick unexpected slap on the back of my head from my father. My head being slightly closer to the table due to my trying to look down the length of the bench at the time, knocked forward into the mashed potatoes I had just secured from the serving dish a moment before as the dish had passed me by. This of course caused a more significant outbreak of laughter. ‘Eat your dinners’, was the slightly snappy comment from my mother, although I definitely saw her trying not to laugh as well. It only added to the moment. Before much longer everyone was laughing about the comment, the mashed potatoes and the slap. One of us was definitely going to suffer mental health problems and it would probably be me. In a simple way I had just encountered the issue many people have with statistics. It may not apply to me, but there are consequences anyway.

(continued tomorrow).