book (re-)read
May. 19th, 2005 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fleaMeredith F. Small, Our Babies, Our Selves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent (Anchor Books 1998).
When I first read this book I was home from work with a 2 month old, feeling completely overwhelmed not only by my 2 month old but also by the messages I was getting from parenting books and the media and everyone I knew about what I was doing with my baby and what I was supposed to be doing with my baby. They didn't agree, and every message was so urgent - if you don't parent this way, you are a Bad Mother!
This book was a huge relief to me. It has a detached, academic tone, and discusses "ethnopediatrics" - basically, take an anthropoligcal approach to infant care. It covers two anthropological approaches: evolutionary biology (how breasts evolved, what human neonates are like compared to other primates, what evolution suggests about what infants are hard-wired to want/need) and cultural anthropology (how people take care of babies around the world, and why they do what they do). Kung San parents hold their babies upright and encourage walking as early as possible - logical, since they are a highly mobile community. American parents want to foster independence and individuality, so they encourage the baby to sleep by itself in its own room. Italian parents push pasta at a very early age, and are generally as obsessed with food as American parents are with sleep. And so forth.
The down side of this book is that I don't think enough discussion is goven to the areas where evolutionary biology and culture collide. Yes, infants are probably designed to be fed and held nearly continuously, and to sleep in bed with their parents. However, US culture is not set up to make these things easy to do - on a purely practical level. Because I was raised in US culture and like a quiet full night's sleep, I can't sleep with my daughter in my bed because she keeps me awake. I know it would be better for her - she would sleep better and have less night stress - but I need to have a certain degree of awakeness to function during the day at my job. I have to have a job, and I can't bring my child to it. What are we to do when nature and culture collide lke this? It would make a really interesting book.
When I first read this book I was home from work with a 2 month old, feeling completely overwhelmed not only by my 2 month old but also by the messages I was getting from parenting books and the media and everyone I knew about what I was doing with my baby and what I was supposed to be doing with my baby. They didn't agree, and every message was so urgent - if you don't parent this way, you are a Bad Mother!
This book was a huge relief to me. It has a detached, academic tone, and discusses "ethnopediatrics" - basically, take an anthropoligcal approach to infant care. It covers two anthropological approaches: evolutionary biology (how breasts evolved, what human neonates are like compared to other primates, what evolution suggests about what infants are hard-wired to want/need) and cultural anthropology (how people take care of babies around the world, and why they do what they do). Kung San parents hold their babies upright and encourage walking as early as possible - logical, since they are a highly mobile community. American parents want to foster independence and individuality, so they encourage the baby to sleep by itself in its own room. Italian parents push pasta at a very early age, and are generally as obsessed with food as American parents are with sleep. And so forth.
The down side of this book is that I don't think enough discussion is goven to the areas where evolutionary biology and culture collide. Yes, infants are probably designed to be fed and held nearly continuously, and to sleep in bed with their parents. However, US culture is not set up to make these things easy to do - on a purely practical level. Because I was raised in US culture and like a quiet full night's sleep, I can't sleep with my daughter in my bed because she keeps me awake. I know it would be better for her - she would sleep better and have less night stress - but I need to have a certain degree of awakeness to function during the day at my job. I have to have a job, and I can't bring my child to it. What are we to do when nature and culture collide lke this? It would make a really interesting book.
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Date: 2005-05-19 04:22 pm (UTC)(I'm gonna HAVE to check that book out, though!)