Recently I wrote about a major study of 18 shipwrecks from 1852 to 2011 that challenges the myth of “women and children first”.   Many were interested in digging deeper to understand the meaning.

Last week I posed the question in the name of resilience-building to my spring NYU mental health for musician’s class.  Their answer to who is first off a sinking ship?  Women and children.  Let’s look at the research.

• Crew members have the highest survival – 18.7% more likely to survive than passengers overall (after all, they are trained to know how to jump off the ship).
• Next, adult men with a 34.6% survival rate – significantly higher than women in 10 of 16 wrecks.
• Adult women were next off the boat with a 17.9% survival rate.
• And what about children? They had the lowest survival rate 15.3%, the worst outcome of all groups studied.

The bottom line: Power, strength and access – not gallantry – determined who lived.

In life trusting yourself and building resilience matters.

Dr. Benjamin Spock reminds us “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”

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