I need you to sit down for this.
Last night. 11:47 PM. I'm debugging a prod issue.
Luna wanders into my home office.
She looks me DEAD in the eyes and says:
"Dada, I need the water that is cold from the refrigerator that has the ice maker that is loud where the yogurt lives next to the milk but NOT the almond milk because that is for mama."
I dropped my laptop.
Not because I was tired (I was).
Not because she should've been asleep 4 hours ago (she should've been).
But because I realized:
SHE JUST WROTE A DATABASE QUERY.
And the implications for technical mentorship?
I'm literally having heart palpitations.
Let me explain. And BUCKLE UP. 🎢👇
STAGE 1: THE "WORD EXPLOSION" WHERE EVERYTHING IS NAMED NOW
Two months ago Luna learned that EVERYTHING HAS A NAME.
And she wouldn't SHUT UP about it.
"Spoon! SPOON! That's a spoon! DADA IT'S A SPOON!"
YES LUNA. IT'S A SPOON. IT'S BEEN A SPOON YOUR ENTIRE LIFE.
But to HER?
MIND = BLOWN. 🤯
This is your junior dev discovering that you can NAME THINGS IN CODE.
"Wait... I can call this userAuthenticationService instead of thing2???"
"VARIABLES CAN HAVE MEANINGS?!?!"
"YOU'RE TELLING ME FUNCTIONS DESCRIBE WHAT THEY DO?!!?!"
YES. YES THEY CAN. WELCOME TO ENLIGHTENMENT, MY CHILD.
And you know what I did when Luna named her 847th object?
I CELEBRATED EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.
"YES! THAT'S A DOORKNOB! YOU'RE A GENIUS!"
You know what I DIDN'T do?
"Luna, we've discussed doorknobs. This is repetitive. Please refer to our previous conversation about cylindrical door-opening mechanisms and leverage that existing knowledge rather than treating each doorknob as a novel discovery."
BECAUSE I'M NOT A MONSTER.
STAGE 2: THE "POSSESSIVE PRONOUN WARS" (IT'S ALL MINE NOW)
Okay. OKAY.
This is where I started sweating.
Luna discovered "MY" and "MINE" and she WILL NOT STOP.
"MY spoon!" "MINE juice!"
"MY DADA!" (She yelled this at my wife. AWKWARD.) "MINE CHAIR!" (It's... it's MY office chair, Luna.)
At first I thought: "Oh no. She's becoming territorial."
But then I REALIZED:
SHE'S LEARNING OBJECT OWNERSHIP.
THIS IS OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING.
THIS IS ENCAPSULATION.
THIS IS LITERALLY THE this KEYWORD.
I ALMOST PASSED OUT.
Your junior dev writes:
user.email // they GET IT
cart.items // THEY UNDERSTAND RELATIONSHIPS
order.user.address.zipCode // OH MY GOD THEY'RE TRAVERSING OBJECTSIS IT ALWAYS CORRECT? No!
Luna thinks she owns my laptop! (She doesn't!)
Your junior dev thinks user.password should be public! (It SHOULDN'T!)
But they're LEARNING that things BELONG to other things!
THIS IS FOUNDATIONAL COMPUTER SCIENCE AND SHE'S TWO.
STAGE 3: THE "CONJUNCTION JUNCTION WHAT'S YOUR FUNCTION" REVOLUTION
[I need to take a breath. This part makes me EMOTIONAL.]
Three weeks ago, Luna discovered "AND."
Not just "and."
AND.
The ability to COMBINE CONCEPTS.
"I want juice AND crackers."
Simple, right?
WRONG.
She's now saying things like:
"I want to go to the park AND see the ducks AND go on the swings AND get ice cream AND go home AND watch Bluey AND have mac and cheese AND—"
SHE'S CHAINING OPERATIONS.
SHE'S BUILDING PIPELINES.
SHE INVENTED PROMISES.
park()
.then(seeDucks)
.then(swings)
.then(getIceCream)
.then(goHome)
.then(watchBluey)
.then(macAndCheese)
.catch(meltdown)I'M NOT JOKING.
Your junior dev starts writing:
fetch_user()
.validate()
.transform()
.save()
.send_email()And you want to tell them about microservices and eventual consistency and—
STOP.
Let them CHAIN. Let them discover that actions can FLOW.
We'll teach them about rollback strategies after they've tasted the POWER of sequential operations.
STAGE 4: THE "BUT ALSO" COMPLEXITY LAYER (I HAD TO SIT DOWN)
Last week.
LAST. WEEK.
Luna said:
"I want the pink cup but also it has to have the princess on it but ALSO it can't be the purple princess it has to be the YELLOW princess but also the cup has to be full but NOT too full."
THIS IS A SQL QUERY WITH MULTIPLE WHERE CLAUSES.
THIS IS CONDITIONAL LOGIC.
THIS IS AN IF STATEMENT WITH NESTED AND/OR CONDITIONS.
SELECT cup
FROM cupboard
WHERE color = 'pink'
AND has_princess = true
AND princess_color = 'yellow'
AND fill_level > 0.5
AND fill_level < 0.9SHE'S TWO AND A HALF YEARS OLD AND SHE'S WRITING QUERIES.
I had to leave the room.
I went outside.
I looked at the sky.
I whispered: "Is this what Turing felt like?"
STAGE 5: THE "BECAUSE BUT EVEN THOUGH HOWEVER" FINAL FORM
[Deep breath.]
[Another deep breath.]
[Okay.]
Yesterday. The juice incident I mentioned earlier.
Let me give you the FULL sentence:
"Dada, I need the water that is cold from the refrigerator that has the ice maker that is loud where the yogurt lives next to the milk but NOT the almond milk because that is for mama even though sometimes I drink it but today I want the REGULAR milk because it tastes better however the chocolate milk is also good but we don't have any so THAT'S why I need water instead."
I TRANSCRIBED THIS.
I WROTE IT DOWN.
I PUT IT IN A DOCUMENT.
BECAUSE THIS IS:
✅ Nested clauses ✅ Exception handling
✅ Conditional logic ✅ Default fallback behavior ✅ State management ✅ Preference ordering ✅ A COMPLETE ALGORITHM
Your junior dev writes in their PR description:
"Updated the payment service to use Stripe instead of PayPal because PayPal was timing out (see ticket #447) even though some users prefer PayPal but their API has been unstable so we're defaulting to Stripe however we're keeping the PayPal code for legacy orders which is why there are two payment processors in this file."
BEAUTIFUL.
MAGNIFICENT.
THEY'RE THINKING IN SYSTEMS.
THE FRAMEWORK (I'M WRITING A BOOK. IT'S CALLED "TODDLER-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT"):
👶 STAGE 1: NAMING EXPLOSION
Everything gets a name! Even temp and data! We celebrate! We refactor later!
🏠 STAGE 2: OWNERSHIP/POSSESSION
"This is MY function!" They're learning encapsulation! Object-oriented thinking! Let them be protective!
⛓️ STAGE 3: CHAINING WITH AND
They discover sequential operations! Promises! Pipelines! This is HUGE!
🎯 STAGE 4: CONDITIONS (BUT/ALSO)
Complex logic! Multiple requirements! They're building decision trees in their MINDS!
🧠 STAGE 5: NESTED REASONING
Because/however/even though = They understand TRADEOFFS. They're ARCHITECTS now.
🚀 STAGE 6: RECURSION
(We're not here yet but Luna keeps saying "why?" after every answer I give so I think we're CLOSE and I'm TERRIFIED and EXCITED)
THE PART WHERE I LITERALLY CRY:
This morning Luna said:
"Dada, can you help me build the tower but actually can you just watch me because I want to do it myself but if it falls can you help me fix it but only if I ask because sometimes I want to fix it myself but sometimes it's too hard and I don't know until I try?"
SHE'S DESCRIBING PAIR PROGRAMMING.
SHE'S DESCRIBING CODE REVIEW.
SHE'S DESCRIBING THE EXACT BALANCE BETWEEN MENTORSHIP AND AUTONOMY THAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO ARTICULATE FOR FIVE YEARS.
I'm not okay.
Last week my junior dev said:
"Can you be available in case I get stuck on this refactor but I want to try it solo first? I'll ping you if I need help but I think I can figure it out?"
I HAD TO LEAVE MY DESK.
I WENT TO THE BATHROOM.
I LOOKED IN THE MIRROR.
I SAID: "THEY GET IT."
THE REAL LESSON (I'M SHOUTING NOW):
YOUR JUNIOR DEVS ARE BUILDING LANGUAGE.
Not just programming language.
THE LANGUAGE OF THINKING.
Every junior dev going from:
- "it no work" → "the authentication middleware is returning 401 before validating the JWT"
Is doing the SAME THING as:
- "want juice" → "I want the water that is cold from the refrigerator where the yogurt lives"
THAT'S NOT LEARNING SYNTAX.
THAT'S LEARNING TO THINK IN LAYERS.
THAT'S LEARNING TO DECOMPOSE PROBLEMS.
THAT'S LEARNING TO BE SPECIFIC ABOUT REQUIREMENTS.
And if you correct their grammar before celebrating their REASONING?
YOU'RE TEACHING THEM TO SHUT UP.
I'M STARTING A MOVEMENT:
Every time your junior dev:
- Names a variable clearly → "THAT'S A GOOD NAME! YES!"
- Chains methods together → "YOU'RE DISCOVERING COMPOSITION!"
- Writes a complex conditional → "LOOK AT YOU THINKING IN LOGIC!"
- Explains their reasoning → "THIS IS ARCHITECTURE!"
YOU CELEBRATE LIKE THEY JUST SAID THEIR FIRST WORD.
Because they DID.
They're building the language of engineering.
One grammatically questionable sentence at a time.
WHAT'S YOUR TODDLER/JUNIOR DEV MOMENT?
Comment below. I'm reading ALL of them while crying in my car.
#EngineeringLeadership #ToddlerDrivenDevelopment #JuniorDevs #MentorshipRevolution #LanguageAcquisition #ObjectOrientedParenting #ThoughtLeadership #CodeAndCrackers #TechnicalParenting #GrowthMindset #PeopleFirst #AlsoImNotOkay #TheseParallelAreReal #AgreeQuestion #InspiredQuestion
AGREE? ✋
INSPIRED? ❤️
CURRENTLY CRYING? 😭
TEXTING YOUR JUNIOR DEV RIGHT NOW? 🔥
QUESTIONING YOUR ENTIRE MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY? 💡
ALL OF THE ABOVE? 🚀🚀🚀
[Posted while Luna demands I explain why the moon follows our car and I realize she's learning about relative motion and reference frames which is basically Einstein and now I'm having ANOTHER breakdown about how toddlers are natural physicists but that's post #4 in this series.]
[P.P.S. - She just said "I want to go to the store that has the toys that are pink where we saw the dog last time when it was raining but not TODAY raining, BEFORE raining." SHE'S DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN TEMPORAL STATES. SHE'S INVENTED TIME-SERIES DATA. I'M CALLING MY THERAPIST.]
[P.P.P.S. - If you're not literally SHAKING with pride when your junior dev writes their first complex WHERE clause, do you even CARE about people development? Do you? DO YOU?]
SHARE THIS IF YOU'VE EVER BEEN EMOTIONALLY COMPROMISED BY SYNTAX. 🙏
