[HN Gopher] The unusual ways Western parents raise children
___________________________________________________________________
The unusual ways Western parents raise children
Author : elijahparker
Score : 233 points
Date : 2021-02-24 12:39 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| swader999 wrote:
| We put the crib close to our bed, much easier for mom. Dad got
| ear plugs.
| TomK32 wrote:
| We had our baby in our bed between us and usually I woke up
| first when the baby wanted to be nursed and just gently pushed
| it so she could get nursed by her mother. Worked fine. We're in
| Austria.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| It's funny, human mothers have a unique trait through which
| they can identify the cries of their particular child, even at
| a playground where a lot of kids are making noise. Somehow,
| mothers are able to cut through all the din and identify the
| voice of their young child, at the exclusion of all others.
|
| Nature does so much to bring mothers closer to their young, yet
| fathers do not possess this "talent." In fact, we seem eager to
| block out some of that natural closeness we feel towards our
| children. We use ear plugs now, but I am sure we used animal
| fur and cotton to achieve the same effect centuries earlier.
| rtuulik wrote:
| If you spend more time with your child, you will also develop
| this "magical" power.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| As a man who put his career on hold to be the stay at home
| parent, this seems extremely out of touch. In my house I'm
| the one with the "talent"; it has nothing to do with gender.
| It had everything to do with being in tune with another human
| being.
| stevekemp wrote:
| Agreed, I did the same thing.
|
| Towards the end I could tell, from the sounds of his
| crying, whether he was hungry, tired, or hurt too. (Towards
| the end in the sense that he was able to answer questions,
| or use words to explain a little what was going on. Raising
| him bilingually, and it took a while for him to start
| speaking.)
| TomK32 wrote:
| I can hear my daughter just fine on a crowded playground.
| It's all about spending a decent amount of time with your own
| children.
| andi999 wrote:
| Any sources? At least my experience tells differently.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| Yes, I provide this in my follow-up reply to my comment.
| [0]
|
| All humans have the capability to intricately form an aural
| bond with their own (and other) children if they have
| enough meaningful interactions with that child. But there
| is nonetheless a specific change brought about in women
| during their first pregnancy that gives them an advantage
| on this front, especially with their own children.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26254581
| dagw wrote:
| _human mothers have a unique trait through which they can
| identify the cries of their particular child, even at a
| playground where a lot of kids are making noise._
|
| That has nothing to do with being a mother and everything to
| do with spending a lot of time with that child. I'll bet that
| anybody who spends enough time with a child will be able to
| do that, regardless of that persons gender or genetic
| relation to the child.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| Please see my general response to all the negativity I've
| received here [0].
|
| To address your specific point, though, which was echoed by
| others in this thread, there is a lot of truth to the human
| ability to hone their auditory memory, especially when it
| comes to sounds that fall within the human auditory
| frequency range. Many of us have experienced this
| phenomenon not only with their own and others' children,
| but also with their house pets (especially cats and
| parrots), and even machines (i.e., your car, your air
| conditioner, your server, etc.)
|
| Nonetheless, as I have shown, there is a particular
| biological difference exhibited between first-time mothers
| and first-time fathers. Nothing about this statement
| invalidates or calls into question your own statement and I
| agree with it wholeheartedly.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26254581
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| I am _shocked_ by the responses I have received to this
| comment.
|
| First off, I thought it was a lot more conventionally
| understood that mothers' bodies undergo permanent hormone-
| driven changes during pregnancy - and that these changes
| yield some more-or-less common outcomes across cultures and
| locales. [0] One of those outcomes is the following:
|
| > _The researchers found that the mothers had surprisingly
| consistent responses to their crying babies, "and in a very
| short amount of time from the start of the cry, five seconds,
| they preferred to pick up and hold or to talk to their
| infant," Bornstein said._
|
| I _also_ thought it was much more conventionally understood
| that fathers do not exhibit the same changes as mothers do.
| [1] Nevertheless, I want to make it clear that I do not have
| children. My understanding of this phenomenon stems from my
| background in psychoacoustics, not child-rearing.
|
| Second, though, and perhaps more importantly, I am pretty
| disappointed in this community for laboring to interpret my
| points as misogynistic, out of touch with modern norms, or
| whatever, when a simple google search would have easily
| brought my points into context. Perhaps I failed to follow
| the conventions of citing resources to learn more about these
| things, but as I already indicated I didn't do this because I
| thought the majority of those commenting would have already
| been aware of this research. I apologize for not including it
| and I will try to do better in the future.
|
| [0] https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/23/health/moms-babies-crying-
| res...
|
| [1] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/womens-
| mens-br...
| Aunche wrote:
| One thing that I find weird about the Western (perhaps just
| American) way of raising kids is that the retired population is
| surprisingly uninvolved in the raising of their grandchildren. It
| seems like an economic inefficiency when parents are spending so
| much money on childcare while old people are feeling increasingly
| lonely.
| ksd482 wrote:
| Good point. I am an Indian, raised in India, came to US at 19.
|
| I notice the same thing here. We have neighbors who are white
| and have their grandkids over every day. It is very refreshing
| to see.
|
| However, it is a rare thing to see at the same time. I have
| never seen other native born Americans talk about their
| grandkids or heard of them being involved in their upbringing.
|
| I am cautious of the stereotypes such as when they retire, they
| just want to be left alone, travel and not be bothered. But the
| stories where they end up in old age homes while their children
| are fully grown adults and successful, are far too often. This
| doesn't make sense to me because on one hand they would look
| forward to their children and grandchildren visiting them in
| their old age homes, on the other hand they don't want to live
| together.
|
| Sure, I am fine with the idea "if it works for them, then good
| for them", but it doesn't seem to work for them.
|
| So to summarize, I think the American culture is still trying
| to figure itself out. Perhaps things would fall into place in a
| generation or two after learning from other cultures (and of
| course, other cultures learning some good things from American
| culture).
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Assuming people have a good relationship with their parents,
| they would want them to be involved in their children's
| lives.
|
| The bigger issue, in my social circles at least, is that
| Americans don't live near the grandparents. The economic
| opportunities exist in a certain few areas, and either the
| parents aren't willing to take the economic/quality of life
| hit to leave near their grandparents, or the grandparents
| can't afford to come live near the grandkids. Especially in
| the "good school" district areas.
|
| The best situation I've seen is from Everybody Loves Raymond,
| grandparents nearby, but still in a separate house. But few
| grandparents will be located in the same neighborhood as the
| kids. Typically, similar size/price houses are located near
| each other, and the more expensive homes in with access to
| better schools come with higher property taxes/maintenance,
| which older people might not want to pay.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are a lot of grand parents involved in the young, then
| the kids grow up and teens just don't need as much time and so
| the grand parents are lonely. There are a lot of lonely great-
| grand parents that someone fit into this. There are a lot of
| people who don't live close to the grand parents (but may have
| a sibling who does).
| laurencerowe wrote:
| I think this varies a lot by social/educational group. College
| educated folks often end up moving to different cities for
| college and then work so grandparents aren't in the same place
| any longer (and with multiple kids in different cities could
| not be for all of them.)
| beart wrote:
| I am from the U.S. My mother has my kids at least two days a
| week. It saves me money, gives her an excuse to come over, and
| the kids love it. After I finish working we will typically make
| dinner together. I did not have this sort of experience growing
| up and I'm really glad things have worked out this way for my
| kids.
|
| If only I could get her to stop cleaning everything while she's
| at my house and filling my fridge with vegan alternatives.
| kkwteh wrote:
| From the perspective of the Lindy principle it is weird.
|
| I have an eighteen-month old child and have been reading a lot
| about child rearing since my wife got pregnant.
|
| It's taboo to say this, and I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but
| I suspect that a lack of adult attention in the first three years
| of life is a principal factor in the rising autism rates we're
| seeing in modern economies. This would explain why autism seems
| to "cluster" in upper class homes, where the parents work
| nonstop.
|
| It turns out this hypothesis was put forth by Kanner in the 50's
| and is as old as autism itself, but it was rejected for political
| reasons and it is not refuted by the science.
|
| I first heard this hypothesis from the lectures of Gabor Mate,
| and it makes a lot of sense to me. If you look at what autism
| treatment actually is, it's all just play therapy where you give
| a child attention and teach them that if they bid for an adult's
| attention they will respond empathetically. This treatment only
| makes sense if they didn't already learn to do this as an infant.
| ThrustVectoring wrote:
| > This would explain why autism seems to "cluster" in upper
| class homes, where the parents work nonstop.
|
| The diagnosis of _any_ mental health condition has causal
| factors outside of the presence and severity of the underlying
| condition. Specifically, there needs to be enough stress
| /maladaptation that diagnosis is sought in the first place,
| sufficient resources and access to care to seek diagnosis, and
| a support and care system that is otherwise unable to handle
| the patient.
|
| It's not as simple as "has disease" => "get diagnosis". Bill
| Gross, the "Bond King", was too busy running mutual funds to
| get an autism spectrum diagnosis until a psychologist mentioned
| Asperger's in a dinner party in his _seventies_ , whereupon his
| wife commented along the lines of "yeah, you obviously have
| it". If you don't get demands placed on you that you cannot
| meet, you don't get diagnosed.
|
| Anyhow, my point is that upper class families are far more
| likely to A) place additional demands on their children, B) be
| able to seek professional diagnosis, and C) contract out
| childcare to workers in lieu of DIYing it and just putting up
| with their child behaving differently. This all is more than
| enough to predict the gap in diagnosis without _any_ causal
| link between adult attention and autism. It 's also the sort of
| thing to explain the correlation between diagnosis and low IQ -
| if you're autistic and smart, you're more likely to get enough
| pieces of your life right that nobody ends up putting in the
| effort to generate an official diagnosis.
|
| > I suspect that a lack of adult attention in the first three
| years of life is a principal factor in the rising autism rates
| we're seeing in modern economies.
|
| My suspicion is that modern economies are a lot more atomized,
| and people suffer a lot more for not fitting into the square
| holes that are increasingly the only thing on offer. This
| _also_ explains the rising diagnosis rates for other mental
| health conditions, _especially_ ADHD.
| jbob2000 wrote:
| Checkout this article, "Childhood autism spikes in geek
| heartlands":
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20589-childhood-autis...
|
| There's a correlation between parents who are both
| "systemizers" and their child having autism.
|
| I've also heard the theory that Austism is basically what we've
| been genetically selecting for over the last 100 years or so -
| the world wants brainless consumers - what is better than
| someone with sensory disorders, who can be primed to get up and
| buy with a simple prick?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > the world wants brainless consumers
|
| We don't have to select for that, the vast majority of people
| are already brainless consumers. And most of them think they
| are not.
| tryonenow wrote:
| >the world wants brainless consumers - what is better than
| someone with sensory disorders, who can be primed to get up
| and buy with a simple prick?
|
| That's a pretty broad and inaccurate generalization of autism
| spectrum disorders. If anything I think people on the
| spectrum are far less likely to be convinced to buy products
| through advertisement. Autism is a sort of innate
| stubbornness.
| [deleted]
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _I suspect that a lack of adult attention in the first three
| years of life is a principal factor in the rising autism rates
| we're seeing in modern economies. This would explain why autism
| seems to "cluster" in upper class homes, where the parents work
| nonstop._
|
| Upper class parents don't necessarily need to work non stop,
| and when they do, they can afford to have an adult give their
| kids attention. To make this claim, you have to show that upper
| class parents neither give their kids attention nor hire a
| nanny/au pair/have a grandparent looking after their kids.
| Kluny wrote:
| > This would explain why autism seems to "cluster" in upper
| class homes, where the parents work nonstop.
|
| Are you under the impression that people lower income
| households work less? If anything, I'd expect the opposite to
| be true.
| rtx wrote:
| I have data set of one against this, I find it to more of a
| physical difference. But hoping we can get some conclusive
| research around it.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > On the contrary, Kanner held tightly to his original proposal
| that autism was an innate condition, which was widely
| understood to mean it had a genetic basis. His behavioral
| observations of parents contributed to a breakthrough concept
| that is wholly consistent with genes being a key part of the
| autism story. Instead of parenting causing autism, Kanner's
| idea -- which has since been validated -- was that autism (and
| its genetic roots) underlies some of the behavior in a subset
| of parents.
|
| [1] https://www.spectrumnews.org/opinion/viewpoint/correcting-
| th...
| Pyramus wrote:
| Fascinating how classic research from the 40s has been turned
| on its head completely.
|
| Would be interesting to see parent's response.
| kkwteh wrote:
| I can think of some rather obvious reasons why Kanner would
| reframe his position publicly. It's just way too taboo.
|
| Kanner said that his believed autism had a genetic basis. I
| think it's a cop-out, as I don't think it makes any sense
| to blame genetics for the sudden appearance and dramatic
| rise of autism (and other childhood disorders) over the
| timespan of a few decades, even if genetics may certainly
| play a role in our susceptibility to these disorders.
|
| In any case, this is merely my suspicion. I'm not a
| researcher on this subject.
|
| The reason why I wrote that comment is because the stakes
| are high and the evidence is suggestive enough that this
| merits more of a discussion.
|
| Every parent has to decide how much attention their child
| gets. How many parents would do things differently if they
| knew the impact it could have? Reading the research
| definitely opened my eyes and changed my opinion on how to
| raise our child.
| technobabble wrote:
| quote: He wrote that, overall, the parents seemed
| perfectionistic and preoccupied with abstractions, rather
| than showing a genuine interest in people.
|
| I find this sentence interesting in comparison to the phrase
| "dumb people talk about people, average people talk about
| things, smart people talk about ideas" that I've seen in
| various forms on the internet.
|
| Hot take: People are over-optimizing for grand impact, while
| neglecting the more profound impact on the local level. Most
| people will not be senators, but I think many people, with
| some work, can run for office as an alderman, mayor, or
| county representative.
| yukogon wrote:
| I'm a layman, but I have a theory it's related to noise levels
| in modern environments (especially always-on TVs). Curious what
| your thoughts are, since you seem to be somewhat familiar with
| the literature.
| leto_ii wrote:
| > This would explain why autism seems to "cluster" in upper
| class homes, where the parents work nonstop.
|
| This is an unexpected observation for me. Do you have any
| references you can point to? I would be interested in knowing
| more about this.
| kkwteh wrote:
| I got that from the Wikipedia article on the Epidemiology of
| autism, citation 78.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism#cite_no.
| ..
| slibhb wrote:
| A simpler hypothesis is that "upper class people" are getting
| married later and having kids later. Higher parental age is
| associated with autism (among many other things).
| rayiner wrote:
| I wouldn't call it "weird" but there's certainly advantages and
| disadvantages. Bed sharing is one area where my wife (American)
| and I (Asian) have decided to do things the Asian way. By that, I
| mean I chose to do things the Asian way since I'm the nighttime
| parent. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210222-the-unusual-
| ways...
|
| > Debmita Dutta, a doctor and parenting consultant in Bangalore,
| India, says that despite Western influences, bedsharing remains a
| strong tradition in India - even in households where children
| have their own rooms. "A family of four has three bedrooms, one
| each for each child and for the parents, and then you would find
| both the children in the parent's bed," she says. "It's that
| common."
|
| > Bedsharing is one way to reduce the burden of babies waking up
| at night, says Dutta. Her own daughter had a rollout bed next to
| her parents' that she could sleep on until she was seven years
| old. "Even after she stopped breastfeeding, she still liked to
| sleep with us in the same room," she says.
|
| I gave up on sleep training for precisely that reason. It's super
| easy for me to feed the baby a bottle and get it back to sleep
| without even really waking up. But sleep training involved multi-
| hour sessions in the middle of the night where my daughter would
| make herself puke, sometimes more than once in the same night,
| sometimes followed by dry-heaving in protest after her stomach
| was empty. After a bit she was able to sleep on a sofa-sleeper in
| our room, which she quickly vacated when our second was born (due
| to the crying at night). I didn't even try sleep training with
| our second--I felt so guilty leaving him alone in a crib, with
| him standing holding the bars like some sort of prisoner.
| achenatx wrote:
| I do whatever is most convenient for me. We slept with our babies
| until they were 3-4 months. I typically did all the nighttime
| stuff like changing diapers etc because I fall asleep so fast. I
| was never exhausted. They did breast feed, but I would put them
| in the right place while my wife slept, then when they were done
| would change the diaper.
|
| When they started to sleep 5+ hours we moved them to their own
| room. We did let them cry, but I could easily tell if it was
| going to ramp down or if their crying was getting worse.
|
| When she was 1 our oldest regressed and I slept in her room for a
| month so she wouldnt come wake us up. She regressed multiple
| times.
|
| Our middle child never came down because he slept with his sister
| until he was about 4.
|
| Our 5 year old has started coming down to wake me up 2-3 times at
| night. I told her to either sleep with her brother or sister and
| not to bother me (I do all nightime activities).
|
| I found kids books incredibly boring so didnt read to my kids.
|
| I hardly play kid games with my kids, though I do have them
| participate in things I like to do.
|
| Im trying to give them independence as quickly as possible. We
| have a rule that the youngest person that can do a job has to do
| the job. So the youngest has to fetch things, while the oldest is
| starting to make meals and do laundry.
|
| They only get internet from 6am-7am once they are ready for the
| day and in the evening once all their work is done. I have never
| had to wake any of them for school ever. If they complain about
| being bored they get to do chores.
|
| I dont really use anyones' advice and would never feel shame or
| confusion about how to raise my children. I do see how many of
| our parents are scared to parent their kids.
| wayneftw wrote:
| I'm amazed that corporal punishment in schools is still legal
| throughout much of the US [0].
|
| Perhaps it's mostly not used. I'm not sure because I went to
| school in New Jersey where it's outlawed even in private schools.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_corporal_punishment_in_...
| wayneftw wrote:
| Hmmm - Sorry for bringing this up, HN.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I thought this was going to be a case where it's not explicitly
| spelled out in the constitution, so it's not expressly illegal
| unless a state makes it so. But no, corporal punishment has
| been codified to be expressly legal in some states!
|
| Can you imagine _fighting for the right to legally beat a
| child_? Not even your own child, but someone else 's?
| tryonenow wrote:
| >Can you imagine fighting for the right to legally beat a
| child?
|
| Can you imagine _fighting to keep unruly children
| undisciplined_? Not even your own child, but someone else 's?
|
| There's no need for sensationalism. Some kids don't listen to
| words. The idea that you can always reason with children is
| nonsensical - they're irrational and immature, and
| considering that physical punishment has been the norm
| throughout history, I doubt it has a significant effect on
| adult violence when used appropriately, especially when
| weighed against the value of discipline.
| gdubs wrote:
| One of the hardest thing about being a parent today is the
| constant shame and confusion about the "right" way to do it. We
| don't live in a hunter gatherer society anymore, we just don't.
| There's lots of wisdom in that way of life, and sure we could
| learn from it -- but there's enough anxiety as it is, parents
| don't need more of it.
|
| We have three kids and we sleep trained them. (Not a
| pediatrician, standard disclaimer.) This article calls it an
| 'extreme' practice. For us, 'extreme' was the sleep deprivation
| we experienced with baby number one as we tried every 'no cry'
| method in the book. The baby cried and cried and cried. Once we
| started sleep training, there was a bit of crying and then - a
| sleeping baby! Through the night! Total amount of crying went
| from hours to zero. The kid became happier -- they weren't sleep-
| deprived anymore. And neither were we. I no longer felt like I
| was going to drop the ball due to extreme exhaustion.
|
| Babies two and three had the benefit of our experience, and they
| barely cried at all. The third one would lay down eyes-open and
| fall asleep. "So it actually does happen! -- I thought the books
| must be lying."
|
| By all objective measures our kids are happy, healthy, and well-
| adjusted. But that doesn't mean we still don't get the stink eye
| from people who think it's a cruel practice.
|
| Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient.
| Find a doctor you trust. Don't let people add to an already
| stressful endeavor.
| 99_00 wrote:
| Is the article saying anything is 'right' or 'wrong'?
| sangnoir wrote:
| > For us, 'extreme' was the sleep deprivation we experienced
| with baby number one as we tried every 'no cry' method in the
| book.
|
| I was more generous in how I interpreted the article: the need
| for sleep-training is a consequence of the child having a whole
| different room to themselves. Parents in other cultures who
| share the room (or the bed) do not get the same level of
| extreme sleep deprivation and, as a consequence, will not need
| to sleep-train.
|
| To me, the article is not questioning how good the parenting in
| the west is - it's contrasting it with parenting elsewhere (and
| tracing the roots of the parenting practices)
| paganel wrote:
| > Parents in other cultures who share the room (or the bed)
| do not get the same level of extreme sleep deprivation
|
| That was my direct experience as a kid growing up in a non-
| Western society (I'm 40 now, am from Eastern Europe). When I
| first read about the Western tabu of parents not being
| allowed to sleep in the same bed with their children anymore
| I was a little surprised at first, and then saddened for
| those kids: "do you mean 3-year or 5-year old me should have
| slept all alone in his bed at night with no parent close to
| me? That is pure madness!"
|
| More than that, one of my most vivid memories as a kid was
| sleeping with my brother and my two grand-parents in the same
| 3x4 meter room (give or take), my brother with my grandma and
| 6-year old me with my grandpa (there were two beds, a stove,
| a TV set and a small table in that room). I can still
| remember my grandpa peeling apples or pears and sharing them
| with my brother and me, just before we all went to sleep
| while we were watching some TV, very, very nice memories (in
| fact my nickname is taken from a Soviet TV series we were
| watching then [1]). Afaik neither me, nor my brother (who is
| 2 years older than me) were making any unwanted sounds while
| we were asleep at night.
|
| [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088635/
| arbitrage wrote:
| > The baby cried and cried and cried.
|
| What did you expect having a child to be like?
| agumonkey wrote:
| We are in an orthodoctic era. Lots of tensions about what
| principle is the best to follow, less patience and acceptance.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Would you please define that word? I can't find a definition
| online and I try to look up unfamiliar words to widen my
| vocabulary.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Hm I improvised an adjective for orthodoxy. Maybe it's
| orthodoxic .. I hope you get the meaning now.
| anw wrote:
| The adjective form of orthodoxy is orthodox. Think of
| something like the "Orthodox" church. And it's antonym is
| "unorthodox", for example: "the unorthodox church" ;)
| agumonkey wrote:
| And what's the term for adding redundant adjective suffix
| to an adjective ? :)
| anw wrote:
| I'm not the OP, but my attempt through breaking down word
| etymologies would be something like:
|
| ortho: rigid, straight, correct
|
| doct: teachings, learnings
|
| ic: of, or pertaining to
|
| So orthodoctic seems to have the meaning of "pertaining to
| rigid or correct teachings".
| eecc wrote:
| I've heard of the word "orthorexia"
| mucholove wrote:
| What method of sleep training did you use?
|
| This article lists 6! https://www.todaysparent.com/baby/baby-
| sleep/most-popular-sl...
| dom96 wrote:
| I've been wondering the same, the BBC article explains:
|
| > the most extreme version of which involves leaving a baby
| on their own to "cry it out", in an effort to encourage their
| babies to sleep for longer stretches so their parents can get
| some much-needed rest.
|
| I'm not a parent but that sounds pretty sensible to me. Odd
| of the BBC to call it "extreme".
| cashewchoo wrote:
| We sleep-trained our first starting at about 6 months old,
| and we're about to do the same with our second. The
| strategy we used was some kind of incremental back-off. Put
| them down, light out, leave. Wait 5 mins. Go on, give them
| a little hug or back pat, leave. Wait 10. Then 15. Then 20.
| Then 30. Then stay at 30 until they fall asleep.
|
| Next night, 10, 15, 20, 30, 30, 30...
|
| next night, 15, 20, 30, 30, 30....
|
| At some point it went up to like 30 mins for first check,
| then an hour for subsequent checks. I think if we'd gotten
| to that point we'd consider trying something else cause
| that's a lot of crying.
|
| But in practice we never had to really adhere to most of
| the structure because iirc it was like:
|
| Night 1: 5, 10, 15, asleep. Night 2: 10, 15, asleep. Night
| 3: asleep. Night 4: 15, asleep.
|
| Then he was sleep trained and has slept like a rock with
| 0-30 seconds of fussing (usually 0) (and ~never crying)
| since.
| paddlepop wrote:
| This is called the Ferber method and it worked very well
| for us as well. Note to others considering using it, the
| method is just as much about the ritual leading up to
| sleep (bath, reading a book, etc)
| cashewchoo wrote:
| Ah I can see that, we've always had a pretty rigorously-
| respected bedtime routine.
| thombee wrote:
| The baby is crying because they want attachment to the
| parent. Give them the love they want. Don't deprive them of
| love by letting them cry it out. Comfort them!
| retrac wrote:
| You're not wrong. But at the same time... it's a very
| effective method with some babies. One thing often
| missing from these discussions is the practicality. Yes,
| responding to your child like that would be ideal. But it
| just can't be done if they literally just cry constantly
| when put to bed. And some babies do that! Sleep-deprived
| parents who come to actively resent their child's crying
| is a very real thing. And probably far worse for
| development and attachment.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| An informal application of #1, the Ferber method. On 4 kids.
| Worked great. Or seemed to, anyway. You can't know if
| anything actually works or if the baby just decided to start
| sleeping on his or her own.
| knolax wrote:
| > You want to continue to check on your baby at preset
| intervals but never feed or rock them to sleep
|
| Sounds like childrearing done by a robot.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _We have three kids and we sleep trained them. (Not a
| pediatrician, standard disclaimer.) This article calls it an
| 'extreme' practice._
|
| Sleep training appears to be standard for all the parents I
| know, in the U.S. and otherwise. I think it's more likely that
| the author of the article has extreme views on parenting that
| they're tying to impose on others.
| leipert wrote:
| Not necessarily standard in Germany. Some literature
| explicitly calls it out as cruel, parenting books coming from
| the US recommend it
|
| Mileage varies, know of one couple who did sleep training and
| had success with it.
|
| Other couples shared a bed with their kid until it was about
| two and when they moved to a different apartment they took
| the opportunity to explain: hey you have your own room now.
| mywacaday wrote:
| My wife and I went through the usual western slepo traibit cry
| out etc, I read an article about sleep cycles before
| electricity wher people had two sleeps per night, first one
| after dinner for 4-5 hours then and hour or two away where
| people had a snack or talked etc then went back to sleep for
| another few hours, I would liked to have tried that schedule
| with our kids even as a experiment, the sleep deprivation is
| horrible, I wonder if we aligned our schedule with our kids
| would it be better for everyone especially when they are babies
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| > Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and
| patient. Find a doctor you trust. Don't let people add to an
| already stressful endeavor.
|
| This, right here is the most important lesson we learned from
| our experience. There is no right or wrong way and others
| judging/criticising you for your parenting style have no clue
| what crazy cocktail of genetics+environment+hidden factors are
| affecting your family.
| enobrev wrote:
| I'm positive of two things in regards to being a parent (and a
| human):
|
| 1. I have no idea what I'm doing
|
| 2. Neither does anyone else.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| and,
|
| 3. billions of parents have gotten through this before you,
| you will too.
| rustybelt wrote:
| I'll add, the people saying something works and the people
| saying it doesn't are both right.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| Definitely, every baby is different and what works for one
| baby may not work for another.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Most of the hunter-gatherer parenting practices that get pushed
| on certain parenting blogs are pseudo-scientific and shouldn't
| be adopted. And some of claims that a baby crying is dumping
| enough cortisol into their bodies it will permanently damage
| their brains is NOT supported by science.
|
| What does have a strong scientific basis: the importance of
| sleep hygiene.
|
| Children don't need perfection or goofy hunter-gatherer hacks
| from their parents. They need love, support, and a measure of
| reasonable consistency[1] from them.
|
| [1] This is why having alcoholic parents can be so
| disruptive... children get a different experience sober vs
| intoxicated.
| blub wrote:
| It's not exactly rocket science to figure out that people
| crying are unhappy about something and need comforting.
| Later, babies learn to fake crying, but when they're really
| small it is a really good idea to check on them.
| NovaJehovah wrote:
| "And some of claims that a baby crying is dumping enough
| cortisol into their bodies it will permanently damage their
| brains is NOT supported by science."
|
| This is misleading. You're correct that there is not
| conclusive scientific evidence either way, but there are
| decent studies that support the cortisol theory. Not
| necessarily that it will "damage their brains", but that
| cortisol levels spike during sleep training and remain
| elevated even after the baby learns to stop crying at night.
| We know that, in general, elevated cortisol levels are bad
| for humans.
|
| The studies that claim to support sleep training are all
| terrible, unless there are new ones I haven't seen. The most-
| cited ones use self-reports from the parents themselves to
| measure "wellbeing" of the infant, which is plainly
| ridiculous.
| spamizbad wrote:
| I get the impression you're equating sleep training with
| the old fashioned "cry it out" method. We loosely followed
| the Karp method and had very little crying and a very happy
| baby.
| NovaJehovah wrote:
| In my experience, "sleep training" is just a more
| palatable euphemism for "cry it out". My view is that
| however you slice it, you are conditioning the baby that
| no one will respond to its distress.
|
| I'm glad you feel it worked out well for you. I honestly
| _hope_ it doesn 't cause problems, because it's very
| widespread. Based on our reading of the available
| evidence, we weren't willing to take the risk. Our lives
| certainly would be easier if we reached the opposite
| conclusion.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Everything is trade-offs. Less consistent sleep (for both
| the baby and the parents) is also clearly problematic.
| anomaloustho wrote:
| This sort of implies that all crying is the same. The
| data you can get as a parent is a lot richer than that.
| There is a difference between "stirring", "moaning",
| "calling", and "crying". There is also a question of
| whether you know in advance that your child has a high
| temperature, runny nose, ear pulling, diaper rash, etc.
|
| Combining those factors allows for a much more nuanced
| approach than a simple, "crying == trauma" boolean.
| NovaJehovah wrote:
| I'll probably get downvoted, but I strongly disagree with this
| mindset. Raising kids is not a fun hobby or a side project that
| will fit into a neat little drawer in your life. You have an
| obligation to do the best that you can. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah,
| it's stressful. Like it or not, that's what you signed up for.
| So step up.
|
| Like anything else in life, you can do a good job or a bad job
| at being a parent. If you're prioritizing your own convenience
| or ego or career over the wellbeing of your child, then you're
| a bad parent. Don't rationalize it with cliches like "love is
| all that matters" or search for online echo chambers of fellow
| shitty parents who will soothe your cognitive dissonance while
| your kid suffers. Make whatever sacrifices you need to, put the
| time in, and do better.
| thejackgoode wrote:
| > You have an obligation to do the best that you can
|
| This reads like an expectation mindset that with high
| probability will end up hurting you, your kid and your
| relationship. Somewhere here belongs the put-oxygen-mask-on-
| yourself-first metaphor
| twiddling wrote:
| As someone with older children, I can attest. Also the
| attitude can lead to a lot of tension with your co-parent.
| bihla wrote:
| It's possible you're coming from a very different background
| than me... I can understand your point of view if your
| context is being raised under real impoverished conditions; I
| agree a parent should do anything they can to meet a
| necessary level of stability for the child.
|
| But this comment makes me think of what is more likely
| familiar to members of this forum, where parents use their
| children to serve their own ego, trying to do everything to
| yield the best "Success" for their child where success is
| defined by the parent. For so many of us (professionals in
| the tech industry), the "wellbeing of your child" is not
| really a question--we know we'll be able to provide food,
| shelter, etc. People will say they do other things for the
| "wellbeing" but what they really mean is living out their own
| failed life goals by putting that baggage on their kid.
|
| So yeah, you got downvoted. It's possible you meant to make a
| more sympathetic point, but my first impression is that the
| comment espouses an actively harmful idea about the relation
| between parent and a child.
| NovaJehovah wrote:
| > the "wellbeing of your child" is not really a question
|
| Mental health, substance abuse, and suicide statistics,
| including among the middle and upper classes, would seem to
| strongly indicate otherwise.
|
| > It's possible you meant to make a more sympathetic point,
| but my first impression is that the comment espouses an
| actively harmful idea about the relation between parent and
| a child.
|
| So "try hard, make sacrifices, and do your best" is now
| considered problematic? The relativism in this mindset is
| absurd. Nobody here would claim that there's no right or
| wrong way to design a distributed system, or that there are
| no right or wrong ideas about religion, but we have to
| pretend it's the case with parenting so we don't hurt
| anyone's feelings?
| bihla wrote:
| Children are not clay to be molded, and they are not
| computer systems to be planned and carried out. They are
| individuals. And there are no clear solutions to mental
| health, substance abuse, or suicide--but there are clear
| non-solutions like helicopter parenting.
|
| EDIT: And best-efforts at laying out everything for your
| kid are more than potentially-wasted energy. It's
| smothering, controlling behavior of someone who should
| have the right to live and make their own choices and
| mistakes.
| NovaJehovah wrote:
| "Helicopter parenting" and "smothering" are not the only
| alternatives to self-serving, self-absorbed neglect.
|
| Throwing your hands up because something is hard and
| there are no obvious answers is not a recipe for doing a
| good job at... anything.
| bihla wrote:
| I guess I see fewer under-concerned parents than I do
| over-concerned parents. Of course there are both.
| NovaJehovah wrote:
| I most often see that kind of thing from parents who are
| trying to compensate for failing to be present in more
| fundamental ways.
| u678u wrote:
| > Like anything else in life, you can do a good job or a bad
| job at being a parent. If you're prioritizing your own
| convenience or ego or career over the wellbeing of your
| child, then you're a bad parent.
|
| Sounds like you have no clue. Try looking after 3 babies then
| come back an talk to us.
| NovaJehovah wrote:
| Sounds like you're making excuses instead of stepping up
| and taking responsibility for the choices you made.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| This is a pretty terrible accusation for someone who you
| know nothing about. Why would you take the argument here?
| [deleted]
| dantillberg wrote:
| Yes, I downvoted your comment. I don't doubt your intentions
| are admirable, but please don't shame strangers.
|
| GP is trying to survive in the world in which they find
| themselves. Will sniping some guilt at them summon up some
| hidden parenting strength?
| ramblerman wrote:
| > Don't rationalize it with cliches like "love is all that
| matters"
|
| Counter data point. My wife is Argentinian.
|
| I'd say the values you see in her family primarily is "love
| does come first" and strict boundaries on kids. E.g. the
| adults are talking, go away.
|
| When I compare that to my own nieces and nephews, they have
| little boundaries, are quite lethargic and can be quite
| arrogant. Yet their parents would all describe themselves by
| your standards.
|
| We also tend to put our elderly in homes, an idea that is
| abhorrant to my wife.
|
| So I guess what I'm trying to say is ideals are nice. But
| it's purely theory, mostly to serve your own sensibilities.
| info781 wrote:
| Argentina is pretty messed up, low trust culture, outside
| of the family.
| NovaJehovah wrote:
| I'm not trying to say there's one right way to do things.
| But there are a lot of plainly wrong ways.
|
| If your parenting philosophy is not based on any research
| or learning about what's best for your child, but instead
| on what's easiest and most convenient for _you_ , then
| you're probably doing it wrong. That doesn't mean you can't
| set boundaries for kids who are old enough to understand
| them.
|
| I think the way we discard our elderly is closely tied to
| our self-absorbed approach to parenting. If you don't put
| in the time and are unwilling to make sacrifices for your
| kids, you shouldn't expect them to be there for you when
| you need it.
| novembermike wrote:
| Keep in mind that the research around this is very poor.
| It's in the realm of things where flipping a coin might
| be better.
| NovaJehovah wrote:
| Most of it is, but not all of it. My own conclusion
| (which is not the one I _wanted_ to reach, believe me)
| was that when you throw out all the bad research, the
| evidence, while not conclusive, does clearly point more
| in one direction than the other.
| bihla wrote:
| So much of the "research" is not research at all. It's no
| surprise to see anti-vaccine sentiment run strong among
| Grace Manning-Devlin types.
| NovaJehovah wrote:
| It's true. Yet another hard thing about being a parent is
| that there is a lot of crappy "research" and advice to
| wade through (including most of the research claiming to
| support your view, btw). But there's some solid stuff out
| there too--pretending there isn't because you might reach
| conclusions that conflict with a self-serving parenting
| philosophy is just another excuse.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| > You have an obligation to do the best that you can. Yeah,
| it's hard. Yeah, it's stressful. Like it or not, that's what
| you signed up for. So step up.
|
| I'm not downvoting you but I strongly disagree. You have an
| obligation to do an adequate job of this. I think it's also
| important not to become a slave to the idea that you must
| always do more because it's "supposed to be hard." Doing a
| great job of raising kids doesn't have to be a grueling slog,
| and I suspect that people who think it does aren't doing as
| good a job as they think they are.
| NovaJehovah wrote:
| Who said it has to be a grueling slog? I said do your best,
| not wear a crown of thorns.
|
| I don't think it necessarily has to be hard, but people
| often make it harder than it needs to be because they're
| unwilling to make personal sacrifices.
|
| I just don't think we should give people participation
| trophies. If you're not doing a good job and you know it,
| you should face reality and fix it, not be told "there's no
| right or wrong way".
| leokennis wrote:
| To me, it's very simple: I work and my wife works. After some
| maternity/paternity leave, we both need to get to work again to
| earn money to provide our kids with food, shelter, a future
| etc.
|
| To be able to work, we need to sleep. For us to sleep, our kids
| and the baby needs to sleep.
|
| So we put the baby in his own room on day three. Always had him
| sleep in his bed in his room. Didn't let him sleep anywhere
| else (or when he fell asleep, put him in his bed). When in his
| room, he was there to sleep, not to play. So in short: sleep =
| bed = sleep = bed.
|
| He slept on his own through the night after seven weeks, with
| only two half awake feedings lasting maybe 15 minutes.
|
| Maybe in 1950 the wife was raised to not expect a career and
| could be up all night taking care of a crying baby, and the man
| could sleep and then on his own earn a living wage for the
| family during the day?
|
| Maybe in 10.000 b.C. parents could be up all night taking care
| of a crying baby and "the village" could then take care of the
| baby during the day while the parents slept?
|
| Maybe maybe maybe, but in 2021 there is almost no viable
| alternative apart from making sure your baby sleeps through the
| night sooner rather than later.
| souprock wrote:
| That situation is choice, pure and simple. You appear to be
| some sort of web or database developer, or possibly a system
| administrator. You can afford to support a family.
|
| The problem is this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses
|
| You forgo a lot to keep up with the Joneses. Family time gets
| cut.
|
| If that's the choice you really wish to make, OK. If not, cut
| costs until you can live a different sort of life. Hints:
| entertainment, restaurants, high rent, excessive travel,
| single-use items, services, the expenses due to that extra
| job, etc.
| mojolozzo wrote:
| I also see an alternative in 2021, even with both parents
| working. Just as a baby might be trained to sleep through the
| night, an adult can be trained to not sleep in one big chunk
| of 6-8 hours, but sleep in several chunks of a few hours. A
| little nap here and there, and some getting used to using
| your brain (=working) when tired is a viable alternative for
| me at least. While sleep is very important for ones health,
| having a child got me to realize that I can function with
| less sleep as well. This would be more in the spirit of
| ,,parents adapt to their new life as a young family" in
| contrast to ,,the baby adapts to the parents pre-family
| lifestyle". I am ready to sacrifice sleep for going out and
| working late, and so am I to comfort a crying brand-new
| descendant of mine. (Maybe I'll change my mind once the
| second baby is here ;) )
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| It is sad if in 2021 a wife (or a husband) cannot take even a
| year or half-year break from the career.
|
| (To avoid possible confusion, I am shaming the society, not
| you.)
| twiceinawhile wrote:
| > We don't live in a hunter gatherer society anymore, we just
| don't.
|
| What you describe isn't a "hunter gatherer society" issue. It's
| an innate human/pre-human/primate issue. Throughout human
| existence and our pre-human ancestor's existence, the
| infant/baby is with the mother 24/7 for the first few
| months/years of its life. This is something that stretches back
| millions of years. We really don't know what effects separating
| the baby from the mother at such an early age does for its
| emotional, psychological, etc development. Not to mention the
| mother's emotional, psychological, etc well being and of course
| the mother-child bonding.
|
| > The baby cried and cried and cried.
|
| It would be shocking if it started to lecture you on the pros
| and cons of the modern geopolitical world order. That a baby
| cried is par for the course.
|
| > Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and
| patient.
|
| Unless you need a good night's sleep? This is comes off as new
| age nonsense we just love in the US. It's trite and
| meaningless. Of course you raise it with love, it's your kid.
| Rather than the obvious, we should raise kids so that they are
| well prepared to compete and fend for themselves in the real
| world.
| InfiniteRand wrote:
| I think this anxiety exists in traditional society as well but
| instead of getting advice from books and news articles in
| traditional societies you get an avalanche of advice from
| relatives
| sanderjd wrote:
| Yeah we waiting a pretty long time to sleep train our first.
| Just doesn't _sound_ like something that can actually work. And
| seems really hard to do, psychologically. But we were kind of
| amazed how well and how quickly it worked. And yep, there are
| huge benefits to having a better rested baby and better rested
| parents. We 'll probably do it earlier next time.
| watertom wrote:
| 3 children, we only slept them in their rooms, starting day 10.
| Naps, day sleep, everything, they slept in their room and in
| their crib. The room was light controlled, meaning there was no
| light at all. They quickly associated any sleep with their room
| and their crib.
|
| We used a baby motion sleep mat for peace of mind for SIDS, the
| thing was so sensitive it could detect the breathing, but if
| the baby moved off the mat even a little bit it sounded an
| alarm.
|
| Unless a baby has colic, and we used baby dophilus for all our
| children to avoid any stomach or intestine issues, new babies
| aren't very fussy sleepers. The fussy sleeping usually happens
| when they get older, but by then they were accustomed to
| sleeping in their crib.
|
| We never once had a crying fit, we also never forced them to
| sleep, sometimes, just like adults they aren't ready for sleep,
| those moments were few and far between and we just surfed
| through those times.
|
| By 6 months all 3 children were sleeping through the nigh.
|
| Every soon to be new parent we coached on this method had the
| same success, probably 40+ babies.
| choeger wrote:
| That begs the question: How did you feed the little ones?
| Having a baby in its own room from day 10 implies a very high
| effort feeding schedule, no?
| anw wrote:
| If you don't mind, which motion-detecting sleep mat did you
| wind up going with?
| brianwawok wrote:
| Not OP, but we used a competing product, which is
|
| https://owletcare.com/
|
| It is a foot attachment that basically watches heart rate
| and oxygen level all night, and freaks out if something is
| wrong.
|
| Only a very few accidental freakouts (like kicked off
| foot), but gave a lot of peace of mind. Not cheap but seems
| pretty solid engineering wise.
| [deleted]
| blub wrote:
| There's the extinction method which is the most hardcore and
| there's also the Ferber method which has the parent
| periodically check in with the baby.
|
| Extinction is extreme, as one is basically abandoning the child
| to cry. They're scared, they don't know what's happening and
| they're alone.
|
| Sure, they're (probably?) not gonna suffer long-term damage,
| but it's just an asshole thing to do. In the book recommending
| this method all parents had their instincts screaming that
| they're doing something wrong and they were feeling guilty even
| if it worked.
| jahewson wrote:
| It's not suitable for new babies, that's for sure. But if
| you're closer to the 1yr mark then they're not crying because
| they're scared, they're crying because they know exactly
| what's happening and they want to party and not go through
| the effort of figuring out how to go to sleep, again.
|
| Some kids are just nuts. Ours both were. We went from an
| hour-long party of rolling, chanting, screaming, head-butting
| the wall, pulling the hair of any nearby parent, multiple
| times a night, to... asleep in 10mins. It felt bad at first
| until we saw how much his mood improved in the daytime
| because he wasn't exhausted.
| flycaliguy wrote:
| I much prefer a "hot tip" over advice. Here's my latest for
| example: Sometimes instead of telling my kid to do something,
| if I can just give the task a good "dad stare" then give him
| the same look, he's less likely to try and argue against me.
| Just tapping into that part of his brain that already knows
| what I want from him without vocalizing it gives him less room
| to wiggle out.
| eurusdac wrote:
| I agree, my advice to any new parent would be to listen
| carefully to advice about how not to drown your child while
| bathing them, and how to make sure they're not suffocated by
| their bedding. Both real issues where some simple practices
| avoid the small risk of an absolutely catastrophic outcome.
|
| Then take _all other advice_ with a pinch of salt. Just follow
| your best instincts and do what seems right. Your child will be
| fine, plus you 'll be more relaxed, you'll appreciate the time
| with them more. You'll have more time and emotional energy to
| understand and respond to how they are doing as well as how you
| and your partner are feeling, and your instincts will get
| better and better.
| jqgatsby wrote:
| Hey, wait, what is the advice to avoid drowning, other than
| not leaving them alone? Is there some subtle hazard I'm
| unaware of?
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| Not leaving them alone is enough, but to make people
| actually follow the rule, it is useful to tell them that
| kids are easily able to drown even in _unbelievably small_
| amounts of water, and also in situations where drowning
| seems almost _impossible_.
| hadlock wrote:
| I learned something today, and ours is about to turn 4
| months. None of this was communicated to us, probably
| because it's expected that you pick up most of this
| tribal knowledge via, pre-covid, other parents in your
| socio-age group.
|
| We attended an infant cpr class via zoom, learned
| nothing. We at least got the message about SIDS, but the
| lack of tribal knowledge in the first six weeks was
| pretty brutal as first-time parents.
| eurusdac wrote:
| Not really, it's just the simple advice not to let go of
| them or leave them is correct, common sense and important
| in that case.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Never leave them for even a second in the bath (drowning)
| and never leave them alone with food (choking).
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| This is like saying "don't speed if you don't want a
| speeding ticket".
|
| Yes, you can use absolute qualifiers like "never" and
| "always" to stupid proof general advice to a greater
| extent than you can with phrases like "common sense" and
| "where reasonable" but that doesn't automatically make
| the advice any more useful..
|
| I'm perfectly fine with the size of the drowning risk
| that comes with spending ~1min removing something from
| the oven when the timer goes off and other reasonable
| allowances like that. Of course I'm not gonna stop and
| watch TV with an infant in the sink. And if traffic's
| going 85 I'm going 85 but I won't be the first person
| going 85.
| mywittyname wrote:
| It sounds so obvious, until your dog gets his head stuck
| in the ficus tree planter and you can hear him running
| around, destroying your entire living room. You have to
| resist that initial urge to go help him until you've
| cleaned up the 16 blueberry puffs you've been coaxing
| your child to eat.
| jl6 wrote:
| Generally agree, except I'm not sure there is a bright line
| between the obviously-worthwhile precautions you mention and
| the paranoid overprecautions that might themselves carry
| harm.
|
| Seatbelts... yes. Choking first aid... yes.
|
| Healthy eating, talking to them frequently... probably?
|
| Lots of sunlight and fresh air... maybe?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| For myself, the risk SIDS didn't even enter my calculus. (I
| confess I am a little skeptical that it exists at all.)
|
| Regardless, I perceived the emotional bonding with the mother
| & father to far outweigh anything else and so we shared our
| bed with our children until they were perhaps 1 year old or
| so. And even after, they moved into their own small bed just
| a foot from ours in the same bedroom for another year or so.
|
| I guess that was my "instinct". Although we received a crib
| as a gift, it just sat in another room, empty.
| a2tech wrote:
| I very much believe SIDS is a real thing. I also think that
| many cases of SIDS are babies being smothered by soft cloth
| that bunches up and constricts their breathing and by
| accidentally smothered by their parents while they're
| deeply asleep. When kids are small I think co-sleeping is a
| great thing (where you have a small basinet or something
| similar next to your bed where you can reach out and touch
| your baby but they're safe from accidental
| crushing/smothering.
| mordechai9000 wrote:
| I knew someone - a co-workers sibling - who lost a baby
| that got stuck between couch cushions while sleeping. And
| they told everyone it was SIDS. I don't know if the cause
| of death was actually recorded as SIDS, though.
| [deleted]
| secabeen wrote:
| > accidentally smothered by their parents while they're
| deeply asleep
|
| This seems unlikely. 10% of babies share a sleep surface
| with parents, up from 6.5% in 1993, yet SIDS deaths are
| down over the same period:
|
| https://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20180212/baby-
| suffocation-de...
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/sids/data.htm
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Since the nineties they started advise parents that all
| infants should sleep on the back, which reduced SIDS a
| lot [0]. But it means that it is is very hard to draw any
| conclusions at all about other factors.
|
| [0] https://safetosleep.nichd.nih.gov/research/science/ba
| cksleep...
| TylerE wrote:
| Suffocation from co-sleeping is _NOT_ SIDS.
|
| https://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20180212/baby-
| suffocation-de....
| Hallucinaut wrote:
| Perhaps the parent comment is referring to a theory that
| parents reporting the situation around baby deaths as
| unexplained in order to deny blame or guilt for having
| placed the baby in the situation. There can't be much
| worse so it wouldn't surprise me if in the traumatic
| following days the recall isn't factual and unbiased.
| faitswulff wrote:
| Smothering is a much bigger problem if the parents in
| question drink alcohol before cosleeping.
| eurusdac wrote:
| I think SIDS is a real thing and there is clear evidence
| that not using pillows or excessive blankets in cribs has
| reduced deaths.
|
| I think sleeping with or not with your kid, is a much more
| complicated question and probably one where your instinct
| is right. After all, with a baby in the bed you can't help
| but be aware of its comfort, needs and amount of movement.
| christkv wrote:
| We used sleep suits the first year to avoid the whole
| loose cloth issue
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| In the UK the NHS have posters and leaflets about how
| parents should NOT sleep with their baby as deaths have
| occurred from parents "lying on and suffocating their new
| born". Of course this from drugged-up and/or drunk
| parents.
|
| If you don't fall into the "bad parent" category you'll
| be fine.
| cma wrote:
| Or if you take ambien or something like that it might not
| be a good idea.
| kinghtown wrote:
| Father here. I agree.
|
| So much of the parenting advice I see dips into micromanaging
| and min/maxing to an almost paranoid degree. Just learn about
| what could kill them in the first year and avoid that.
| Really, six months and under is the true window for SIDS with
| freak occurrences. Definitely be on the lookout for any
| poisonous cleaning products While you're at it and put them
| high off the ground.
|
| The pro parents who did it all before you are super annoying.
| I've had to politely listen to questionable advice many
| times. I much prefer people like you who get it. You got to
| trust your instincts about your own kids. There is broad
| advice which applies to everyone but everyone's kid is a
| little different from the norm as well and as a parent we
| know our kids better than anyone else.
| nix23 wrote:
| >Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient.
|
| Right and i would add, give them as many time with you as
| possible. Some of my greatest memory's was strolling around my
| dad workplace, when he had work todo. Children's don't need
| parent's as entertainment, but as adventure preparers.
| munificent wrote:
| _> give them as many time with you as possible._
|
| Children in the West today already spend more time with
| parents than at any point in the past:
|
| https://news.uci.edu/2016/09/28/todays-parents-spend-more-
| ti...
|
| Quality time with parents is important, of course, but we
| have become so focused on parental time that children are
| sacrificing solo time where they learn independence and
| initiative, and peer time where they learn to create their
| own identity and cooperate. Also, this places an
| unsustainable burden on parents who are expected to work full
| time as well as be parent, teacher, playmate, and cruise
| director for their kids.
| jjav wrote:
| > Children in the West today already spend more time with
| parents than at any point in the past
|
| That's not what the article says. It compares to just 50
| years ago, which is well into the industrialized world of
| two working parents in the office away from home.
|
| Just a bit farther back, like with my grandparents era,
| kids grew up on the family farm, with their parents 24x7,
| learning by example from them.
| astura wrote:
| How much of that "24x7" time was actually time spent
| together? When I was growing up kids and adults barely
| interacted with each other, most of the time kid(s) would
| be in one area of the house (or outside) doing their own
| thing and adult(s) would be somewhere else doing their
| own thing. This wasn't just my house either, it was
| normal.
|
| Nowadays it's totally the opposite (and it's completely
| insane)
| bordercases wrote:
| As I've grown older I've found it necessary and desirable to
| tell my own father about these moments, to assure him that
| he's done a great job for what he's done even if it was
| sometimes hard. Thanks for putting this in this perspective.
| I hope to remember it when I'm a father.
| christiansakai wrote:
| The only weird one to me is the western way "do not hit your
| kids."
|
| Downvotes welcome.
| statictype wrote:
| Its less prevalent in Asia than it used to be.
|
| I got hit as a kid. It wasnt a big deal. But we dont as a rule,
| discipline our own son in the same way.
| christiansakai wrote:
| I got hit a lot as well. It wasn't a big deal. My brother got
| hit a lot as well. I grew up antisocial and my brother grew
| up super social.
|
| It is not the hit, it is the words. Parents manipulate their
| children using words, and that's worse in my eyes.
| benjohnson wrote:
| Agreed - my dad spanked me, but my mother spoke her
| contempt for me with words.
|
| The bruises healed much more quickly than the emotional
| scaring.
| christiansakai wrote:
| damn, this hits too close too home. I'm still so messed
| up after all those words. and I am 34 now. I forgot
| completely about the bruising as it never existed, but
| those words haunt me forever.
| benjohnson wrote:
| I know this is not the forum for it, but here's what
| helped for me:
|
| 1) Write every horrible event down in excruciating
| detail. For me that gave my mind the permission to
| forget/heal/move-in.
|
| 2) Explore the possibility that the abuser was abused
| themselves and that while that is not an excuse, it does
| make it more comprehensible. If you do find the a chain
| of abuse, then recognize that you have the wonderful
| opertunity to break the chain. It won't be easy.
|
| 3) Recognize the problem of over compensating - I was
| abused, but I over-compensated by smothering my children
| with love. I needed to give them a bit of space.
|
| 4) Talk about it to people that love you. A hug is nice.
| For me, I internalized the abuse and thought that I was
| unlovable. I am weird, but people do love me - that's a
| surprise.
|
| Good luck with your healing!
| christiansakai wrote:
| Thank you for the recommendations, I think no matter how
| much I tried inner healing it just never works. It worked
| for a while but then it erupted again, as soon as, say my
| parents do something that I think is wrong, my anger
| erupted. I definitely have traumas. I don't have kids
| yet, but I think there's a chance I will continue this
| chain of abuse, though I will do my best not to.
|
| Yeah, I talk to my wife, that's all. She's too nice, her
| family comes from a good background, I don't want to
| burden her by telling my family's story.
| minikites wrote:
| Hitting a child is abuse and it's not effective.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Hitting is abuse only if it's frequent and the child becomes
| fearful of it, but this is not nearly as sexy as hijacking
| the word "abuse" self-righteously.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Please don't have children if you think any violence
| against children is acceptable.
| satokema_work wrote:
| At some point, you are going to have to use some sort of
| force to confine or constrain to prevent the child from
| engaging in unwanted behavior.
|
| No matter what flowery language or loopy logic you use to
| avoid the subject, you are applying force.
|
| Is it better to have well-thought out uses of force
| instead of just hitting the kid when they make you angry?
| Of course. But don't pretend that living in the world
| requires no discipline at all.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > At some point, you are going to have to use some sort
| of force to confine or constrain to prevent the child
| from engaging in unwanted behavior.
|
| Physically confining or constraining is not the same
| thing as using deliberate infliction of pain as a
| punishment.
|
| > No matter what flowery language or loopy logic you use
| to avoid the subject, you are applying force.
|
| Force is not the issue.
|
| > But don't pretend that living in the world requires no
| discipline at all.
|
| Discipline is a third distinct (but overlapping) category
| from physical constraint and pain-as-punishment.
|
| Confusing the three different issues is not helpful.
| [deleted]
| TomK32 wrote:
| "well-thought out uses of force" was certainly a part of
| school life in the post-war years, yet it couldn't stop
| teenagers, rock'n'roll, mini-skirts and hippies.
|
| We are not talking about "no discipline at all", we are
| talking about violence against your children. Humans you
| brought into the world and you shouldn't have done that
| if you hit them.
| easton wrote:
| Isn't the whole point of hitting your kids to make them
| fear it and therefore not do whatever it is that made it
| happen? (whether or not this works or wouldn't be
| accomplished in a more humane way is a different story)
| TomK32 wrote:
| You don't need violence to reach this goal.
| benjohnson wrote:
| My kids got to play in the front yard because I knew they
| wouldn't run out into traffic.
|
| They didn't run out into traffic because they knew that
| doing that was stupid and dad would swat their butt.
|
| Consequently, my children got to meet people walking on
| the sidewalk. They got to explore the neighborhood and
| walk to school at a young age.
|
| A reasonable trade - a bit of dicipline that opens up
| their world. It has served them well.
| easton wrote:
| I agree, but to say it's not abuse until fear exists
| means that hitting kids is always abuse, which seemed to
| contradict OPs point.
| TomK32 wrote:
| As a parent you are simply betraying the unconditional love
| and trust your child has in you.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| So what is the child betraying when he/she hits the parent?
| TomK32 wrote:
| Please do remember that children are humans who still
| learn how to interact socially. They often lack ways to
| express feeling and don't yet have full impulsive
| control. Last but not least, they live as their parents
| are.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| The child hasn't had the opportunity to develop their
| reasoning faculties or learn to weigh the needs or
| desires of others with their own and circumstance.
|
| As parents we have the choice to use reason and patience.
| We can understand that children are developing and need
| support from adults to do so effectively. To hit them
| would show a lack of understanding, control, reason, and
| temperance. These are bad things to teach.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| > To hit them would show a lack of understanding,
| control, reason, and temperance. These are bad things to
| teach.
|
| This is true, certainly.
|
| > The child hasn't had the opportunity to develop their
| reasoning faculties
|
| You're mistaken if you think that poor self-control is
| predicated on a lack of logical reasoning.
|
| But anyways, point is that no trust is lost when a parent
| hits a child; children don't apply that kind of
| transactional logic to personal relationships. We only
| learn that much, much later when we get to the politics
| that underlie school and work environments.
| matz1 wrote:
| It is not abuse, if it used for the kids own good. Yes it is
| not always effective but in some case it is.
| TomK32 wrote:
| It is abuse. As a parent you are in a stronger position and
| your child will will trust you because you are their first
| and primary focus of this new world their are growing into.
| Violence against children (and most of it happens in
| families) will destroy this trust.
| matz1 wrote:
| That depends on how you hit your kids. It could be abuse
| but not always.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| From what I understand physical violence towards children
| has been universally panned on research.
|
| https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/spanking
| matz1 wrote:
| In some case it can be appropriate
|
| https://time.com/3387226/spanking-can-be-an-appropriate-
| form...
| arethuza wrote:
| Depending on where you live it many also be a criminal
| offence - I agree with the policy here that _" Children have
| the same legal protection from assault as adults."_
|
| https://www.mygov.scot/smacking-children/
|
| And yes, I am a parent.
| bitwize wrote:
| It should not be surprising that the societies most prone to
| toxic individualism have largely abandoned or forgotten the way
| children have been raised for thousands of years, in favor of
| ways that reinforce and perpetuate that toxic individualism.
| alex_anglin wrote:
| Another great example of Betteridge's law.
| statstutor wrote:
| Nothing culturally Western will ever be considered weird by
| people in the West, by definition.
| benjohnson wrote:
| Quite the contrary - we seem to have made a sport of hating
| our own culture. Even the good bits.
| osterreich0000 wrote:
| Unless you're a psychologist:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias
| sgarrity wrote:
| Yes! As a person raising kids in "the Western way", we ARE weird.
|
| Obviously, this is a broad oversimplification, but I do think the
| way we manage our kids time and limit their freedom is
| problematic.
|
| That said, I think many of the problems stem from good intentions
| and unintended consequences. For example:
|
| 1. We don't want our kids to get hit by a car, so we tell them
| only to play in the back yard. 2. In many homes, both parents
| want a fulfilling career, so most kids are in some kind of child-
| care after school, so our kids don't have others to play with in
| the neighbourood.
| meowster wrote:
| I'll copy a comment I wrote elsewhere in this thread:
|
| I volunteer with a U.S. Scout troop. I see boys that don't know
| whether or not they can go on an activity/campout because they
| have to ask their parents if they're free that day/weekend. I
| try to tell them their old enough (most are teenagers) that
| they should start deciding for themselves what activities they
| participate in. Most all of them just seem apathetic.
|
| I'm sure their parents are trying to do what is best for their
| children, but it doesn't seem to be working.
| agent008t wrote:
| Western = Anglophone? I suspect cultural norms are quite
| different in Italy, Greece, Spain and other countries.
| lucideer wrote:
| These cultural norms might be less widespread in Italy, Greece,
| Spain, but I would say they're closer to being norms in those
| countries than outside of Europe. Especially with younger
| parents. They're certainly norms in most of the non-anglophone
| EU.
|
| That said, I guess a lot of that could potentially be connected
| to outsized anglophone/US influence in developed countries.
| phabora wrote:
| Do you have a lot of experience with multiple EU
| countries?[1] Or are you just using "outsized influence" to
| extrapolate that non-English speaking countries can be neatly
| categorized as being a homogeneous contrast to English-
| speaking countries?
|
| [1] The only anglophone EU country is Ireland.
| nathias wrote:
| Yes, everything humans do is weird.
| gumby wrote:
| As a parent myself I have only one piece of child rearing advice.
|
| First: Read a bunch of books (which will contradict each other)
|
| Then: a) do what you think is right and b) when someone tells you
| to do X (especially, but not only your mother or mother in law),
| if you disagree just say "Funny you should say that because I
| just read the exact opposite" and hand them a random baby rearing
| book.
|
| This sounds like a joke but the biggest problem in child rearing
| is well meaning busybodies and we figured out this effective way
| to shut it down. (Busybodies who were strangers we just smiled at
| and ignored).
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| But the books are also well-meaning busybodies.
|
| Worse: The books that most resonate with you may well be the
| ones you need to ignore.
|
| Take strict vs permissive parenting, for example. Say you're by
| nature a more permissive parenting. The books that say you
| should be permissive will resonate more with you than the books
| that say that you should be strict. But it's the ones that say
| to be strict that you need to hear, _because they 're the ones
| that are against your natural bent_. (Nobody needed to tell you
| to be permissive, you were going to do that anyway.)
|
| (My position here is that either strict or permissive, taken
| too far, will be problematic. So you can swap strict and
| permissive in the previous paragraph, and everything is still
| true.)
|
| So don't just read parenting books and listen to the ones that
| strike a chord with you. It's the _other_ ones that you need to
| carefully consider what they say.
| gumby wrote:
| Funny you should say that, I just read a comment on HN
| claiming the opposite. Let me search for it and then edit
| this comment with the link...
| ianai wrote:
| That's the thing about the internet. If you posit P to be
| true then a vehement Not P believer will attack your
| comment with "fire and fury" and any form of attack that
| could work but still be false. And some of the times
| they're correct of course and Not P is indeed true While P
| is not.
| gumby wrote:
| We're all complicated humans.
|
| What's amazing about the child rearing is that each of us
| has such a small _n_. Yet we (me included) think we know
| the secrets.
|
| When my kid has a kid I hope I will be smart enough to
| keep my trap shut until asked.
| ConfusedDog wrote:
| I slept with my grandma, mother when I was a child <10. That's
| because our apartments were super tiny back then in China. It
| isn't much of a choice.
|
| My son is sleep-trained to sleep alone in his room. At first, he
| would refuse and cry, and he woke up every once awhile, later he
| just got use to it and slept 12 hour straight. Not only he slept
| without any distraction (me), but also it is much easier on me as
| well.
|
| Important metric I think is whether the baby sleep enough, rather
| than style of parenting. Sometimes it is just economic factor.
| rapsey wrote:
| Western culture is different in a significant way. Individualism
| is valued much more than in the east.
|
| This is an established sociological fact.
| decafninja wrote:
| One of the biggest ways I see is the idea of when to move out
| of your parents' household.
|
| At least in American society, it's considered imperative to
| move out ASAP - when leaving for college, or at the latest,
| upon graduating. Even if it means dumping a huge portion of
| your paycheck into rent for place barely 15 minutes from your
| parents' home.
|
| In other societies it's more common to live with your parents
| well into adulthood. Marriage is often the point where you have
| to move out.
| phabora wrote:
| That's not the case where I live in the small non-American
| West.
|
| We've all seen the American TV show/films where some Mega
| Loser has _failed_ to move out the year they become eighteen
| and graduated the year they become twenty-two. Maybe it comes
| off as a trope for non-Americans.
| decafninja wrote:
| In America, if you don't move out ASAP, you are considered
| a failure, a loser, a (wo)man-child, etc.
|
| In other countries (or even cultural enclaves in the US),
| it's considered perfectly normal and acceptable. You'll see
| highly paid professionals like medical doctors, hedge fund
| managers or SWEs making huge salaries living with their
| parents.
| [deleted]
| phabora wrote:
| Westerners are from Saturn, Orientals are from Pluto: Rapsey's
| five definitive sociological facts(tm)
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| While what you say is true, I think it's debatable whether this
| is reflected in our childcare practices.
| blarg1 wrote:
| Funny the next article after this one is actually about that.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201231-how-the-way-you-...
| Tommek wrote:
| And look were it has brought us in comparison. Moon, Mars ...
| living for ages.
| ketamine__ wrote:
| > "Is he in his own room yet?" is a question new parents often
| field once they emerge from the haze of life with a newborn. But
| sleeping apart from our babies is a relatively recent development
| - and not one that extends around the globe. In other cultures
| sharing a room, and sometimes a bed, with your baby is the norm.
|
| Westerners have more sex?
| williesleg wrote:
| Yeah that's why we free-range all our h1b kids' kids. Let 'em
| roam and do anything.
| itsmemattchung wrote:
| Definitely something that my wife and I struggle with. She's
| Vietnamese British, I'm Vietnamese American ; both of us current
| living in the U.S. Despite what our training classes recommend,
| we're co-sleeping with our 17 month year old daughter and it
| feels more intuitive.
| rsync wrote:
| "... we're co-sleeping with our 17 month year old daughter and
| it feels more intuitive."
|
| Good for you. Not only should you do what works and is healthy
| for your own family but the first two years of your first child
| is really a magical time. Why not optimize for peace and
| tranquility ?
|
| I will also add that in addition to the western compulsion to
| kick kids out of the bed there is _also_ a western compulsion
| that married partners should be sleeping together every night
| or something is wrong with their marriage. I strongly advise
| all parents to at least be open minded to the idea that
| sleeping in different rooms could _dramatically improve_ their
| sleeping and parenting logistics.
|
| YMMV.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Here in Canada it's sometimes discouraged and criticized to co-
| sleep, too. I was born here and had never even heard of co-
| sleeping until I was in my mid twenties. I found it pretty
| intuitive too, but got some flack from people over it.
|
| After 3 kids I don't really care about the criticisms anymore.
| They stop co-sleeping when they're ready, and it was as simple
| as that. I mostly enjoyed it. Sometimes you miss having a bed
| to yourself though, haha.
| itsmemattchung wrote:
| > After 3 kids I don't really care about the criticisms
| anymore
|
| Even after having one kid, I too no longer care about the
| criticisms. We're all just trying to survive.
| meowster wrote:
| > but got some flack from people
|
| How do they even know you're co-sleeping in the first place?
| zekrioca wrote:
| The person probably shared private parenting habits and
| received such criticism..
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Of course I shared private parenting habits - parents
| often discuss various approaches to problems or daily
| life. I didn't share without being prompted, though. I
| keep most private things to myself in person.
|
| If sleeping came up and I mentioned co-sleeping, people
| were often critical. They think it's bad for the kid,
| dangerous, unnecessary, what have you.
|
| I don't mind the criticism; I think it's helpful to know
| how people feel and reflect on my own decisions. People
| are remarkably harsh with their criticisms when it comes
| to parenting sometimes, but I think this reflects how
| uncertain, even insecure and anxious people feel about
| the decisions we need to make as parents. It's fine.
| zekrioca wrote:
| Yes, I'm not in any way judging or criticizing your
| decision to share your parenting habits, specially after
| being prompted. What I dislike sometimes is others trying
| to control at all times how parents should grow a kid.
| This will ultimately be passed over to kids, which may
| then propagate this behavior. Life, I guess.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| People are often curious about kids and child raising
| choices (or at least that has been our experience with our
| first). It comes up when talking about kids, when people
| are visiting our home, babysitting, etc.
| seszett wrote:
| Other parents usually ask questions on what how you are
| doing, what you are doing, etc, and unless you flat out
| refuse to answer the questions (which seems rude) or
| outright lie, then they will eventually learn that your
| kids are sleeping in your bed.
| hef19898 wrote:
| You definetly learn a lot by having kids. The first kid, you
| measure water temp, the second kid you just put your finger
| in. The third one, just the kid. Slightly exagerating, but by
| the second kid you don't have to relly as much any more on
| outside advice.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Kid 4 you just put in minimum effort because you after
| three sons/daughters you were trying to get the other but
| got more of the same.
|
| If kid 4 does the best of the bunch then you know your
| parenting probably wasn't that great.
| altacc wrote:
| The advice against co-sleeping is a typical simplification of
| advice, where nuance is removed and all parents should
| receive the same, simple advice.
|
| Peter Blair, based at the University of Bristol, has done
| some great work studying deaths caused by co-sleeping and
| found some very important factors, mainly the health of the
| child, any modifiers of the parent's sleep and the sleeping
| position. For example, drug use by the parents (including
| alcohol, cigarettes, over the counter & prescription
| medicine), making them sleep heavier. Also falling asleep on
| the sofa or a pillow near the child.
|
| So much parenting advice is one-size-fits-none and it takes
| quite a bit of effort to work out the reality. Luckily, with
| a baby in arms there's often a lot of time available for
| reading the many opinions out there. ;)
| nomdep wrote:
| So - if you don't mind the question, sorry for asking if you do
| - how/when you have sex?
| stronglikedan wrote:
| https://www.amazon.com/portal-migration/bestsellers/baby-
| pro...
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Not the person you asked but I've co-slept three times and
| have some insights.
|
| My answer would be that you do it while the baby sleeps, and
| you do it less. Otherwise on the odd occasion you're away
| from the baby. It's a drag. Though in my experience I was
| always so tired, it was generally a lower priority.
|
| Others might have had a different experience though.
| itsmemattchung wrote:
| > Though in my experience I was always so tired, it was
| generally a lower priority.
|
| This. As new parents, we really have to make it a priority
| otherwise, in general, we're just constantly exhausted.
| Raising kids does really require a village.
| [deleted]
| dfee wrote:
| This shouldn't be downvoted. Indeed, this is something our
| physician brought up with us as a reason not to let your
| child join you.
|
| The theory goes that children are programmed by nature to
| prevent more offspring. A sort of incentive here.
|
| Looking online there are mixed reviews of whether co sleeping
| hurt the adult relationship.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Well, my half-sister is six months older and my sister two
| months and two weeks younger...
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| My wife and I co-sleep with my two boys, 1 and 3.
|
| Our sex life has probably never been better in either
| frequency or quality.
|
| We typically do it in the living room on the couch in the
| morning before they get up, or same location during their
| naps, or in my work-from-home office also during naps. Or
| where-ever we want when we have a baby sitter, although with
| the pandemic that's pretty rare.
|
| I'd say about 75%-80% of our sexual activity is essentially
| scheduled at least 4-6 hours in advance, sometimes more. This
| works great for all involved. Occasionally if we miss our
| window because one of them wakes up early, we just reschedule
| to the next soonest window. We'll occasionally even stay up
| late after we put the boys down to makeup a missed session.
|
| I also think breaking the habit of only having sex in our bed
| at a particular time when one or the other kind of vaguely
| expects it is a big contributor to the improvement in our sex
| life.
|
| Instead we have explicit communication about when and where
| we're going to have sex. There's still some room to be
| spontaneous, but it's very limited with kids.
| PebblesRox wrote:
| Secondary sleep space for the baby (we had a crib mattress on
| the floor in the living room for naps anyway) or secondary
| sex space for the parents. A futon in another room does
| double-duty when the kid is old enough to nap there safely.
|
| Middle-of-the-afternoon is a good time. Older kids can be
| occupied with Legos while the baby naps and the parents sneak
| off.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Isn't that sort of an old joke? Before you have kids, put a
| jelly bean in a jar every time you have sex. After you have
| kids, take a jelly bean out of the jar every time. At the end
| of your life you'll still have jelly beans left...
|
| Obviously it varies a lot, and that is just a joke, but man
| it has been very true for me. My wife had a poor experience
| growing up, walking in on her mother having sex (they lived
| in a tiny apartment, so most of the space was shared), and so
| she has no interest in sex at all if there are children in
| the house. Anywhere. And it's a 3000sf house, not a tiny
| apartment.
|
| Doesn't help that the kids (8 & 10) routinely choose to sleep
| in our room rather than their own (they do not sleep in our
| bed, however, we nixed that after they were a few years old
| because it was too disruptive to my sleep).
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Jokes about having less sex after marriage and practically
| none after kids wouldn't be so universal if they weren't
| relatable.
| [deleted]
| TomK32 wrote:
| Anytime and anywhere you have a chance to. Be spontaneous and
| creative. You don't need a bed to have sex in anyways.
| easymodex wrote:
| On the couch usually.
| DC1350 wrote:
| Your kid doesn't need their own room. In fact, neither do you.
| Everyone could live so much more carbon efficiently if we
| accepted communal living. Like dorm rooms. People all around the
| world rent small apartments with their extended families, and
| sometimes even other families. The only reason people in the west
| believe they need a single family home is because they're
| entitled and have a weird focus on individualism.
|
| Share a bed with your kids if you don't want to be weird.
| Everyone else is doing it. Charlie and the chocolate factory
| style.
| tw04 wrote:
| Or, they like having sex? I'm not having sex with my kid
| sleeping in the same room. And I'm not particularly interested
| in having to manage my sex life around my kids sleep schedule.
|
| I don't know why you think adults wanting a space they can do
| whatever they want without their kids witnessing the activity
| means they have a "weird focus on individualism".
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| You're right, that part is the worst part in my experience.
|
| I think whatever allows the parents to be happy and take the
| best care of their kids is ideal. If they need sex to stay
| close (very normal) then so be it. I think modeling a close
| and loving relationship is great for kids.
|
| We co-slept with our kids and it was terrible for our sex
| life. I don't regret it - the kids loved it and it made a lot
| of things easier, but I have a hard time imagining how you'd
| tackle the sex aspect without a great support network and
| flexible work - anything to allow more time alone here and
| there.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Drop the kids of at school/daycare/grandparents - come back
| home :).
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| That's not an option for many (most?) people
| madcaptenor wrote:
| This is harder these days. I remember hearing some
| speculation early in the pandemic that there would be a lot
| of _first_ children coming out of it but very few _second_
| or greater children. The data on this should be starting to
| come out now.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| I wonder how it will affect the divorce rate as well.
| tw04 wrote:
| >Drop the kids of at school/daycare
|
| So, while we're both working?
|
| >grandparents
|
| One is on the other side of the country, the other is 2
| hours away. So... sex three days a year?
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Do you assume the child never sleeps? Even co-sleeping,
| our son would go to sleep before us (either staying in
| the bed on the floor or being transferred to a crib).
| There can be other places in the home to be intimate.
| tw04 wrote:
| >Do you assume the child never sleeps? Even co-sleeping,
| our son would go to sleep before us (either staying in
| the bed on the floor or being transferred to a crib).
| There can be other places in the home to be intimate.
|
| I assume that banging in the kitchen is a fun adventure
| sometimes, but I'd prefer to do it in my bed most of the
| time. And accusing me of being "oddly focused on the
| individual" is both wildly inaccurate and quite frankly a
| lazy attempt at trying to explain why people want
| privacy. On this site, of all places, I'd expect better.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I make no such accusation. I merely point out that a
| child in the bedroom is less of an impediment than might
| be thought.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Well fortunately toddlers are natural libido killers - it
| is probably an additional protection mechanism along with
| the hormones controlling lactation to prevent you from
| becoming parents again so soon :).
|
| You are just so tired the first few months catching up on
| sleep.
| PebblesRox wrote:
| In our case the benefits of better sleep for both of us at
| night made it worth the loss of flexibility/spontaneity with
| sex. We got to skip the sleep-deprived phase of caring for a
| newborn thanks to bedsharing. Better sleep makes it easier to
| feel up for sex as well!
|
| I would advise new parents to consider their values and weigh
| the costs of a variety of approaches.
| killtimeatwork wrote:
| People want their own space because there's a fair share of
| assholes which ruin the common grounds for everyone else.
| That's why dorms common kitchens are always filthy, or people
| are willing to commute a long way from their own house just to
| avoid noisy neighbors that are part of living in a downtown
| apartments.
| ylyn wrote:
| I'm quite sure the reason for people who share rooms with their
| family is because they can't get a bigger apartment for
| whatever reason.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| As I reach the age where some of my friends are starting to have
| kids in a Western country, one thing I've noticed is that they
| all seem to have different ideas about raising kids, between
| diets, sleeping habits, baby bjorns, what language(s) to read to
| them in, how to get them to walk/talk, etc. I wouldn't call any
| of them weird (although I honestly don't have much of a baseline
| understanding), but I have a hard time figuring out how exactly
| you can generalize a Western way of raising kids.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| What your doctor / nationalised health care system is
| recommending sounds like a good approach
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Honestly doctors can spread a lot of disinformation on things
| not biologically related. For example, our pediatrician
| recommended we wait until 3 to potty train our son... who at
| the time was already potty trained.
|
| Potty training is also something that differs widely between
| developed nations and rest of world.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Potty training is also something that differs widely
| between developed nations and rest of world.
|
| And between kids. My daughter just up and decided at around
| 18 months or so that she was done with diapers and would
| use the big girl potty. Not one accident. My son was more
| apathetic about the whole thing, and it was sometime past
| his third birthday before he finally started using the
| toilet to poop in.
|
| The piece of advice that stuck with me ... don't bother
| trying, they'll do it themselves when they're ready, and
| you probably can't accelerate it.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| What you're saying goes to the heart of the article: Why
| are things so different in western nations compared to
| developing nations w.r.t. child raising? Potty training
| is one of the many places where we diverge wildly.
|
| Take for example Vietnam, where kids are out of diapers
| at around 9 months[1]. Even in the US the age at which
| children are potty trained has crept up slowly from 1
| year to 19 months to 27 months today:
|
| > _In the U.S., until the 1950s, most children were using
| the potty in the first few months of life and completely
| trained by age 1. In the 1970s, 18 months was an average
| age to start. Now, it 's around 24 to 30 months._[2]
|
| As the article asks, what are the phenomena causing these
| changes and what explains the huge discrepancies between
| countries and cultures? Clearly the biology of children
| does NOT explain the difference.
|
| 1. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/13013008
| 2726.h...
|
| 2.
| https://www.salon.com/2010/07/09/extreme_potty_training
| aequitas wrote:
| I think that has to do with the fact that not all children
| are able to learn/sense it at a young age. Telling parents
| their kids should be potty trained before the age of 3
| could have the parent put pressure on the kid resulting in
| worse behaviour or aversion to using the toilet,
| lengthening the process even further. It's just easier to
| advice to "start at 3". Especially since nowadays more
| parents both work fulltime and will have less time to
| properly observe and guide the process at earlier age.
| [deleted]
| lifeplusplus wrote:
| coming from another country i can see clear difference in how
| child are raised in usa.
|
| There as long as baby is with mom, fed on time, and kept clean.
| baby just grows up fine. few months are hectic but then their
| night time matches everyone else. Given there is afternoon nap.
|
| eventually they are like 5 and start playing with neighborhood
| kids and then it's just automatic.
| llimos wrote:
| Speaking as a parent of 5. Parental mental health has a much
| bigger effect on the _child_ than choice of methodologies. You
| really need to look after yourself before you can look after them
| - so if you are suffering from sleep deprivation, doing what you
| have to do is the _right_ thing to do.
|
| Put your own oxygen mask on first.
| faitswulff wrote:
| Exactly this. Being able to stay sane, levelheaded, and get
| necessary things done is probably far more impactful than sleep
| methodologies, baby wearing, breast versus formula fed, or any
| of the thousand of analysis paralysis inducing choices that
| parents have to make.
| diegocg wrote:
| >A 2016 review that looked at research on children sharing not
| just a room but a bed with one or more of their parents found a
| high prevalence in many Asian countries:
|
| Let me guess: there is a high correlation between sharing your
| room and poverty levels?
| Clewza313 wrote:
| The simple truth is that dealing with young babies is _way_
| easier when they 're in the same bed. When they cry, you can
| comfort them immediately, if you need to breastfeed, it takes
| about 5 seconds to get started. And they sell these nifty
| little divider things if you're paranoid about rolling over and
| crushing them, although as the article says this only appears
| to be a problem in practice if the parents are morbidly obese
| and/or on drugs/alcohol.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| > this only appears to be a problem in practice if the
| parents are morbidly obese and/or on drugs/alcohol.
|
| Or if you have a baby who fusses but doesn't actually need
| anything.
| screye wrote:
| I don't understand needing a room for yourself before puberty
| strikes. Even then, sharing the room with a same-gender sibling
| doesn't sound too bad. It's funny because these same people go
| to college and share their dorm room for the 1st 2 years of
| university, when someone needs the most amount of privacy.
|
| > correlation between sharing your room and poverty levels
|
| In India, unless you are super rich, having a room to yourself
| is pretty rare. This becomes especially true because the
| richest people want to stay in the biggest cities, where the
| ratio of housing/income outpaces places like SF and NYC.
|
| The priority for bedrooms usually goes as follows:
| Parents -> Grand parents -> Guests -> Kids/Servants
|
| Only-childs in a wealthy-ish nuclear family are the only ones
| who get a room all to 1 person.
| Thiez wrote:
| Genuine question: the bedroom is traditionally (where I come
| from, Western Europe) also a common place for couples to have
| sex. In addition, many people presumably would prefer not to
| walk in on their parents, or have sex in front of their
| children. So how does this work in cultures where it's common
| for children not to have their own rooms until puberty starts
| (so 10 to 13 years?)? Do people get more adventurous about
| when and where they do it, or is there less of a taboo on
| getting it on in front of the kids, or, since you mention
| India, are those delicious spices used to mask the taste of
| the sleeping pills everybody is feeding their children?
| screye wrote:
| I wonder about this myself. I have no clue when my parents
| had sex and our house was one of the bigger ones (2 bedroom
| vs 1 bed room). I was ALWAYS in the bedroom, so no way I
| could've missed it when awake.
|
| Indians frequently send their kids over to an aunt/uncle's
| place once every month or so....so maybe then ? Another
| common solution is to move your kid to the living room for
| sleeping.
|
| I slept with my parents until my brother was born, and
| never spent a night away from them before this. So...I
| guess they did it while I was in the room. X|
|
| > delicious spices used to mask the taste of the sleeping
| pills everybody is feeding their children
|
| The most plausible theory I have heard so far. Indian food
| IS sleep-inducing and I sleep like a rock, so I won't be
| one to disagree there.
| valarauko wrote:
| > The priority for bedrooms usually goes as follows:
| Parents -> Grand parents -> Guests -> Kids/Servants
|
| I've only ever seen this order once, but I would agree that
| this is pretty much how most Indian households are setup. My
| SO's grandparents lived with their daughter & her family (6
| in total) in a tiny one bedroom situation, and while I wasn't
| privy with their sleeping arrangements, I think the
| grandparents slept on the floor in the hall. It wouldn't
| surprise me if the female members of the household slept in
| one room while the men slept in the other. Their house was
| too small for multiple beds, so they usually rolled out mats
| when it was time to sleep. I think the elderly grandfather
| had a cot.
|
| Growing up the youngest of three siblings in a 3 bedroom
| home, I usually slept on the sofa in the living room. I was
| supposed to share a room with my teenage brother, but he
| wouldn't tolerate me to be in the same room.
| pj1115 wrote:
| I think you'd find some evidence for historical poverty being
| one factor of several in cultural practices of bed sharing.
| Japan would be a notable exception (plenty of co-sleeping,
| unremarkable poverty rate).
|
| I also don't think it has become much less common in
| communities where poverty levels have fallen. Anecdotally, my
| SO is part of a community originally displaced from India and
| now settled all over the world, where members have
| disproportionately become very wealthy. Bed sharing is
| absolutely the norm in those households, much to my distress
| when we visit her family!
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Not sure what you mean by Japan being an exception? Bed-
| sharing remains very much the default there.
| pj1115 wrote:
| I was trying to say that this is common in Japan, where
| poverty is almost certainly not the major factor. A counter
| to the parent comment's assertion. Should have been
| clearer.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| >there is a high correlation between sharing your room and
| poverty levels?
|
| might be one variable. Another could be "average size of a
| typical home in sqm" and "population density of city where
| family resides"
| TomK32 wrote:
| 30 percent of British children are living in poverty.
| https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-fi...
| LegitShady wrote:
| I don't think poverty in britain or india mean the same
| thing.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Of course, poverty in Britain is something the Tories
| actually do want, whereas in India I'm sure every major
| party is fighting against poverty.
| LegitShady wrote:
| please leave your personal partisan politics at the door.
| DanBC wrote:
| And some of those children, especially the poorest, will
| share beds with a parent.
|
| See eg this from Buttle: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
| england-45017513
| [deleted]
| alistairSH wrote:
| Of all the "weird" things we do as parents in euro/anglo nations,
| sleeping arrangements seems nowhere near the top.
|
| IMO, the top "offender" is over-scheduling kid's activities. So
| many kids in my area have their days booked solid with sports,
| academic tutoring, music lessons. Approaching zero free time to
| enjoy being a kid.
|
| Edit - and this isn't really a western thing, "Tiger Mom" and
| similar probably pre-dates this behavior in the US.
| lqet wrote:
| Not so sure this is necessarily a western thing. When I was a
| kid in Germany in the 90ies, school started at 7:30, and ended
| at 13:00. Once a week you had afternoon school from 14:30 to
| 16:00, and my parents wanted me to have piano lessons once a
| week. But after 13:00, and on weekends, I was generally free to
| do whatever I wanted. I played computer games excessively and
| watched _a lot_ of movies, of course, but I also explored the
| nearby forest, build tree houses, taught myself how to build a
| computer, BASIC, Delphi, HTML, CSS and JS, and drew a comic
| series with a friend (of course we were the only readers).
| Except for math, everything that helped my through university
| and my professional life so far I learned in this free time,
| just by playing.
| thombee wrote:
| Isn't Germany western?
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Are we talking about west Germany?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Yes, thus their point.
| standardUser wrote:
| "So many kids in my area have their days booked solid"
|
| Sounds like a wealthy thing, not a Western thing.
| mhh__ wrote:
| In the west your children's days can be roughly just as busy
| but you if you're wealthy you can make it easier, basically.
|
| The only thing I'm really jealous of from spending time
| around people who've grown up with more money is that,
| assuming your family are basically nice, it's much easier to
| brush over any cracks or for the children to mentally
| seperate themselves e.g. The house I grew up is fairly
| miniscule, the first thing I noticed visiting a large house
| was not only that they had (say) a music room [so separation]
| but also that the children could hide within the house
| outside of earshot of their parents.
| ajmadesc wrote:
| Queue the Doctor / Lawyer married couple with 2.5 kids who
| vacation twice a year, lease German cars, and have positive
| net worth crying about 'only being middle class'.
| derivagral wrote:
| Technically, aren't they right? Middle class typically
| means you still have to work, strictly speaking.
|
| I'm going off of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class#Three-
| level_econo...
| leetcrew wrote:
| depends how you slice it. "have to work" is kind of a
| vague way to define class membership. someone with a
| $500k net worth doesn't "have to work" if they're content
| with living on $20k/year or so. of course, if you insist
| on sending your children to private school and taking
| them to europe every year, this is going to be
| unworkable.
|
| most people tend to think what they have isn't quite
| enough, twice as much would be just right, and anything
| more than that is excessive.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Depends who you ask, or the context. Anecdotally,
| software developers, being more math-minded than average,
| tend to think of middle-class literally - the middle
| third or middle quintile of income distribution.
| opportune wrote:
| That has never been the meaning of the term historically
| and doesn't capture the magnitudes-difference between the
| middle and upper classes.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I agree. I was just pointing out that there is a portion
| of the HN readership that tends to use the strictly
| economic definition (rightly or wrongly). Also, the
| meaning has shifted over time.
|
| As used in the early 1900s - I realize the term was
| coined even earlier than that - it referred to what today
| we'd likely call upper-middle-class (or if you're a fan
| of Engles, the bourgeoisie). White-collar, professional,
| well-educated, but not rich/powerful/nobility. It
| excluded almost the entirety of the working-class (even
| those who, by income, were well above poverty).
|
| More recently, usage in the US has trended towards
| anybody above poverty but not quite rich (and choose your
| own definition of rich to suit your point). Which itself
| includes a massive span of incomes and lifestyles.
| rjsw wrote:
| The usage hasn't really changed in the UK.
| bluGill wrote:
| Odds are good the couple you mention are in fact negative
| net worth, or close to it. They don't own the car. Every
| time their house goes up in value they refinance and take
| the cash out to pay for the vacation.
|
| Generally those with a significant net worth live more
| modest lives - older cars (they might buy new, but that is
| because they know if they do the maintenance it will last
| for 15-20 years). The house might be nice for the
| neighborhood, but it won't be in the rich part of town.
| They might vacation twice a year, but they will be cheap
| vacations. The difference goes into funding their
| retirement plan, and some other savings.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| In the US, a doctor/lawyer dual income couple should be
| earning at least $300k, if not $500k+ per year.
|
| Source:
|
| https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2020-compensation-
| overvie...
|
| Even with $600k to $800k ($4k to $6k per month loan
| payments) of student loans, they should be able to pull
| off a decent lifestyle and be positive net worth by their
| mid 40s.
| johncessna wrote:
| Income doesn't equate to wealth. You have to look at the
| other side of the equation, outgo, to determine what
| someone's net worth is.
|
| In addition to student loans, there's the house payment.
| People tend to buy a house based on what they can be
| approved for, not based off of a budget number they
| developed _before_ talking to a bank. A 300k salary will
| get you pre-approved for a a lot of house in the US. Docs
| and Lawyers also fall into the trap of buying practices,
| so that 's another factor.
|
| The biggest factor you're missing in your assumption,
| though, is that personal finance problems are largely
| behavioral. There's a parallel with personal health. The
| difference is that people know more about how to lose
| weight and be healthy - and still don't do it - then
| people who actually know how to make good financial
| decisions. Even those who know they shouldn't buy things
| they can't afford, routinely do so for whatever reason
| they have been told or have invented.
|
| For what it's worth, the study by Ramsey Solutions says
| that the top 5 careers for becoming a millionaire are
| engineers, teachers, CPAs, attorneys, and management.
| While some of those are vague and capture a large range
| of professions, Docs are conspicuously missing.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| This doesn't jive with any data or personal experience I
| have. The Ramsey Solutions study also seems like garbage,
| especially because it seems like their definition of
| millionaire is someone with $1M in a 401k.
|
| But if you line up 100 teachers or CPAs and 100 doctors
| in the USA, you can sure as hell bet the doctors will be
| far wealthier than the teachers or CPAs.
|
| It's a fact that US doctors, across the whole population
| of doctors, earn $200k+ per year, and outside of software
| engineers, I don't think any of the Ramsey careers earn
| anywhere near as much as a population (unless management
| includes high level execs in F500 companies?). Docs are
| conspicuously missing because Ramsey is trying to sell
| something to people with lower to moderate incomes/high
| debt, such as teachers/CPA/attorneys, etc and they're not
| targeting doctors. Doctors would never need the Ramsey
| website.
|
| See the difference in advice on a website like
| whitecoatinvestor.com vs Ramsey.
|
| As for assumptions about personal finance behaviors, I'm
| sure some doctors are bad at it, just like every other
| profession. But I would need some pretty firm evidence
| that doctors who are by any measure, very highly
| motivated and intelligent individuals, are somehow so
| poor at managing their finances that they squander $100k+
| per year.
| robocat wrote:
| I thought a large number of lawyers end up not earning
| much?
|
| And straight out of university, you really can't look at
| the average, because the income distribution of lawyers
| is extremely bimodal in the US:
| https://www.biglawinvestor.com/bimodal-salary-
| distribution-c...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| But not for doctors. The lower end of the household
| income range I listed is achievable by doctors alone. I
| would also presume doctors are more often than not
| marrying lawyers on the higher end of the income scale.
|
| Bottom line, based on numerous personal experiences and
| pay data, I do not expect lawyer/doctor families to have
| the quality of life the person I was responding to claim
| they have, on average.
| neolog wrote:
| That link needs an account. Maybe a screenshot or
| something
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Weird, I just searched medscape 2020 doctor pay in
| duckduckgo and it works for me.
|
| Here's an alternate search result with similar findings:
|
| https://c8y.doxcdn.com/image/upload/Press%20Blog/Research
| %20...
| neolog wrote:
| Interesting, thanks.
| triceratops wrote:
| Nit: It's "cue" as in "stage cue".
| rjsw wrote:
| If they were upper class they wouldn't have to queue ?
| kar5pt wrote:
| I'd argue that romanticizing children's free time is more weird
| and more western than anything else. My free time as a kid
| usually just involved being bored and lonely while watching TV
| or playing video games.
| meowster wrote:
| I volunteer with a U.S. Scout troop. I see boys that don't know
| whether or not they can go on an activity/campout because they
| have to ask their parents if they're free that day/weekend. I
| try to tell them their old enough (most are teenagers) that
| they should start deciding for themselves what activities they
| participate in. Most all of them just seem apathetic.
|
| I'm sure their parents are trying to do what is best for their
| children, but it doesn't seem to be working.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > Most all of them just seem apathetic.
|
| Which seems the other side of helicopter parenting; kids
| don't get much of a say in deciding what they fill their free
| time with, so they don't develop an opinion in things like
| that.
|
| Plus (and I'm going to sound old here, give me my cane so I
| can shake it), there's a lot more casual entertainment lying
| around the house nowadays to fill the voids in people's time.
| "doing nothing" is not much of a thing anymore, because
| people will casually browse their phone or turn on the TV or
| something. (I'm guilty of that as well).
|
| In the previous generation, there would be a TV but not
| everything on there would catch the interest of everyone.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| I wonder if browsing your phone is really much different
| from channel surfing. I suppose by sheer volume you never
| run out of "channels" on the internet.
| watwut wrote:
| There is nothing new in that? When I was pre teen and teen, I
| definitely had to get parents permission for weekend campout.
| It seems to me normal that parent have a say in whether the
| non-adult child sleep at home. Plus there were weekend
| activities woth familly I was expected to participate in -
| trips, familly visits, grandpa birthsday, etc.
|
| So I would ask. I mean, idea that 16-17 years old goes for
| campout without asking parents strikes me as wtf.
| [deleted]
| meowster wrote:
| I don't know, my parents always asked me if I wanted to go
| to my Grandmother's house or other trips (I did).
|
| I always just told my parent that I was doing something
| just so they knew where I was - not necessarily asking for
| permission, but that gave them the chance to veto it (which
| they only did one time as punishment when I got in trouble
| at school).
|
| I think that parents need to teach their kids how to be
| responsible and autonomous, and treat them like they are
| their own person, because they need to be to have any
| chance at being successful.
| fossuser wrote:
| It gets beaten out of you and the easiest response is to just
| give up and wait it out.
|
| "You don't want to do this anymore? You need this for
| college, you shouldn't quit everything you do, I wish I could
| have done this" etc.
|
| Eventually it's just easier to passively suffer whatever
| activity you dislike and just recognize the starting cost to
| trying new things is extreme.
|
| > " I try to tell them their old enough (most are teenagers)
| that they should start deciding for themselves what
| activities they participate in."
|
| I'd start with asking them about what their parents are like.
| meowster wrote:
| I know what they're parents are like during meetings and
| campouts. I have to manage them as much as I manage the
| boys. Some of them try to helicopter during meetings. There
| was one Scout that I've only seen smile when his dad _wasn
| 't_ around.
|
| They don't seem to like the idea that Scouts is supposed to
| be youth-run/led and that it's okay to fail as long as they
| learn from it and improve. The parents just don't want them
| to fail or be uncomfortable at all (it's not always dry and
| warm outside).
| fossuser wrote:
| Cool - sounds like you have the context.
|
| I just remember adults yelling at me as a kid for things
| like this. "You should take responsibility." Etc.
|
| At the time I didn't know what to do.
|
| I wish I had just said, "I have no control over my life".
|
| I think other adults can sometimes be clueless about what
| a kid's family life is like.
| [deleted]
| leetcrew wrote:
| it can be sort of futile. as a kid, you can argue, resist,
| or break the rules, but until you can support yourself
| financially, your parents get the final say on most
| important matters.
|
| reminds me of my first meeting with my advisor at college
| to pick courses for freshman year. I came in with a few
| ideas for courses/majors that my dad thought were
| practical. my advisor picked up on this almost immediately
| and asked "okay, but what are _you_ interested in? ". we
| had a nice talk, but at the end I went back to picking from
| the list my dad approved of. my advisor was disappointed
| and insisted that I needed to chart my own path through
| college. my response: "yeah, but I need my dad to write the
| check".
| fossuser wrote:
| Yeah, I think some people are clueless to this context.
|
| Even in more direct ways.
|
| I remember getting yelled at in middle school because I
| would show up late to early morning jazz band practices I
| had to be driven to. I was ready to go 40min before we
| had to be there. I can't make my mom get me there on
| time.
|
| I think adults forget kids are not independent.
| bluGill wrote:
| There is truth to both. The problem with charting your
| own course as a kid is you often don't really know what
| is worth doing. "Underwater basket weaving" might be
| interesting, but it won't prepare you for any future.
| There are a lot of good choices though, you don't have to
| be a doctor just because your dad wants you to. And your
| dad might still be under the illusion that lawyer is a
| great paying job, when for the most part it isn't anymore
| (or maybe I'm wrong and it will go back to that? your
| guess is as good as mine).
| fossuser wrote:
| I think there's a difference between a parent saying,
| "You should consider the economic ROI of what you choose
| to study, the risk of success/failure, and what life it
| could lead to" vs. "be a lawyer". If your kid really
| wants to act then they can go to LA and learn what the
| best way to do that is.
|
| I think parents bias to being risk-adverse in advice for
| their kids because they only experience the downside risk
| and little of the upside from potentially riskier paths.
| I think a good parent would communicate some of this, but
| that's not a skill everyone has.
|
| A lot parents just don't know that much and are over
| confident (like most people) even if their intentions for
| their kid are good. Others leverage their power over
| their kids to force them into certain paths which isn't
| great either.
| threatofrain wrote:
| I don't know what it means for kids to be free nowadays. Free
| to visit a friend's home seems like the only thing, because
| everything else is a home that's an anonymous unit or a
| commercial establishment that's gated by money.
|
| It's not like you're releasing your child to be raised by the
| experiences of the village.
|
| With that in mind, many parents are probably struggling to
| not have their kids consumed by the web during free time, esp
| during COVID lockdowns.
| agent008t wrote:
| Skateboarding? Climbing trees? Taking apart a toy? Messing
| around with a computer and a programming language?
| Inventing a game?
| timerol wrote:
| There are plenty of areas open to the public that are
| accessible to children: playgrounds, libraries,
| schoolyards, skateparks, large underused parking lots,
| malls, public pools. Some places have great nature nearby:
| beaches, creeks, rivers, hills, and mountains. Some of
| those are more dangerous than others, but they are all
| accessible if the parent allows it.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| In the US, if the children in question are under 12 and
| going to any of those places unsupervised, they're likely
| to get the police and/or CPS called on them.
| blt wrote:
| This upsets me a lot. I'm in my 30's and I was still
| allowed to ride bikes around the neighborhood, go to the
| store for snacks, etc. with my brother. I don't
| understand how kids can develop a sense of exploration
| without these opportunities. Hopefully it's still
| possible to develop it during the teen years.
| bkav wrote:
| It depends on where. A few years ago, I lived in a
| falling-down house in a family neighborhood of mainly
| immigrants. There was a school a few blocks away, and
| kids used to come hang out in our trees (I'm pretty sure
| they thought the place was abandoned) and occasionally
| set off fireworks by the creek we lived next to.
|
| I wouldn't have called the cops on them since they
| weren't causing any real trouble, but if my neighbors
| did, no one ever came. There are bigger problems in that
| town (like the feral fucking dogs) that the cops refused
| to do anything about.
|
| But honestly, most of the neighbors were familiar with
| each other and let their kids roam pretty free. It was
| nice to see that places like that still exist.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Sadly true. And part of the problem. There's now an
| expectation (at least in upper middle class areas) that
| kids be in formal, supervised activities 24/7.
|
| I still remember growing up, playing around the
| neighborhood, and a parent would call out the front door
| "Danny, dinner time!" and all the kids would scatter to
| get home for dinner.
|
| #getoffmylawn #wheresmycane
| [deleted]
| grahamburger wrote:
| That's one cool thing about living in Utah:
| https://www.npr.org/2018/04/01/598630200/utah-passes-
| free-ra...
|
| The other cool thing is all the natural parks and outdoor
| activities (skiing, biking, climbing.)
|
| The downsides are the utter lack of nightlife (not really
| my jam anyway, but whatever) and all the damn Mormons (I
| am one.)
| nathancahill wrote:
| Username checks out.
| alistairSH wrote:
| We raised my son in the DC suburbs (Herndon, VA). There is
| still a "town center" of sorts, with several parks nearby.
| So, free for him meant a combo of going to friends (mostly
| in the same large subdivision), getting to school on his
| own (bike, board, foot, bus), and running around after
| school (parks, downtown, whatever - I know a few of his
| common haunts, but didn't track his every waking moment).
| brudgers wrote:
| These days, there aren't many kids who only do
| Scouting...it's an over-scheduling comorbidity. For kids who
| resist over-scheduling, scouting seems to be one of the first
| things to go...because den and pack meetings are by and for
| adults, they never make it to a troop.
|
| Or to put it another way, teenage apathy prevalence is
| probably pre-teen survivor bias.
| watwut wrote:
| The scouting, at least here, is very time consuming. It
| seems to want to be your whole lifestyle.
| alistairSH wrote:
| How so? When my son was in scouts, it was a weekly
| meeting, usually after dinner (to avoid sports). Plus one
| optional weekend activity (camping, etc) per month (and
| these usually slowed between Nov-Mar because fewer people
| want to camp when it's freezing and wet).
| bluGill wrote:
| Most actives do. Commitment is the way to win
| championships, so any one moment you are not practicing
| your sport is a chance to lose the award. That things
| can/should be fun is lost. Scouting is a bit better than
| sports, but they still want your life.
| watwut wrote:
| They don't. You can go to piano teacher once a week. You
| then train at home as a side hobby. You go to art lesson
| once or twice a week. You go to sport training 2-3 times
| a week and that can be it. There are plenty of clubs like
| that. They even have competitions one in a while - you
| won't be champion but you will compete against kids like
| you.
|
| There are also super competitive clubs, but huge amount
| of them is not like that. My own kids go to clubs like
| that, my friends kid go to clubs like that. The teacher
| typically acts seriously and attempts to teach you what
| is possible during that time.
|
| But scouting is whole another level, occupying
| afternooms, weekends and plus giving "homework" projects.
| The kids were either fully into it or left.
| meowster wrote:
| That was not my experience with Scouting as a youth. My
| troop was around 30 kids. It was one 90 minute meeting a
| week, one weekend campout a month, an annual food drive,
| and an every-other-month selling consessions at the
| church bingo game as a fundraiser for about 2 hours.
|
| Pretty much everything else can be done at summer camp (1
| week a summer) or maybe a merit badge fair on a Saturday
| once a year.
|
| Sure, you might have to keep a log for a month of your
| chores, or do a home improvement project for the Family
| Life merit badge, but it never felt like a time sink as a
| kid, and didn't occupy all my afternoons. I essentially
| never had "homework" from Scouts.
|
| Maybe some troops are really gung-ho, but there are
| plenty of troops that aren't. Troops are not allowed to
| set requirements that aren't in the Scout Handbook, if
| they are, there's the district, the council, and
| ultimately the national office that can put a stop to it
| or revoke the unit's charter.
| meowster wrote:
| I wonder what the rate of dropping out during Cub Scouts is
| vs Scouts BSA, vs how many don't cross over from Cubs to
| Scouts. The crossover happens around age 11, so I would
| imagine most of the dropouts happen later.
| brudgers wrote:
| Anecdotal observation from my child's experience is
| nearly everyone who dropped out dropped out as a cub
| scout. That was a very large fraction. Those who crossed
| over are typically Eagle Scouts. But for one of those
| kids, they were all highly scheduled. But for a different
| one, they were each complying with parental wishes.
|
| My child was over Cub Scouts by Bears.
|
| But more than a decade later, my grown-ass child hangs
| out with several of the Eagles. They are close friends.
| leto_ii wrote:
| I don't think attitudes to infant care translate in any way
| to how older kids or teenagers are treated in different
| cultures. I'm not a parent, but I was a child and teenager at
| some point, so I can say from personal experience that
| parents who are extremely present at a young age can actually
| give you more leeway later in life.
|
| On a more general note, I can recommend Jared Diamond's 'The
| World Until Yesterday' - it covers similar topics to the bbc
| article and more.
| alistairSH wrote:
| It's all so strange to me.
|
| My son (now 26) always had summers free at minimum. While he
| was younger, he did go to a YMCA outdoor "adventure" day camp
| at a nearby lake park. Once he was in middle school, he
| stayed home. Sports 2-3 seasons, but he got to pick which one
| he played and never the crazy travel league stuff. In high
| school, he was free to do what he wanted (football for 2
| years, guitar all 4, and a mix of rec league basketball and
| volleyball when he felt like it). Always plenty of time to
| ride his bike, play at the park, run around with friends.
| Starting in middle school, he'd often disappear across town
| on bike of skateboard for hours at a time. School was 2.5
| miles away and he often opted to ride his skateboard instead
| of the bus.
|
| I see kids today where every free moment is booked with
| stuff. All in some sisyphean effort to get into Harvard or
| something. I mean, sure, I get a desire to go to a top name
| uni, but the changes of little Johnnie getting in, regardless
| of extra-curricular, is so small that all the effort seems
| mostly wasted to me. I "only" went to UVA and turned out
| fine, IMO, so maybe I'm biased. I dunno.
| jkubicek wrote:
| That seems normal to me? I'm well-past the teenage years, and
| I wouldn't commit to a weekend activity without double-
| checking with the rest of my family first.
| meowster wrote:
| I think it's "normal" only in the sense that most everyone
| behaves this way today, but I don't think it should be that
| way.
|
| By the time I was older in Scouts, my siblings were in
| college and my parent could drive me to wherever, or at
| least to the meeting place where I could carpool. The times
| when my parent wasn't available, I took the city bus.
|
| I imagine if one of my siblings was was the same age and
| our parent could only drive one of us, the other would take
| the bus.
|
| The first time I took the bus, my parent went with me to
| show me how, and then let me do it myself going forward.
| watwut wrote:
| I dont think the person you responded to was thinking
| about driving vs busses.
|
| Basically, you are 16 and want to spend whole weekend out
| of house including during the night. Not doing it without
| parental permission seems normal to me.
|
| Nor it seems new. My gradma or grandpa definitely could
| not just spend whole night and weekend away just by own
| decision. They would expect my parents to ask them for
| permission. I was expected the same.
| meowster wrote:
| Mine was default allow, his was default block. I had to
| inform, he had to get permission. Perhaps same result,
| but one feels more autonomous than the other.
|
| From another one of my comments:
|
| > I always just told my parent that I was doing something
| just so they knew where I was - not necessarily asking
| for permission, but that gave them the chance to veto it
| (which they only did one time as punishment when I got in
| trouble at school).
|
| > I think that parents need to teach their kids how to be
| responsible and autonomous, and treat them like they are
| their own person
| sdevonoes wrote:
| Best decision my parents made for me when I was kid: no extra
| activities after school, no summer camps, no music lessons,
| etc, no soccer teams, etc.
|
| I did have "unofficial summer camps", I did play some music
| instruments (without teachers), I did play a lot of soccer
| (without teams, just in the street)... I (and the kids in my
| neighbourhood) did all of these without adults.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| Yeah me too! I had the occasional swimming lesson once per
| week or something but other than that, if the weather was
| good, you'd find me and all the neighborhood kids running
| around playing tag or riding our bikes everywhere. I grew up
| at a co-op so all of the houses were close together and there
| were a lot of families and other kids my age.
|
| I think the number one thing you can do for your kid is to
| live in a neighborhood with lots of other kids.
| thebigman433 wrote:
| Did you not have any desire to do these things? This strikes
| me as an odd "rule" to have since a lot of people genuinely
| enjoy these activities. Playing football in high school was
| one of my favorite parts of the time period, and going to a
| summer camp legitimately changed my life path. I think these
| things can be extremely good if the child wants to
| participate.
|
| I couldnt imagine not letting my own child not do these
| things if they wanted to.
| meowster wrote:
| I went to art class once a week because I liked it, but
| stopped at a young age when I didn't se any classes in the
| course catalog that I was interested in. The only summer camp
| I did was one week a summer with Scouts.
|
| I'm guessing "summer camp" for most other kids is of a longer
| duration?
| carabiner wrote:
| My coworker did this with her son. She was spread thin with
| afterschool programs, sports, projects and so on. Well, the kid
| got into Caltech. Where he'll probably meet amazing people and
| receive an excellent education. So maybe it worked? How many YC
| founders had this overbooked childhood? I'd guess over 70%.
| alistairSH wrote:
| But did the overbooked childhood enable that, or was the kid
| destined for a top-notch uni regardless?
|
| The students gaining admissions to top unis are largely self-
| motivated, extremely smart, and would have chosen high-
| quality activities on their own.
|
| Looking back at my own childhood, I chose my sports, music,
| and other activities. My parents enabled them, but never
| forced me into them. Would forcing me to play an additional
| sport, or forcing me to attend after-school tutoring made the
| difference between UVA and Harvard? I doubt it. And what did
| attending UVA instead of Harvard cost me? Hard to say for
| sure, but I'm inclined to say "not much" as I'm happily
| upper-middle-class as it is.
|
| And considering my high school peers who did attend Ivies and
| similar, most of them either smarter or harder working than
| me.
| krapht wrote:
| I have the same experience; I think what school you get to
| attend is just the happy byproduct arising from your
| internal combination of intelligence, self-motivation, and
| emotional resilience (mostly! I am speaking in
| generalities).
|
| I remember reading a study about this exact topic and it
| turns out name brand has little to do with career success
| in meritocratic career paths - i.e., upper-middle white
| collar professionals such as engineers, doctors, lawyers,
| etc.
|
| I guess my conclusion is to be aware of your child's
| personality. If they aspire to be an engineer, they could
| probably go anywhere, even _gasp_ Virginia Tech and do
| fine. However if they aspire to be a politician, then they
| 'd probably be best served to attend the highest grade
| institution they can so they can be socialized into that
| in-group.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Now you're just being silly. Nothing good ever came from
| that backwater university. ;)
|
| Flashes back to massive football losses... "It's alright,
| it's ok, we're gonna be your boss someday!" College
| students can be such insecure jerks.
|
| (but, yeah, totally agree - the vast majority of students
| will do just fine with a degree from Big State U)
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| And there's plenty of students at Caltech who were not
| overbooked in their free time.
| carabiner wrote:
| Hey notsureaboutpg just so you know, you're hellbanned and
| all of your comments are grayed out. Replies to you are
| disabled.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| FYI (and not sure if this requires a karma threshold) if
| you click the timestamp on a comment you'll get a "vouch"
| option that you can use to resurrect non-problematic
| comments from banned people.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| I think your guess would be wrong, but I also don't think
| overbooking is a problem.
|
| As a child who had lots of free time due to living in a place
| with a lack of structured activities for kids, I really envy
| kids who can take advantage of such resources enough to have
| a packed daily schedule.
| rsync wrote:
| "IMO, the top "offender" is over-scheduling kid's activities.
| So many kids in my area have their days booked solid with
| sports, academic tutoring, music lessons. Approaching zero free
| time to enjoy being a kid."
|
| It's a weird and tricky balance that one has to strike, in the
| US, in 2021 ...
|
| On the one hand, I feel strongly that kids should have free
| time and energy to explore and experiment and I am reinforced
| daily in my instinct that a "bored" kid is just another 10
| minutes away from doing something interesting and magical.
|
| On the other hand, as my oldest children reach pre-teen age,
| and I pay more attention to their pre-teen peers, I find myself
| agreeing with the "idle hands are the devils playground"
| heuristic. I want my teenage children busy doing constructive
| and healthy things.
|
| But it gets complicated ... you can't just plug your kid onto a
| age 12 or age 13 baseball or hockey team. Those kids have been
| playing the sport (and playing the sport together) since they
| were 4 or 5. Your kid will not make the team or will be
| conspicuously out of place. So if you've been free-ranging it
| for their first ten years you're going to need to get more
| creative as you transition to the teenage years...
|
| I have seen things like mountain biking and BJJ be good
| options...
| [deleted]
| kar5pt wrote:
| Exactly. I tried joining sports for the first time when I was
| 14 (around 15 years ago). And it was honestly a humiliating
| experience. I was so far behind the other kids in skill level
| it was just sad. And I was the ONLY one on the team that
| couldn't keep up. Everyone else had been practicing for 5-10
| years.
|
| You're a good parent to notice and think about these things.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Yeah, totally agree on sports. But, that's part of the
| problem - kids specializing in a single sport before high
| school? That's bonkers to m.
|
| When I was in school, very few kids specialized, even through
| high school. The top football players were also the best
| wrestlers or basketball players, and most also played
| baseball or track or lacrosse. Few of them did school
| basketball and then AAU the remainder of the year.
|
| My son stuck to club/rec basketball (instead of the school
| team) and volleyball (school team, but mens volleyball prior
| to high school isn't really a thing in DC).
|
| And, like you said, there's always cycling, martial arms, or
| track/field (typically takes all interested).
|
| I also agree with keeping kids active/engaged. But, to me,
| that means supporting them as they pick their own activities,
| not scheduling every second of their non-school time.
|
| Edit - many of the kids specializing before high school are
| pretty obviously NOT destined for scholarship athletics.
| There's really no point to it, IMO. I coached football and
| basketball for much of my son's youth. Of all the kids I
| coached, 1 went on to NCAA D1 sports (and that was to W&M,
| where he still had to meet stringent academic standards).
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > and this isn't really a western thing
|
| For real, I've heard some horror stories about e.g. Chinese
| parents pulling their kids through the grinder.
| PebblesRox wrote:
| I recommend Sweet Sleep as a resource for anyone interested in
| cosleeping/bedsharing.
|
| It gives a lot of practical advice and looks at the research to
| address the safety concerns. The conclusion is that bedsharing
| will multiply existing risk factors for SIDS but if those risk
| factors are already low, adding bedsharing into the mix does not
| increase the risk by a significant amount (assuming it's done in
| accordance with safety guidelines).
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Sleep-Nighttime-Strategies-Brea...
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| I was under the impression that the risk of SIDS isn't the only
| thing when it comes to bed sharing. Adult beds are softer and
| have more give, so babies get turned over more easily so that
| their airway can get blocked in the mattress. There are more
| things like pillows and blankets that can get block the airway.
| And then there's of course the parent that's sleeping next to
| them.
|
| Do all of those risks get clumped into SIDS when it comes to
| these statistics?
| PebblesRox wrote:
| The other part of the equation is practicing safe bedsharing
| practices like the safe sleep seven guidelines:
|
| "If you are: 1. A nonsmoker 2. Sober and unimpaired 3. A
| breastfeeding mother
|
| and your baby is: 4. Healthy and full-term 5. On his back 6.
| Lightly dressed
|
| and you both are: 7. On a safe surface
|
| Then your baby in bed with you is at no greater risk for SIDS
| than if he's nearby in a crib."[0]
|
| A safe sleep surface means the mattress is not too soft (we
| tested our adult mattress to make sure it met the standards
| for crib mattresses), no gaps by the wall that the baby can
| get wedged in, bed only (no couch or recliner), light
| bedding, sleepwear without long ribbons or drawstrings that
| can strangle, etc.
|
| It's important to do the research and not be cavalier about
| the risks, but I think it's worth learning how to work around
| them so everyone can get great sleep.
|
| [0] https://www.llli.org/the-safe-sleep-seven/
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| Of the 16 citations in this article, most of them don't
| seem to have to do with the question of whether bedsharing
| (under the seven conditions) increases the chance of SIDS
| and/or suffocation.
|
| Citation 12 hypothesizes why bedsharing with a breast-
| feeding mother reduces the time infants sleep in the prone
| position.
|
| Citation 14 through 16 is about breast-feeding vs not
| breast-feeding in regards to bedsharing.
|
| Citation 11 contains two studies, one with 20 mother/infant
| pairs and the other with 26 mother/infant pairs. It
| compares breast-feeding vs not breast-feeding with regards
| to bedsharing.
|
| I don't see how that allows the author to come to the
| conclusion that "safe sleep seven" practices result in the
| same chance of SIDS/suffocation as crib sleeping best
| practices. It looks like the author is making a claim and
| citing sources that only justify why the author believes
| that claim to be true. It doesn't actually provide
| statistical evidence that the claim is true.
|
| Here's a study that showed that bedsharing increases the
| risk of SIDS, even when the parents don't smoke or take
| alcohol or drugs (although the absolute risk is small in
| both cases, 0.08 vs 0.23 per 1000 live births):
| https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/5/e002299.short
|
| Edit: I found a couple of other studies that said there
| wasn't significant difference in risk of SIDS when you take
| out non-breastfeeding / smoking / drinking / etc. However,
| that brings me to my earlier question: do these statistics
| lump together suffocation with SIDS?
| em-bee wrote:
| that's an interesting observation. beds in asia are
| traditionally harder from what i have observed, so that might
| be a factor.
| walshemj wrote:
| Not given the conditions in the west, Comparing conditions in one
| culture with radically different areas with different access to $
| and other services - clean water for example.
|
| Some parts of the world still have mortality rates of over 20% up
| till the age of five.
| [deleted]
| mpalmer wrote:
| > Kuroda [...] didn't find any correlation between the amount of
| time babies were carried and the amount they cried. "I couldn't
| agree with that," she says.
|
| > Her research found that carrying a baby reduced [...] how much
| they cried.
|
| ...what?
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Existing research said there was no correlation. Her research
| says there is a correlation.
|
| Gotta say common sense is on Kuroda's side here, it's super
| common for babies to cry in strollers and then quiet down the
| moment they're picked up and held/plopped into a baby carrier.
| teddyh wrote:
| Commonly observed: https://bonkersworld.net/baby-care
| svat wrote:
| This is an example of how you can change the meaning completely
| by dropping the right words.
|
| The part that you quoted as "Kuroda [...] didn't find any
| correlation" is actually "Kuroda [...] saw that previous
| research [...] didn't find any correlation" (and that's what
| she couldn't agree with), specifically:
|
| > Kuroda began looking into the physiological effects of
| carrying infants when she saw that previous research, which
| used parental diaries rather than real-time physiological
| measurements, didn't find any correlation between the amount of
| time babies were carried and the amount they cried. "I couldn't
| agree with that," she says. Her research found that carrying a
| baby reduced their heart rate and movement as well as how much
| they cried.
|
| and so on.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| The only thing I feel certain of is that hitting children or
| abusing them is a sad unnecessary practice. Adults need the
| wisdom and sense to handle problems with logic and words.
| Physical violence is simply bullying and using superior size and
| strength, which is irrelevant in the modern world and which
| predisposes your children to violent behaviors.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| rajin444 wrote:
| What makes you feel certain of this? I may be wrong, but a
| majority of human history seems to point to (roughly) "spanking
| is ok, anything more is not". Children do not understand logic
| the same as adults.
| watwut wrote:
| For majority of human history, even sever child abuse was
| seen as unfortunate thing that however happens, so what.
|
| The adult domestic violence was also accepted a lot.
| mercurysmessage wrote:
| Just because something was done historically doesn't make it
| right or correct.
| rajin444 wrote:
| I agree, and we're starting to get heavily in to
| epistemology here, but modern sciences do not have the
| ability to construct properly controlled studies, and
| "harder" sciences do not have enough understanding of the
| underlying biology to provide a definitive answer.
|
| At best we can get a "we think it's like this", but I'm not
| sure I give that a higher epistemic status than tens of
| thousands of years of human history. This is probably a
| pointless discussion, since there is not enough information
| to reach a conclusion.
| zeku wrote:
| I really don't believe this is true. I was spanked my whole
| childhood. It never taught me one single thing, because I
| just wanted to know "why" X was bad and I was never told.
|
| It was no more effective than just telling me no.
|
| People use spanking as a crutch, it really has no place in
| the child raising toolkit imo.
| NortySpock wrote:
| So the explanation is more important than the spanking (or
| other discipline).
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Depends on the kid, and depends on when. When you were one,
| you might have listened to "no", but there are plenty of
| kids who don't. And it matters because of things like
| wanting to play in the street. I can't tell a one-year-old
| what two tons of car moving at 30 miles an hour is going to
| do to them. But I can train them that every time they play
| in the street, it hurts.
|
| That sounds cruel. On the other hand, letting them get hit
| by a car is much more cruel, and not all of us have fenced
| front yards.
|
| I have no problem with spanking for safety issues. But be
| careful, because a kid in danger triggers fear and panic in
| parents, and once the crisis is over, that seems to almost
| automatically morph into anger. _Do not_ spank in anger,
| ever.
| watwut wrote:
| Have you ever met 1 years old? Cause this sounds like you
| did not and are just imagining things.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I have, yes - four of them, up close and in detail.
| watwut wrote:
| One year old are just learning to walk. They are slow and
| dumb. If they play on street, it is 100% fault of adult.
| If adult is beating them after that, adult should not
| have a kid.
| Berobero wrote:
| The one time I remember being spanked as a child was --
| many, many years after the fact -- explained to me in
| passing to be for the exact reason you describe. It seems
| neigh impossible to me to validate that the spanking was
| "necessary" in any reasonable interpretation of the word;
| sure, I was never hit by a car as a kid, but you can't
| really prove a negative either. I can say, unequivocally,
| however, that 2-year-old me experienced the spanking as a
| completely arbitrary and utterly humiliating display of
| violence with absolutely no rhyme or reason whatsoever.
| Berobero wrote:
| I'm generally not in favor of spanking, but just some
| observations:
|
| - It's easy to find people who were spanked that are in favor
| of spanking, people who were spanked that aren't in favor of
| spanking, and people who weren't spanked that aren't in favor
| of spanking. People who weren't spanked that are in favor of
| spanking seem almost non-existent.
|
| - Just perusing Google Scholar and reading abstracts, studies
| of spanking much more often than not link it to negative
| outcomes, most commonly "externalizing behavior". And while
| some studies find it not meaningfully linked to negative
| outcomes, no study I have seen links it to positive outcomes.
|
| - Children not understanding logic the same as adults does
| not entail that physical punishment be necessary in child
| rearing.
| JxLS-cpgbe0 wrote:
| It creates child abuse apologists, like yourself
| 3PS wrote:
| There is a long, long history of research into the grim
| effects of corporal punishment in child-raising. As a
| starting point, see the widely cited 2002 meta-analysis by
| Gershoff [0] as well as this other meta-analysis they did
| more recently which I am less familiar with [1]. I also
| highly recommend going through the research work of the late
| Murray Straus at the University of Wisconsin [2] who spent
| much of his time systematically analyzing how spanking harms
| child development in just about every single way you can
| imagine.
|
| [0] Gershoff, E. T. (2002). Corporal punishment by parents
| and associated child behaviors and experiences: a meta-
| analytic and theoretical review. Psychological bulletin,
| 128(4), 539.
|
| [1] Gershoff, E. T., & Grogan-Kaylor, A. (2016). Spanking and
| child outcomes: Old controversies and new meta-analyses.
| Journal of family psychology, 30(4), 453.
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_A._Straus
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| They say because people from India that move to Britain still
| have low SIDS incidence, that its cultural. How about, genetic?
| rudedogg wrote:
| They do believe SIDS has a biological component
| angry-tempest wrote:
| This is one of those "I can't prove it but I know this to be
| true"s. I would bet on this with 1/50 odds.
| throwanem wrote:
| I look forward to your GWAS results!
| LegitShady wrote:
| No,no it's not. Things can be different without being weird.
| Weird is a judgement while different is a fact.
|
| For example, I could say BBC opinion pieces are weird garbage but
| that would be an opinion.
|
| I could say "man it's weird this is so high up on hackernews with
| no comments and six points", that would be an opinion too.
| ericmay wrote:
| I agree. How can it be weird anyway? Isn't culture relative? I
| always get so confused by these things.
| ihsw wrote:
| Culture is relative but Western (ie: white) culture is
| "weird." The cognitive dissonance is palpable.
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| The internet is a better place if we engage with the actual
| content of articles and not just the headline. By only engaging
| solely with the headline you are just encouraging _more_
| clickbait by proving to content creators that the headline is
| all that matters.
| LegitShady wrote:
| They didn't write the headline by accident - they published
| it and its ok to judge what they chose to publish. If BBC
| didn't write clickbait headlines there would be no clickbait
| headlines to criticize them over.
|
| This headline does represent the article. The article talks
| about different cultural practices but is questioning if one
| of them is _weird_ because it doesn 't conform to other
| groups practices.
|
| Do you normally call people or groups of people weird in a
| newspaper because they don't conform with what you consider
| your 'normal' cultural practices? Would you consider that a
| feature of an inclusive society?
|
| The internet would be a better place if opinion pieces were
| kept on separate websites from news, and people wouldn't need
| to criticize how they're written. Then there'd be a lot less
| worry about if it was weird.
| genrez wrote:
| I think that the article is trying to point out that some
| western parenting practices are potentially harmful to infants.
| In this case, "weird" is a very kind way of expressing the
| articles concern.
| LegitShady wrote:
| It doesn't, though. It mentions sids a lot but then quotes a
| doctor to say the research is unclear. Other countries
| experience sids at reduced rates but its not clear if thats
| because of bed sharing, and there's no evidence in the
| article one way or another.
|
| If they want to point out potential harmful behaviours, they
| should do that, and then they would get called out on doing
| so with little to no evidence. Instead they went with "weird"
| because they have no argument per se.
| genrez wrote:
| I agree that the article does choose not to say that their
| claims are backed with evidence. The article in fact does
| correctly state that they don't have evidence that bed-
| sharing is safer. However, they do state that room-sharing
| is current pediatric best practice, and provide links [1],
| [2] to articles to back that up.
|
| Given that as far as I know, room-sharing is not standard
| Western parenting practice, I believe they have backed up
| with an appeal to authority the idea that Western style
| parenting is harmful. Furthermore, link [1] contains a link
| to [3] which is an recommendation from a pediatric journal
| that provides links to scientific papers that suggest room-
| sharing reduces SIDS risk by up to 50%. (see bullet point 4
| of link [3]) Thus I think the appeals to authority are
| backed by evidence.
|
| Thus I think that the article could have made a stronger
| point if they had talked about room sharing more instead of
| bed sharing, but I think they do have an evidence backed
| point that Western parenting is potentially harmful. They
| avoid ruffling parent's feathers too much by understating
| their point.
|
| [1]: https://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-
| health-ini... [2]: https://www.lullabytrust.org.uk/safer-
| sleep-advice/ [3]: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/c
| ontent/138/5/e201629...
| LegitShady wrote:
| Again, this article is written poorly, the headline is
| pure clickbait, and its worthy of any criticism it
| garners.
|
| It's great to steelman someone else's arguments in a
| discussion. It's terrible to let BBC print garbage with
| clickbait headlines without criticism, because it will
| keep happening, and its bad for society.
|
| It doesn't make the point your making, and the way it
| goes about making its point is not something I'd accept
| in an inclusive society.
| genrez wrote:
| I agree that the article is poorly written, and doesn't
| more than tangentially make the point I was making. I
| think I can understand why you would want criticism a
| poorly written article in the supposedly high quality
| BBC. My curiosity is peeked about the inclusive society
| point. Nothing in the article ran afoul of my speech
| norms. I don't think my speech norms are particularly
| well developed though. What part of the way the article
| makes its point is something you would not accept?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| To be blunt and controversial, do people living in the mentioned
| region (Asia) even HAVE multiple rooms / a nursery? I mean I
| don't.
| hackitup7 wrote:
| I highly recommend the book Cribsheet on this topic
| (https://www.amazon.com/Cribsheet-Data-Driven-Relaxed-
| Parenti...). The author is an economist at Brown and applies
| research techniques to determine where there are causal
| relationships between parental behavior and child outcomes.
|
| For example, she looks into the research behind breastfeeding vs
| formula - a very hot topic where I already see the pitchforks
| coming out in this thread. Her conclusion if I'm recalling
| correctly is that there are only relatively minor direct benefits
| to breast milk over formula. But there are _significant_ benefits
| to being the type of parent that is intense + dedicated enough to
| breast feed despite how unpleasant many mothers find it to be,
| and that dedication explains why studies turn up larger
| differences in outcomes between breastfed vs formula fed babies
| (it 's just correlation vs causation).
| nineplay wrote:
| "Parents in <X> are better parents than you" is a real crowd
| pleaser when it comes to a chance to explain why your <personal
| pet peeve about modern parenting> has just been Validated by
| Science.
|
| Someone once said that there is no more a right way to 'parent'
| than there is a right way to 'spouse' or 'child'. Everyone is
| different, every relationship is different. When I give advice to
| new parents, I tell them exactly that. Their relationship with
| their kid is going to be specific to them and their kid, and
| don't feel pressured to do things the 'right' way by an external
| source.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| IMO that is excellent advice.
|
| But we should continue to keep the threes a secret from
| potential parents, or the birth rate may go down even more
| precipitously.
| nmridul wrote:
| Asia and other areas, there is the support from extended families
| for baby care. At night, there are grand parents / other in laws
| (brothers sisters) that take turn taking care of baby at night.
| And during day time too, you can leave babies with them and take
| proper rest.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Honestly, we're a damned resilient species. This is micro-
| optimization. Your kids are going to be awesome almost certainly,
| just like every generation so far has been more capable than the
| ones before.
|
| The science on this stuff is half-baked. The real evidence is
| very low. If you took the same standards people hold to something
| they don't want to happen (let's say legalization of LSD use) and
| then applied it to most of the papers, they'd fail the test.
| shirro wrote:
| Many of our civilisation's needs and desires have been created by
| marketers. Whether it is people selling expensive child care
| equipment or books promoting fads. You don't need most of that
| shit. There is some good stuff to know for health and safety but
| you have to think critically which is hard for a first time
| parent going into the unknown. We bought a lot of gear that never
| got used or which turned out to be less effective than simpler
| means.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I wonder how much is caused by having both parents working. Kids
| were raised differently 50-70 years ago when one salary was
| enough for a family.
| meowster wrote:
| I wonder if salaries were more competitive because there were
| less workers? If the cultural norm was to only have one parent
| work, then it seems like the supply of workers essentially
| doubles* if both parents work, leading to less competitive
| wages.
|
| *not exactly, but essentially. Yes, not everyone is married
| etc.
| osterreich0000 wrote:
| This is what's known as the "lump of labour" fallacy - the
| idea that there's a fixed amount of work that needs to be
| done, therefore opening the job market to more workers
| necessarily lowers wages due to "increased supply".
|
| The reality is that increasing the supply of workers doesn't
| necessarily mean increased competition for jobs. More people
| available to work means that more can be produced across the
| board; each additional worker can create opportunities for
| further additional workers. The pie can be grown at the same
| time that it's sliced more ways.
| Dirlewanger wrote:
| >The pie can be grown at the same time that it's sliced
| more ways.
|
| Except the exact opposite has happened.
| meowster wrote:
| > each additional worker can create opportunities for
| further additional workers
|
| By more people working, we created more opportunities for
| more people to work?
|
| I think there is a fallacy within that "lump of labour
| fallacy". I'm not saying there is a fixed amount of work
| needed, but eventually you do run into economies of scale:
| less and less addional work is needed to support more
| people.
|
| Hasn't cost of living and other expenses have increased
| faster than wage growth? With more jobs just for the sake
| of creating jobs, does each additional job pay the same or
| more?
|
| I'm of the opinion that we need more opportunities for
| people to work less, so they can have more time for raising
| kids or persuing hobbies.
| ivanbakel wrote:
| >By more people working, we created more opportunities
| for more people to work?
|
| Yes, because more workers = more people with money = more
| people who stimulate production through spending.
|
| The issue with the "economies of scale" argument is the
| same issue that the original lump of labour argument has
| - it assumes that there is a sensible upper bound on the
| amount of work people want done at any one time.
|
| The only reason more efficient workers would lead to less
| work per worker is if the work to be done is bounded.
| What history shows is that instead, more efficient
| workers work the same amount and produce more, and the
| consumption of the product of that work is effectively
| unbounded.
|
| For an example in tech: advancements in programming
| theory and practice over the last ~50 years have made it
| so that the modern programmer is easily able to produce
| the kind of programs that computers used 50 years ago in
| a fraction of the time it originally took to code them.
| Does this mean we need a fraction of the number of
| programmers compared to 50 years ago? No, because the
| improvements in efficiency have been completely offset by
| the demand for more complicated programs. In general,
| there doesn't seem to be any kind of bound on program
| complexity - the easier the programmer's job becomes, the
| greater their requirements become.
| meowster wrote:
| > By more people working, we created more opportunities
| for more people to work?
|
| What I was getting at, is that it sounds like the goal is
| just to work for the sake of working.
|
| (I should have put an elipsis after "to".)
| [deleted]
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| I'd put it on the other side, though after correcting for
| inflation maybe it's the same thing depending on the sector.
|
| If you're buying a house with two incomes, you can outbid a
| couple with one income by a factor of two-ish. You don't need
| more houses to keep up with more workers per house, so you
| just see prices get bid up. Eventually a house costs 1.7 full
| time incomes because that's what the couple you're bidding
| against probably has.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| The salaries were not more competitive than they are now.
| Families who raised children on one income back then quite
| simply expected and did with much less than single income
| families do today, not to mention with how much two income
| families make today.
| meowster wrote:
| I'm on my phone and I'm having a hard time finding a single
| source that shows this, and it's possible that I can't find
| it because it doesn't exist, but I have found that housing
| prices have outpaced wages, car prices have outpaced wages,
| and tuition prices have outpaced wages (though tuition
| prices is a whole different issue). Real Wages, which
| accounts for inflation, have barely budged.
|
| It seems like both parents work to pay for child costs that
| exist because both parents work.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| _Real Wages, which accounts for inflation, have barely
| budged._
|
| If real wages have barely budged, it means precisely that
| it is exactly as affordable to buy a basket of goods as
| it used to be. You can't argue both that all costs have
| outpaced wages, and that the real wage hasn't budged,
| because this is just logically contradictory.
|
| _It seems like both parents work to pay for child costs
| that exist because both parents work._
|
| Yes, it is often the case that the income of one parent
| is just about enough to cover the cost of child care
| necessary to enable this work. This is usually justified
| by positing that this is necessary for the career growth
| of the second parent. This makes perfect sense, but my
| point is that _people used to expect less in the past_ ,
| and one of the things that they didn't expect was good
| career growth of both parents.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| > Kids were raised differently 50-70 years ago when one salary
| was enough for a family.
|
| ... in the US. Meanwhile in Europe in the fifties, in some of
| the countries devastated by the war, both parents had to work 6
| days a week to barely make a living (e.g. my grandmother had to
| take a loan to be able to afford a coat for winter).
| war1025 wrote:
| > when one salary was enough for a family.
|
| One salary is still "enough" for many of the definitions of
| "enough" from back then.
|
| Hell, even now my wife stays home and I feel like we live like
| kings.
|
| Making enough money is important, but past a certain fairly
| modest income, avoiding stupid lifestyle expenses is more
| important.
| dlisboa wrote:
| Outside of neglect and abuse, is there really a WRONG way of
| raising a child?
|
| You see multiple different styles in different cultures. Some
| cultures where bed-sharing and baby-carrying is common also beat
| their kids and use other forms of punishment for disobedience.
| Wouldn't that be much "weirder"? It seems in Europe breastfeeding
| rates are really low and people use prams, but they might not
| beat the child as much (or at all). Is that the wrong way?
|
| It seems to me people who are loved and cared for as children are
| raised and generally become well-adjusted and happy individuals.
| I fear parents are being constantly judged now for not doing the
| latest thing that some research found, the latest fad that may or
| may not have a tiny effect on the child's life itself. It
| probably gives people a lot of anxiety that they might be doing
| something terribly wrong for the child for not having the right
| crib height, or not sleeping in the same bed, or not playing
| Mozart at the right time or whatever.
| PebblesRox wrote:
| I agree and I really dislike the undercurrent of fear that's
| present in a lot of parenting advice. The message (implicitly
| or explicitly) tends to be "do it this way or you'll damage
| your kids." But the truth is we're never going to be perfect
| parents, we have no guarantees over how our kids turn out, and
| there are a wide range of approaches that will lead to good
| outcomes.
|
| I like to do research to discover options I might not have come
| up with on my own, but I always try to pay attention to those
| subtle messages of fear so they don't influence my decisions
| too much.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| There is damage and there is damage. Some can really change
| kids trajectory. Some become a funny anecdote for the future.
| I am a newly minted parent and we had a visitation from a
| parent, who now has a 4 year old. She already introduced him
| to Starbucks and McDonalds. Now I have to ensure that she
| stays way way down on the list of people we would consider
| babysitting.
|
| There may not be wrong way to parent exactly and each parent
| is entitled to damage their kids ( within reasons prescribed
| by the society ). My line clearly starts with food and I can
| already see I people won't like me in school, PTA and like
| meetings. Joy.
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| What's wrong with Starbucks and McDonalds? Kids drink
| glasses of milk. An iced latte is literally just a glass of
| milk with espresso in it. As to McDonalds--I'm not
| convinced it's any worse than the stuff I ate at that age
| in Bangladesh (curries heavy with oil, lots of carbs).
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Starbucks latte is okay, calories wise. Frappuccino, not
| so much, with its quadruple calories bill.
| pineaux wrote:
| Are you saying that there is no substantial difference
| between mcdonald's and curries?
|
| Same kind of fat? Same kind of carbs? Same amount of
| fibers? Same amount of minerals and vitamins?
|
| Sounds a bit like you are trying to provoke a discussion
| about this.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I personally do not subscribe to the idea that giving a
| child ( in this case -- a 4 year old ) espresso is
| acceptable.
|
| To answer your argument about Bangladesh food. Assuming
| McD is not worse ( I have no real data to say either way
| ),I am not sure it is a good argument either. You,
| typically, want your kids to do better so if McD is that
| upgrade, then I really cannot fault you for this. We all
| approach this with resources at our disposal.
| rayiner wrote:
| Are you suggesting that whatever weird food your kids eat
| is an "upgrade" compared to the normal diet of
| Bangladeshis?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| No. As previously mentioned, I don't know enough about
| traditional foods there to make a judgment one way on the
| other. I am actually arguing that what my kids eat is an
| "upgrade" over McD and I assumed that if you think McD is
| no worse than diet of Bangladeshis then it is either the
| same or better since, possibly wrongly, I assume that
| parents universally want to improve their kids life.
|
| Just to make more interesting. In the old country, the
| diet is heavy in fats of all kinds ( partially due to
| history of the location and, well, cold weather ).
| Despite its flaws, I would argue its still better than
| McD on most days.
| lqet wrote:
| > She already introduced him to Starbucks and McDonalds.
| Now I have to ensure that she stays way way down on the
| list of people we would consider babysitting.
|
| Relax. I occasionally ate fast food when I was 4, and I was
| definitely aware of the existence of McDonalds. I never had
| a weight problem in my life, and today I eat fast food
| maybe once every 3 months or so.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| That's a condescending and unfounded response. Some
| people can take heroin and not have issues, but that
| doesn't make heroin safe by any means. You're in a small
| minority of Americans and not representative of the
| average person.
|
| > The organization estimates that 3/4 of the American
| population will likely be overweight or obese by
| 2020.[13] According to research done by the Harvard T.H.
| Chan School of Public Health, it is estimated that around
| 40% of Americans are considered obese, and 18% are
| considered severely obese as of 2019. Severe obesity is
| defined as a BMI over 35 in the study. Their projections
| say that about half of the US population (48.9%) will be
| considered obese and nearly 1 in 4 (24.2%) will be
| considered severely obese by the year 2030.[14][15]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_State
| s
| rayiner wrote:
| Americans aren't fat because of Starbucks and McDonalds.
| Those things are just food. Americans are fat because
| they eat too many calories and don't get enough exercise:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/daily-calories-americans-
| eat...
|
| At age 2-3, my parents fed me traditional Bangladeshi
| meals of chicken or beef curry stewed in heavy amounts of
| canola oil. My 2 year old, meanwhile, lives on McDonald's
| chicken nuggets. There's no way the former is better for
| you than the latter.
| gugagore wrote:
| Where did the food that your parents gave you come from?
|
| There is no simple reason for WHY people in the US
| overeat and underexercise. But one facet involves the
| disruption of rituals and tradition around food. It's
| still progress by some means that a mother doesn't need
| to spend as many hours preparing meals for a household,
| and can instead e.g. work. But I believe we should
| generally dial back a bit how convenient and neutral it
| has become to eat. We're quite disconnected from our
| food.
| kube-system wrote:
| Speaking of rituals and tradition around food, the
| portion control at a place like McDonalds is probably
| _way_ better than meals served in many American homes.
| When I was growing up, it didn 't matter if I was full, I
| wasn't leaving the dinner table until I 'cleaned my
| plate'. It took a while to unlearn that.
| bitwize wrote:
| So much of American attitudes toward food are a result of
| our last great famine -- the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Back
| then, parents made their children "clean their plate"
| because tomorrow there may be no food at all.
|
| This also extends to our fondness for processed food.
| Processed food may be bad for you, but it's easier to
| store and ship, keeps for longer, and tastes better when
| it reaches your plate. It provided greater food security
| at a time when massive crop loss still loomed in recent
| memory.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > Americans aren't fat because of Starbucks and
| McDonalds. Those things are just food. Americans are fat
| because they eat too many calories
|
| Food is made out of calories, though...?
| silicon2401 wrote:
| That traditional bangladeshi meal doesn't sound like it's
| loaded with sugar like a lot of starbucks and mcdonalds,
| which is one distinct difference. another major
| difference is that the traditional bangladeshi meal
| sounds full of fiber and nutrients, which is also very
| different from a lot of starbucks and mcdonalds food.
|
| If you're a robot with 100% dietary discipline, yes you
| can maintain the same weight whether you're eating purely
| lettuce, potato chips, or curry. But the average human
| will have a harder time sticking to their proper calories
| if they subsist on high-sugar, low-fiber, low-nutrient
| fast food compared to bangladeshi curry. I'm not talking
| about theory, I'm talking about real-life humans, and as
| evidence for my statement you can read the wikipedia page
| I linked containing data about the prevalence of
| overweightness and obesity in the US.
| lqet wrote:
| I agree that there is an obesity problem (although I am
| not an American), but I am not so sure that demonizing
| french fries, Chicken McNuggets and hot chocolate from
| age 4 will have the desired effect.
|
| E, to answer the question below: because my personal
| experience from being a child and caring for a child is
| that anything that is demonized by the parents becomes
| _extremely_ attractive.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| In response to your edit, there's a lot of gray space
| between demonizing and letting kids have at it. I was
| raised on homemade, simple foods and despite loving junk
| food, I have no problem eating healthy stuff because
| that's how I was raised. If anything, certain junk food
| was encouraged, but because the focus was always on a
| traditional understanding of healthy foods, it was easy
| to adapt as my personal understanding of "healthy"
| changed. So we shouldn't demonize anything, but we should
| definitely teach kids that there's not really any benefit
| to junk food; if you really have to eat it, make it a
| treat once in a while but learn to appreciate healthy
| options.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Demonizing those foods (demonize sounds intense) helps
| build healthy eating habits instead defaulting to fast
| food.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Why do you think that?
| Jommi wrote:
| My anecdotal experience is the same as well. Stingy
| parents have led to a lot of spending from kid as they
| become young adults with moeny for the first time.
| pineaux wrote:
| @rayiner: what a weird thing to say. Are you saying that
| all foods are equal, that the way you eat doesn't affect
| your health, thinking and environment in any substantial
| way?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I accept I may be over-reacting a little, but in that
| particular case occasionally means a weekly happy meal.
| The kid in question is already yelling "Happy Meal day"
| on Friday.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| I feel like in some way, it's actually better to let your
| child hang out with this kid in order for them to learn
| how not to do things. your child may learn to dislike
| that other child for one reason or another and they'll
| associate that need for McDonald's with the negative
| qualities of that kid.
| kube-system wrote:
| Is that supposed to be egregious? I liked McDonalds as a
| kid too. You get a toy, after all.
|
| This is hardly going to harm a child:
|
| https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/meal/4-piece-chicken-
| mcnu...
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I am genuinely surprised that this part of the equation
| is not more troubling to more parents. Yes, the toy is is
| part of the draw. The question is whether this is a good
| thing and/or a good habit. I think it is not.
| kube-system wrote:
| I think that depends more on the parent than it does the
| restaurant. It is possible to fit fast food in to a
| healthy diet, just like it's also possible to eat fruits
| and vegetables in an unhealthy way[0]. A weekly treat
| sounds squarely within the realm of moderation to me...
| that's what, 5% of a weekly diet?
|
| 0: https://www.news-
| press.com/story/news/crime/2019/11/12/malno...
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| It is a reasonable argument assuming it is true for the
| rest of the diet. Thank you for that. I am still not
| entirely convinced, but I all of a sudden I feel a little
| less adamant in my position.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| I particularly despise happy meal toys for their
| environmental waste. I don't think their existence
| negatively affects my child's psyche though. She loves
| books, sand, pretending to do chores like mom and dad,
| jumping in muddy puddles, and her stuffed rabbit named
| Bun-Bun. Nutritionally, a crappy "quarter pound"
| hamburger occasionally isn't going to affect my toddler's
| health, and has protein that is otherwise difficult to
| get her to eat.
| [deleted]
| kube-system wrote:
| I feel like we're probably not the only kids who ate
| Happy Meals.
|
| Starbucks might be a different type of menu to navigate,
| but they _do_ have child-appropriate items.
|
| https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/2121691/single
| [deleted]
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| I'm curious to know where your line will have moved to once
| your baby is a toddler and you've been sleep deprived for
| an extended period of time. Please follow up in two years!
|
| Recently, a bunch of coworkers with young children ended up
| together in a social video call, and most of the
| conversation was about how blurry that line becomes over
| time. One guy with elementary school aged daughters was
| calling from his back porch, in the cold and dark, with the
| lights off, just to have some peace.
| newsbinator wrote:
| > It seems to me people who are loved and cared for as children
| are raised and generally become well-adjusted and happy
| individuals.
|
| Is there evidence that people who are tolerated and fed/clothed
| but not super-loved or super cared-for as children have worse
| outcomes as adults (adjusting for socio-economic class)?
| richardwhiuk wrote:
| Yes.
| newsbinator wrote:
| Could you please link to it?
| asidiali wrote:
| Here's one from about 3 seconds of Googling:
|
| The importance of touch in development (2010)
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2865952/
|
| It's not human exclusive, and it's woven into our
| chemical makeup.
|
| "In rats, the amount of maternal licking received as a
| pup has a profound impact on the behaviour and physiology
| of the adult."
|
| Feel free to continue the search to answer your own
| question.
| ragnese wrote:
| I'm in the U.S.
|
| I personally know a non-trivial number of women who have gone
| through absolutely intense (real, diagnosed) anxiety and
| depression because of having to feed formula to their child
| instead of breast milk. If you ever get to peek into these
| "mommy groups" on social media or in person, you can see how
| much shaming goes on in there. And the breast milk one is one
| of the biggest issues people get shamed for. Sometimes it's
| passive aggressive and indirect, and sometimes it's quite
| direct. They trot out headlines from questionable studies from
| totally different living environments in the world that
| indicate some 3 IQ point increase in kids that were breastfed
| and then they act like it's proof that formula feeding is child
| abuse.
|
| The guilt and shame people feel over these things is very
| harmful.
|
| I have some advice I'd like to spread and share. It applies to
| myself as well and I've been trying very hard to practice it.
| It is this:
|
| If you are not a scientist who has actually conducted one of
| these studies; if you are not _intimately_ familiar with the
| methodologies _and_ the math techniques used in the analysis;
| if you 've only ever read the headline and maybe an abstract of
| a study- then _please_ don 't give advice to anyone on the
| topic. Please don't spread "information" that X is better than
| Y.
| rtx wrote:
| Forcing formula is not abuse but neglect, unless done due to
| medical conditions. Don't fight evolution, formula is harder
| to digest. Why are you peddling pseudo science over here.
| Monroe13 wrote:
| This is exactly the attitude the above poster is
| complaining against. Breast feeding is probably better than
| formula in a few small ways, but treating formula use as
| "neglect" creates a harmful burden on new - and already
| stressed - mothers.
|
| If breast feeding is difficult, feed your child formula.
| They will turn out just fine.
| rtx wrote:
| Facts are not attitude. I am not talking to mothers, as
| not my business. However peddling pseudo science should
| be opposed.
| Monroe13 wrote:
| I agree. The claim the formula feeding is neglect is not
| supported by the science. So please don't spread that
| pseudoscience opinion.
| rtx wrote:
| Formula feeding is associated with adverse health
| outcomes for both mothers and infants, ranging from
| infectious morbidity to chronic disease. Given the
| compelling evidence for differences in health outcomes,
| breastfeeding should be acknowledged as the biologic norm
| for infant feeding. Physician counseling, office, and
| hospital practices should be aligned to ensure that the
| breastfeeding mother-infant dyad has the best chance for
| a long, successful breastfeeding experience.
|
| Source -
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2812877/
| Grustaf wrote:
| > They trot out headlines from questionable studies from
| totally different living environments in the world that
| indicate some 3 IQ point increase in kids that were breastfed
| and then they act like it's proof that formula feeding is
| child abuse.
|
| Breastfeeding, apart from being cheap, convenient and
| natural, has been shown to have numerous benefits, not just
| to intelligence but overall health, even for the mother.
| There is such an abundance of evidence for this that it's
| just silly to even question, but you can always research it
| for yourself.
|
| Regarding women feeling anxious. Since refraining from
| breastfeeding is a significant risk factor, similar to not
| properly medicating, I think it's reasonable to view it in
| the same light. I.e. if you refrain from breastfeeding
| without a very good reason, you are increasing health risks
| for your child.
|
| Some interesting statistics can be found here for example.
| Formula-fed children have about twice the risk of vomiting or
| diarrhea during their first year. Breastfeeding is about as
| efficient as antibiotics in preventing ear infections. Etc.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2998971/
|
| General references:
|
| https://www.who.int/health-topics/breastfeeding#tab=tab_1
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6.
| ..
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4781366/
|
| Almost every study on breastfeeding will have a disclaimer
| like the one in this meta-analysis (or ought to if it
| doesn't).
|
| "Because almost all the data in this review were gathered
| from observational studies, one should not infer causality
| based on these findings. Also, there is a wide range of
| quality of the body of evidence across different health
| outcomes."
|
| I don't understand why the issue of breastfeeding in
| particular seems to cause people to entirely forget that
| correlation usually doesn't indicate causation.
|
| https://www.gwern.net/Causality
| petertodd wrote:
| Also "Formula-fed children have about twice the risk of
| vomiting or diarrhea during their first year."
|
| Yes, that's bad. But it's not that bad. Try your best at
| breastfeeding, and if it doesn't work out, so be it.
| Better to focus your energy in being a good parent in
| other ways that you can excel at than dwelling on what
| isn't working for you.
| Grustaf wrote:
| That was more an example of the SIZE of some of these
| correlations, rather than how bad diarrhea is. The effect
| is huge. Breastfeeding is more effective than a lot of
| medicines.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Good advice, as far as I'm concerned. The decision to
| skip breastfeeding is irreversible if you stop producing
| milk, whereas you can always switch to formula. So it
| makes sense to try breastfeeding first and see if it
| works for you.
| bluGill wrote:
| Make sure you get help. Breastfeeding isn't obviously
| easy, even though it seems like it should be. There are a
| lot of tricks need to get the baby to take it.
|
| Don't give up easily. There is a reason formula samples
| are free in the early days, it doesn't take too many
| "just this once since it is on hand" events and mom is
| unable to produce any milk. Then you discover that
| formula is not cheap when it is too late.
|
| That said, bottles are only slightly worse if at all. So
| if you need to use it, do so.
| dsego wrote:
| Yes, my wife had so many problems in the beginning. The
| newborn had to stay in the hospital for a week to treat
| an infection and there it was bottle fed. The milk wasn't
| going so the breasts needed massaging to clear the ducts
| and get it started. Then the baby wouldn't latch
| properly, she was also weak and sleepy from jaundice. We
| had to buy those little silicone nipple shields and that
| helped. It was a lot of struggle and my wife almost gave
| up on several occasions. But now after 11 months she's
| still breastfeeding and hasn't even used her breast pump
| or given formula ever. There is a friend of hers who
| pretty much gave up immediately and started using
| formula. It seems to be a trend, since we always get
| praised by our pediatrician and other doctors for
| continuing breastfeeding.
| Grustaf wrote:
| The same is of course true for almost any long-term
| factor, yet most people would accept that e.g. getting an
| education boosts your earnings even without a randomized
| double blind study.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| When there is a strong prior reason to believe one thing
| is better, we don't need too many studies to tell us it
| is so. If, a-posteriori, we saw that you couldn't tell
| too much difference between college graduates and not by
| looking at their income, or if you couldn't guess whether
| someone was EBF as a baby by their health status, you
| might start wondering if the effect sizes are really so
| large, despite your prior beliefs.
| crazy1van wrote:
| Its very difficult to control for all factors when
| comparing breast-fed to bottle-fed babies. In 2014, a study
| [0] was published at Ohio State that compared babies over a
| long period. When looking at only sibling-pairs (babies in
| the same family where one was breastfed and one was bottle-
| fed), the differences in outcome disappeared.
|
| Quote from the link:
|
| "As expected, the analyses of the samples of adults and
| their children across families suggested that breast-
| feeding resulted in better outcomes than bottle-feeding in
| a number of measures: BMI, hyperactivity, math skills,
| reading recognition, vocabulary word identification, digit
| recollection, scholastic competence and obesity.
|
| When the sample was restricted to siblings who were
| differently fed within the same families, however, scores
| reflecting breast-feeding's positive effects on 10 of the
| 11 indicators of child health and well-being were closer to
| zero and not statistically significant - meaning any
| differences could have occurred by chance alone.
|
| The outlying outcome in this study was asthma; in all
| samples, children who were breast-fed were at higher risk
| for asthma, which could relate to data generated by self-
| reports instead of actual diagnoses."
|
| [0]: https://news.osu.edu/breast-feeding-benefits-appear-
| to-be-ov...
| aiilns wrote:
| Well good advice in general, even though the way you phrase
| your comment makes it look like you think breast feeding is
| no better than the formulas.
|
| I am a medical student and we have been told at uni from
| professors (paediatricians) that breast feeding _is_ better
| than formulas I think with regards to asthma or some other
| allergic stuff. There are reasons that mothers should not or
| cannot breastfeed and it's not the end of the world, but in
| general I believe they should.
|
| And really the weight of proof rests on the baby formulas to
| prove that they're OK. Even common sense suggests breast
| feeding is better, it's been the way people have been growing
| up for millenia all around the world.
| ragnese wrote:
| I do not claim that breast feeding is no better than
| formula. However, I am currently convinced that there is
| not yet sufficient evidence that breast feeding a child
| will likely lead to significantly better long-term outcomes
| than feeding formula.
|
| I'm a scientist. Not a medical scientist, but a hard
| science non-the-less. MDs are not (usually) scientists.
| They go off of what they believe the scientists are saying.
| But it's a game of telephone and you're now the fourth in
| the game (data -> researcher -> MD that is your teacher ->
| you).
|
| The studies I've seen (and I'm NOT an expert in the field
| or in the techniques used for these kinds of longitudinal,
| observational, social studies), mostly show very minor
| differences in long term outcomes. Honestly, the long term
| difference is probably much smaller than many other
| lifestyle choices you could make.
|
| Some sibling studies apparently have shown _no_ significant
| difference in outcomes. Some try to control for
| socioeconomic status (how many people ever ask _how_ they
| control for these things?) or various other factors, but
| these controls are not perfect. Perhaps most women want to
| breast feed, but some subset have underlying health
| conditions tied to not producing milk. Maybe that same
| underlying condition is present in their children, which
| causes worse outcomes and NOT the lack of breast milk per
| se. None of these studies can even account for stuff like
| that because most of them are self-reports and because
| underlying health conditions may never even be detected.
|
| It's very hard to do good science on humans.
|
| > And really the weight of proof rests on the baby formulas
| to prove that they're OK.
|
| I agree with that. I do think the proof is there, though.
| We've had at least of couple of generations of people who
| have grown up on formula and the studies that compare
| outcomes never show that formula fed babies grow into
| significantly worse-off adults.
|
| > Even common sense suggests breast feeding is better, it's
| been the way people have been growing up for millenia all
| around the world.
|
| One should never ever appeal to common sense when
| discussing something about science. Surely you remember
| that in Aristotle's time, even he considered it to be
| basically common sense that heavier objects would fall to
| Earth faster than light objects, right? Human brains are
| stupid. Common sense means nothing. It might mean less than
| nothing.
|
| And the sentiment of your statement is also debunked by a
| single contradictory example. There are many cases in which
| science/technology has done better for us than nature. Our
| own immune systems fall flat when presented with many
| illnesses until we introduce vaccines and medicine. It's
| entirely conceivable for use to create something that is
| even better for our bodies than nature has to offer.
| Nature, after all, is guided only by the selective pressure
| for us to barely make it to be old enough to procreate.
| That's all nature has optimized us for, at the end of the
| day.
| suchire wrote:
| "It's been the way people have been growing up for
| millennia all around the world."
|
| I don't think this is a very convincing argument. There are
| many, many things that have been around for millennia that
| just aren't that great. We've been living without vaccines,
| antibiotics, antiseptics, antihelminthics, poor nutrition,
| extremely high rates of childhood mortality, and high rates
| of death by childbirth for millennia. That doesn't mean
| that state of being or way of doing things is inherently
| good
| nemothekid wrote:
| No, but the onus is on the new thing to prove to it is
| undeniably better. Before we had antibiotics there was a
| mountain of dubious products that could cure all manner
| of illnesses that did nothing.
|
| Secondly, I'm also dubious of the claims of formula
| feeding as it hasn't been conclusively shown to be
| better, but yet Nestle has spent millions in marketing
| getting much of third world hooked on formula to their
| own detriment.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Sure, I think we can all acknowledge that medically
| speaking, breastfeeding is ideal. But if it's not feasible,
| mothers shouldn't feel guilty about it. There are all sorts
| of ways you can provide for your child.
| bhandziuk wrote:
| I think they're saying that if you don't breast feed (and
| it's not always a choice, some women's milk doesn't come
| in, some babies have a really hard time latching, sometimes
| they take so long to latch that even if milk would have
| been there it no longer is...etc) - if you don't breast
| feed that mother's should not feel guilt or feel like
| failed parents.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| As someone who has fostered and adopted children with trauma
| backgrounds (including abuse and neglect), it's doubly
| frustrating to see parents equating things like sleep
| training and formula feeding with abuse and neglect.
|
| When you have a kid that was intentionally burned as a
| toddler by a grandmother as punishment for crying, and
| another that was left strapped to a car seat with a box of
| cereal so his mother could go on a meth-binge, it's
| frustrating to see upper-middle-class mother's calling each
| other abusive or neglectful for allowing increased screen
| time during quarantine.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| > If you are not a scientist who has actually conducted one
| of these studies; if you are not intimately familiar with the
| methodologies and the math techniques used in the analysis;
| if you've only ever read the headline and maybe an abstract
| of a study- then please don't give advice to anyone on the
| topic. Please don't spread "information" that X is better
| than Y.
|
| I'd say this advice doesn't really go far enough. I'm not a
| scientist but I have read a number of these studies and the
| biggest takeaway is that in many cases effect sizes are
| _really low_ and it 's hard to say whether these effects are
| real or the result of some hidden uncontrolled variable. This
| applies, at a minimum, to breastfeeding v. formula, and also
| to alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Back to sleep has
| real and significant effects. Screen time's harm is severely
| overhyped given the quality of the evidence we have
| available, but too much sugar is definitely bad for you.
|
| My advice to new parents is basically that in most cases we
| don't have good evidence for one thing being _much_ better
| than another. As far as food, baby should have formula or
| breast milk, but which one doesn 't matter all that much. As
| far as sleeping, the sleep area should be firm and free of
| blankets, but as far as I'm concerned the evidence about
| where baby should sleep is minimal. I'm not aware of any
| strong evidence that sleep training has an effect other than
| teaching the baby to sleep.
|
| One other commonality I see in a lot of this stuff is there
| is zero consideration for the costs that the various
| treatments impose on parents, and particularly on the mother.
| If breastfeeding gives junior a 0.5% increase in IQ, is that
| worth a year of suffering and untold hours spent feeding?
| That's a value judgment, for sure, but it seems to be left
| out of the equation entirely when people are giving advice to
| mothers.
| Grustaf wrote:
| > is that worth a year of suffering and untold hours spent
| feeding
|
| Suffering? Sure NOT breastfeeding is very inconvenient, not
| least at night. And few things are more intimate and loving
| than the act of breastfeeding. Robbing the child or mother
| of that is horrible.
| grahamburger wrote:
| My wife had a tremendous amount of pain while
| breastfeeding, to the point that it was harming her
| relationship with our children. Watching her suffer
| through that was emotionally painful for me as well.
| Having been through that experience and talked to other
| moms about it we know that she is not alone in her
| experience.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Have you breastfed before? I'm married to someone who
| has, and suffering is an apt description of the
| experience, for at least a large fraction of the time.
| Moderate discomfort for the rest. The days when we
| started weening the kids are, by my wife's report, some
| of the best days she's ever had, because of how bad the
| days before were.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6400324/#:~:
| tex....
|
| "Over 90% of women experience pain during breastfeeding
| initiation and lack strategies to self-manage breast and
| nipple pain."
| Grustaf wrote:
| My children, like most middle-class children in Sweden,
| are breastfed. So I guess I'm about as qualified as you
| to talk about it.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| The only difference is that your position is in
| contravention of the evidence, whereas mine is backed by
| it. Breastfeeding pain is something the XXX vast majority
| XXX (ed: another commenter pointed out that only about
| 30% of women experience ongoing pain during breastfeeding
| -- so good for those who don't, but this is still a
| significant problem for many many women) of breastfeeding
| women experience. Some women are able to figure out
| strategies to mitigate it, but for some women the
| experience remains painful until weening.
| Grustaf wrote:
| What evidence would that be?
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| The intro to the study I cited above, as well as
| literally any other research you might care to look up on
| the subject. The phenomenon of breastfeeding pain is well
| documented. Feel free to cite a study showing
| breastfeeding pain is rare if you disagree.
| NLips wrote:
| From the study:
|
| " Although 90% of women report acute breast and nipple
| pain during the first week of breastfeeding initiation"
|
| " 30% of women who continue to breastfeed at 2 weeks
| after birth report persistent breast and nipple pain"
|
| That's certainly quite different from the suggestion that
| it's a year of suffering in the normal case.
|
| Breast feed if you want to, and quit when you want,
| without worrying about what other people think.
|
| We took a few weeks with child one for mother's nipples
| to handle the pain. The biggest issue was psychological
| for the first 2ish weeks, as we'd been told by some
| midwives that it will not hurt if you're latching
| correctly. Visiting a breastfeeding specialist (for free)
| at 2ish weeks who told us sometimes the pain is
| unavoidable but normally goes in 4 to 8 weeks made a huge
| difference. Weaned completely at 9 months.
|
| With child number 2, basically no pain. Weaned completely
| at 2 years. Mother is very glad she breastfed both, and
| was ready to stop when the children were.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Thats fair. I did not mean to misrepresent the numbers
| but plainly I did. A significant fraction of women have
| continuing pain, but not the majority.
| ragnese wrote:
| I agree with everything you said. Especially with
| acknowledging that breastfeeding, in particular, has costs
| associated with it. Something that isn't discussed much is
| that formula/bottle feeding gives the opportunity for dad
| to bond with the baby over feeding as well as allowing to
| divide the sleep deprivation more equitably between both
| parents.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| This was 100% my favorite thing about weaning. It gave me
| more time with the boys and a chance to demonstrate my
| commitment to the effort to their mother. And she started
| getting a lot more sleep, which improved general
| happiness in the house, and everything that goes along
| with that.
| bhandziuk wrote:
| When my wife and I went to pre-baby classes they'd often use
| the phrase "Fed is best" and I thought it was strange because
| it sounded like something that could have rhymed and was a
| missed opportunity. Then I was informed that the phrase used
| to be "Breast is best" but, like you're saying, women who
| could not breast feed for whatever reason were subjected to
| this level of guilt and ridicule so much so that now they've
| dropped that phrase.
|
| They'd say like "Sure, breast feed if you can but if you
| can't that is totally a-ok too. Get some formula, get some
| skin to skin time. Your baby will be fine". I liked how much
| effort the classes were putting in to not pressure people to
| breast feed when it wasn't always an option.
|
| There's no need to feel, as a parent, that you've failed your
| child if you're not breast feeding.
| ragnese wrote:
| That is very positive and reassuring to hear. When my then-
| wife and I had our son, it was still very strong "breast is
| best" messaging. It really has made a lot of parents feel
| awful amounts of guilt and shame.
|
| Personally, until we have _very_ strong evidence that
| breast milk is _significantly_ better for the baby, I think
| the messaging shouldn 't even be "breast feed if you can"-
| it should be "breast feed if you _want_ ". Some women have
| a terrible experience breast feeding even though the
| technically "can" produce the milk. It can be physically
| quite uncomfortable, it keeps dad from being able to bond
| as well, the baby might not be good at "latching", etc.
| astura wrote:
| Skin-to-skin is totally BS nonsense. It was found to be
| beneficial for premature infants who need help regulating
| body temperature in low resource settings (where incubators
| are not available). So naturally, people started
| recommending it for term infants who don't need help
| regulating body temperature and it's risks completely
| ignored!
|
| https://www.skepticalob.com/2019/04/fisher-price-rock-n-
| play...
|
| https://www.skepticalob.com/2016/01/overselling-the-
| benefits...
| ink_13 wrote:
| Skin-to-skin is also for pair bonding. To toss it out as
| just for body temperature is too hasty.
| bhandziuk wrote:
| > BS nonsense
|
| This sounds like the conclusion of someone who does not
| have kids. You're going to wear a shirt all the time?
| What does this even mean to avoid skin to skin contact?
|
| It looks like your links are talking about the first few
| hours or days while still in the hospital. I'm talking
| about skin to skin over the next many months.
| tabtab wrote:
| Breast feeding can be difficult for many reasons. In
| traditional societies people with experience would take the
| time to coach a new mother. Sometimes a baby is slow to get
| the hang of it and will actually lose weight for a while
| before figuring it out. Allowing your newborn child to lose
| weight goes against mothering instincts, and without a
| supporting coach is really hard to accept. And if you "cheat"
| via bottle, the child will get spoiled and only take the
| bottle. Breast infections and soreness are also common.
| Coaching helps here also.
|
| A compromise is to purchase human breast milk, perhaps mix it
| 50/50 with formula if your budget is tight. Still, you are
| often viewed as a failure for doing such.
| ragnese wrote:
| The idea that it's somehow better to have your newborn baby
| be denied nutrition for their first days of life is a very
| dangerous one in my opinion.
|
| There have been several cases in the U.S., even in recent
| years, of children becoming very sick and/or permanently
| disabled because of mothers waiting too long to give up on
| breast feeding.
|
| And, honestly, infant mortality is a real thing. People
| talk about breast feeding at all costs because that's what
| humans did before formula and "it worked out just fine". It
| only worked out just fine for the children that survived...
| lqet wrote:
| Fully agree. Parenting gets a lot easier as soon as you accept
| that you don't have _any_ clue what you are doing. The child
| must be loved, fed, washed, and dressed. Everything else is
| improvisation.
|
| E: I remember sitting in antenatal class and mindful, well-
| educated parents asking stuff like the interval they should set
| their alarm clock to, so they know when to "correctly" feed
| their child. They read somewhere that a newborn needs milk
| every 1,5 hours and took that literally.
| concordDance wrote:
| > dressed
|
| You can probably even leave this one out!
| lqet wrote:
| As soon as they turn 2, getting them dressed does indeed
| require extensive improvisation :)
| bluGill wrote:
| Long before that. I have to struggle with my 10 months
| old at times. She wants to crawl away and play with
| something (preferably something dangerous - it is amazing
| how easy it is for a plastic bag to end up in reach even
| when you are careful)
| concordDance wrote:
| > neglect and abuse
|
| There's a lot of hidden complexity and subjectivity in those
| two words.
| xeromal wrote:
| I love this take and believe in it whole-heartedly. It's very
| similar to how every shits on each others diets. Some people
| only eat rice, some potatoes, some meat, and some exclusively
| ocean. Humans are very versatile and durable and really can
| make due with most things. The same probably applies to raising
| children too.
| watwut wrote:
| I suspect that pram vs carrying thing has a lot more to do with
| practicalities then anything else. Quality of sidewalks,
| availability of good changing places, how far you need to go
| and how much stuff you carry.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| > Outside of neglect and abuse, is there really a WRONG way of
| raising a child?
|
| Well, do we know if there is or not?
|
| Also, "neglect" and "abuse", not everyone will draw the same
| line. Parenting is one of the only activities in our lives
| where we have to completely disregard the expressed desires of
| the one we care about in order to make life better for them. If
| a kid doesn't want to go to school, they still have to go. If a
| kid does something wrong, they have to be taught somehow (even
| if they don't want to). Is it abusive to make people do stuff
| against their will? Westerners think it is in every
| circumstance except parenting. Others will disagree.
|
| Is corporal punishment abusive? You seem to think so, but many
| will disagree. You'd probably argue pretty well that it is! And
| you'd feel you're really helping families all over by proving
| your point.
|
| And that's where the shame around parenting comes from.
| [deleted]
| tootie wrote:
| Sometimes cultural differences can be self-reinforcing. Studies
| on corporal punishment and childhood trauma have shown that
| trauma increases when it's perceived as unusual. If a kid is
| beaten for disobedience and none of their peers are, it's more
| likely to cause lasting trauma. In societies where beatings are
| commonplace, kids are much more likely to adjust and grow up
| fine.
| aswegs8 wrote:
| Can't agree more. BBC just tends to play the "self-critical
| Western" role a bit too much.
| lostcolony wrote:
| Who would you prefer to be critical of Western culture,
| rather than a Western news organization? Or do you feel that
| criticism isn't warranted?
| pineaux wrote:
| You sound very red-pilled
| cloudc0de wrote:
| > For her part, Kuroda co-slept with her four children as a way
| to adapt to being away from them during the day. "I'm working
| full time and if I separate the whole night, it's really minimal
| time for the baby. We can intensely communicate, even in the
| nighttime. It's real communication and time together."
|
| IMO the rise in attachment parenting methods stems from the high
| rate of mothers working full-time outside the home, feeling
| guilty about being away from their children all day and "missing
| out" on developmental milestones, or feeling guilty about a
| minimum wage daycare worker spending more waking hours with their
| children than they do, and trying to 'make up' for this lost time
| with co-sleeping and other attachment methods.
|
| I view this parenting style as a sort of pathological
| paternalism, it's presented as being in the child's best
| interest, when in reality it's a psychological need of (usually)
| the mother. Babies need lots and lots of high-quality, restful
| sleep, and the families that seem to be dealing with serious
| sleep deprivation issues for both parent and baby are usually in
| the attachment camp.
| whatever1 wrote:
| The thing that I don't get from the Western culture is what is
| the point of parenting? Both parents work and they immediately
| unload their baby to a day care. I was shocked to learn that 9
| month babies are sent to day-cares.
|
| Is paying the bills for a human you barely see called parenting?
| sangnoir wrote:
| > The thing that I don't get from the Western culture is what
| is the point of parenting?
|
| Childcare in US is particularly shocking to any non-American,
| but it's a natural result of the rugged sort of capitalism
| combined with a threadbare social safety net.
|
| > I was shocked to learn that 9 month babies are sent to day-
| cares.
|
| 9 months is actually on the older side, in the US. Daycares
| frequently enroll infants younger than a month. Maternity leave
| is ridiculously short in the US (IIRC, 3-weeks is mandated by
| the law, this includes pre- & post-partum). Some companies have
| started to go above and beyond, and even dropping the non-
| birthing parter a bone by giving them a few days :).
| Additionally, I don't think any person taking maternity leave
| is entitled to their full salary, and beyond 3 weeks, they are
| entitled to $0, which combined with at-will employment means
| you have to be get back to work ASAP. Childbirth itself is a
| very expensive endeavor - thousands of dollars for a vaginal
| birth with no complications, and tens of thousands for a
| cesarean.
|
| From
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