Positively Deviant Moms

Positive Deviance is a data term which essentially means thriving against the odds. I chose this as the name for my consultancy because it highlights all the things that interest me professionally and personally.

Claire Castelyn, Sue Castelyn, Lauren Wortmann and Jessica Castelyn

In early childhood development, mothers (and grandmothers) have been proven time and time again to be one of the core reasons for when a child is able to thrive against the odds, not the only reason! They are often the reason where, despite what the data tells us their trajectory should go, they thrive and succeed in ways that we cannot predict.

I recently watched Robbie Williams' 'Better Man' biopic. So beautifully weird. His mother and grandmother's influence on his trajectory really stood out to me. His story might be unique in his rise to fame (and in so many other ways), what is not as unique is the maternal figures who broke down barriers and influenced him to enable him to get where he has. Another key example is Trevor Noah. A fellow South African who often speaks about both his mother and grandmother and the influence they had on him in being able to reach the heights that he has.

My own interest in positive deviance started when I was first accepted into my Masters. I had recently met the incredible Prof. Iram Siraj and eagerly devoured her book "Social Class and Educational Inequality: The Impact of Parents and Schools". This book tells the stories of 13-16 year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds in the UK who were able to thrive against the odds. I then moved on to Prof. Annette Lareau's "Unequal Childhoods" which tells a similar story of children in the US. These books gave me a vocabulary for what I am fascinated by - how do some thrive in circumstances where others cannot? The answer is often, mothers who fight the system to ensure that their children thrive and succeed. 

A while later I met Dr. Sonja Giese, the founder of DataDrive 2030 - their work gave me the term positive deviance which so beautifully describes what I care about most. (I am eagerly awaiting the 2024 Mpumalanga Thrive by Five data! :))

As most of you know, I am South African. Our country is the most unequal country in the world and so I hope that this fascination with thriving against the odds is fairly self-explanatory. In a society (and world) that is so unequal, how can we scale the strategies which lead to thriving against the odds when the odds are this bad?

What most don't know is my own story. And the role that my mother has played in my own positive deviance.

My mother does not have a university degree and she started her own company when my sisters and I were young children. She pushed every boundary and succeeded against her own odds. She also raised three daughters who have succeeded in their own ways despite what any data would have predicted. Our Mom broke down those barriers for herself but also to lead the way for the three of us to do the same. While we have all done it in incredibly different ways, we have done it in large part because we had her fighting for us.

Our Mom was textbook in the way that she changed our path and fought to make sure that we succeeded. She pushed us, she fought the rules, she taught us how to navigate the system. She could be one of the case studies in the texts I have referenced above.

I will always be grateful to be Sue Castelyn's daughter. 

Happy belated Mothers' Day to all the mom's who have given us the privilege of being Positively Deviant.