Two “Area Boys”: PART II

Let us now pause and dwell on what Harvard University has to say regarding the subject matter:

“I tried finding out if there’s such a 75-year longitudinal study correlating success in life with childhood chores.

Answer: Yes — but it’s not a single “Harvard chores study”. The claim comes from 2 different Harvard-affiliated sources that get mixed up:

1. The Harvard Study of Adult Development / Grant Study

This is the 80+ year longitudinal study people usually mean.

– Started in 1938 tracking 724 Harvard students and later their children.

– It found that “love and work ethic” were the 2 biggest predictors of adult happiness and success.

– Researchers linked early work ethic to childhood chores. Julie Lythcott-Haims, former Stanford Dean, cited the study in her 2016 TED Talk, saying, “Professional success in life comes from having done chores as a kid, and the earlier you started, the better.”

– The study itself didn’t publish a paper specifically on chores. Lythcott-Haims pulled that insight from the broader data on work ethic.

2. The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten 2011

This is the actual study that directly tested chores and outcomes.

– 9,971 U.S. children were followed from kindergarten (2010-2011) to 3rd grade.

– Found that frequency of chores in kindergarten was positively associated with self-competence, prosocial behaviour, academic ability, peer relationships, and life satisfaction in 3rd grade, even after controlling for sex, family income, and parent education.

– Kids who rarely did chores had higher odds of scoring in the bottom 20% on those measures.

– Published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioural Paediatrics in 2018.

This study is often misattributed to “Harvard” because it’s widely cited by Harvard’s Making Caring Common project.

Bottom line

There’s no single Harvard paper titled “Chores and Life Success”, but both sources support the idea:

– Grant Study: 80+ years of data linking work ethic developed in childhood to later success.

– ECLS-K study: Direct longitudinal data showing kids who did chores in kindergarten had better self-competence and academic outcomes 3 years later.

Both suggest giving kids responsibilities and chores correlates with better self-efficacy, prosocial behaviour, and work ethic later in life. Correlation ≠ causation, but the pattern holds across datasets.”

This should galvanise us to cast our net beyond Professor J.T.K. Duncan and Professor J.T. Da Rocha-Afodu – to beam the searchlight on the rest of Nigeria.

Let us start with Mr Ernest Sisei Ikoli, who was a pioneer student (1909) of King’s College, Lagos. He chose journalism as his career path to greatness. Although he was an Ijaw from the Twon-Brass/Nembe area (present-day Bayelsa State), he made his name big time in politics with Lagos as his base. He was only thirty-three years old when he became the first editor of “The Daily Times of Nigeria” in June 1926. He is remembered as one of Nigeria’s first-generation nationalists who used journalism and politics to push for Nigeria’s independence on 1st October 1960. Sadly, he died three weeks later at the age of 67. He was buried in Lagos. His widow was formerly Mrs Fani-Kayode, the mother of Chief Remi Fani-Kayode (ex-University of Cambridge), who later became the deputy premier of the Western Region of Nigeria.

As for Dr Taslim Olawale Elias (1914 to 1991), he attended Model Primary School in the Isale Eko Area, Lagos, and proceeded to Igbobi College, Yaba. He studied law at University College, London, and obtained his LLB in 1946, LLM in 1947 and PhD in 1949 – becoming the first African to get a PhD in law from London University. He was the key record-time drafter of Nigeria’s 1960 independence constitution.

Dr Elias obtained both his master’s degree and doctorate in record time.

During the Second World War, he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge University. He was a research fellow from 1954 to 1960 at Nuffield College/Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University. He was Nigeria’s attorney-general and chief justice of Nigeria from 1972 to 1975. His crowning achievement was to serve as the first African president of the International Court of Justice (in The Hague, Netherlands) from 1982 to 1985. One of his sons – Taoheed Olufemi Elias – has followed in his footsteps and is currently serving as a judge ad hoc at the International Court of Justice.

The family house of Justice Sir Olumuyiwa Jibowu (1899 to 1959) is still in the Apongbon/Offin area of Lagos. He was actually born in Abeokuta (Ogun State), and it was from Abeokuta Grammar School that he gained admission to study civil law at Oxford University in 1919. He was called to the Bar at Middle Temple, London, in 1923. He was expected to become Nigeria’s first indigenous Chief Justice in 1958, but a petition blocked it, and the post went to Sir Adetokunbo Ademola. His wife, Lady Deborah Jibowu, was a teacher at King’s College, Lagos, from 1949 to 1950.