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dr_pretentiousThree things I've heard from a lot of people have been sticking in my craw, and I've only just figured out why. By a lot of people, I mean dozens and dozens, so if you've said any of these things, you're in good, even beloved, company. I just need to vent a little.
Thing One: "If a Kid Is Old Enough to Ask to Nurse, He's Too Old to Nurse."
People love saying this, regardless of whether they've ever nursed, or even ever had a kid. What is the appeal of this aphorism? I haven't figured that part out yet.
It's Kafkaesque, when you think about it. The instant you can make your desire known, that's reason enough in itself for your desire to be denied, not just now, but for the rest of your life. Wow. That could make a kid passive-aggressive, couldn't it?
I suspect a lot of the people who love saying Thing One don't realize how early some kids are able to communicate. The range of normal for saying a first word is incredibly broad. Gareth spoke his first word at seven months, and made his first approximation of an ASL sign at five months, yet the pesky American Academy of Pediatrics persists in urging mothers to nurse for a full year, and the hippy-crunchy-terminally-unfashionable World Health Organization promotes nursing for two years. What could all those doctors be thinking? Don't they know their mere research can't possibly stand up to the persuasive force of a catchy aphorism?
Thing Two: "What Babies Really Want Is Independence."
This one is projection.
Babies are not independent. They're just not.
It would be way more convenient for adults if babies didn't need our attention, our work, our goodwill, and all the rest, in order to survive. As much as I love and enjoy my son, I think it would be really nice if he didn't need quite so much from me. But there's a big leap from saying, "I wish my infant (who can't walk, feed himself, control his excretions, or string together more than three memes at a time) were independent," to, "My infant's greatest need is to be independent, so if I help him with anything, I'm really hurting him."
Defensiveness is part of the human condition. I feel defensive about the time I left Gareth sleeping in the middle of my bed and looked away for a moment, and then he rolled onto the floor with a terrifying thump. Sooner or later that kind of thing happens to every parent, and we all feel crappy about it. Fending off the crappy feeling by labeling protective behaviors as sick obstacles to infant independence may make us feel better momentarily about our own shortcomings, but it doesn't have any bearing on the real needs of children.
When people tell me that offering Gareth my hand to hold while he's learning to walk is overprotective, I wonder what would satisfy them. If I left him alone on a hillside in the forest for the night, would that be enough of an opportunity to exercise his independence? Would I be a hip enough parent then?
Thing Three: "You're Considering Homeschooling? You Can't Be Serious! How Will He Get Well Socialized If You Don't Send Him To School?!"
Going to school doesn't guarantee successful socialization. I went to public schools, and I was a walking cautionary tale until I got to college. Come to think of it, most of my favorite people could say the same about themselves.
Being trapped all day in a classroom with 30 people the same age as ourselves and only one adult, an adult whose primary form of interaction with us was crowd control, turns out not to be much like the adult lives we were supposedly preparing for. Being homeschooled does not mean spending 18 years sitting at the kitchen table with no one to talk to but your blood relatives--that this is what most non-homeschoolers assume homeschooling is like says more about how our educations limited our imagination than it says about homeschooling.
Thing One: "If a Kid Is Old Enough to Ask to Nurse, He's Too Old to Nurse."
People love saying this, regardless of whether they've ever nursed, or even ever had a kid. What is the appeal of this aphorism? I haven't figured that part out yet.
It's Kafkaesque, when you think about it. The instant you can make your desire known, that's reason enough in itself for your desire to be denied, not just now, but for the rest of your life. Wow. That could make a kid passive-aggressive, couldn't it?
I suspect a lot of the people who love saying Thing One don't realize how early some kids are able to communicate. The range of normal for saying a first word is incredibly broad. Gareth spoke his first word at seven months, and made his first approximation of an ASL sign at five months, yet the pesky American Academy of Pediatrics persists in urging mothers to nurse for a full year, and the hippy-crunchy-terminally-unfashionable World Health Organization promotes nursing for two years. What could all those doctors be thinking? Don't they know their mere research can't possibly stand up to the persuasive force of a catchy aphorism?
Thing Two: "What Babies Really Want Is Independence."
This one is projection.
Babies are not independent. They're just not.
It would be way more convenient for adults if babies didn't need our attention, our work, our goodwill, and all the rest, in order to survive. As much as I love and enjoy my son, I think it would be really nice if he didn't need quite so much from me. But there's a big leap from saying, "I wish my infant (who can't walk, feed himself, control his excretions, or string together more than three memes at a time) were independent," to, "My infant's greatest need is to be independent, so if I help him with anything, I'm really hurting him."
Defensiveness is part of the human condition. I feel defensive about the time I left Gareth sleeping in the middle of my bed and looked away for a moment, and then he rolled onto the floor with a terrifying thump. Sooner or later that kind of thing happens to every parent, and we all feel crappy about it. Fending off the crappy feeling by labeling protective behaviors as sick obstacles to infant independence may make us feel better momentarily about our own shortcomings, but it doesn't have any bearing on the real needs of children.
When people tell me that offering Gareth my hand to hold while he's learning to walk is overprotective, I wonder what would satisfy them. If I left him alone on a hillside in the forest for the night, would that be enough of an opportunity to exercise his independence? Would I be a hip enough parent then?
Thing Three: "You're Considering Homeschooling? You Can't Be Serious! How Will He Get Well Socialized If You Don't Send Him To School?!"
Going to school doesn't guarantee successful socialization. I went to public schools, and I was a walking cautionary tale until I got to college. Come to think of it, most of my favorite people could say the same about themselves.
Being trapped all day in a classroom with 30 people the same age as ourselves and only one adult, an adult whose primary form of interaction with us was crowd control, turns out not to be much like the adult lives we were supposedly preparing for. Being homeschooled does not mean spending 18 years sitting at the kitchen table with no one to talk to but your blood relatives--that this is what most non-homeschoolers assume homeschooling is like says more about how our educations limited our imagination than it says about homeschooling.
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Date: 2008-08-07 01:21 am (UTC)I'd like to nurse for two years, but we'd like to have a second child, too. After the 8 years it took us to have Gareth, we're predicting fertility treatments next time around, too, and I'm old enough, I don't have all the time in the world. We'll probably start tapering off after his first birthday, but I'll miss it. And if there never is a second child, I'll regret not having given Gareth longer.
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Date: 2008-08-07 01:44 am (UTC)That is one of my regrets with F. That and the fact that between PPD and TTC, he has never had a hormonally balanced truly rational mother. I only hope that in the rest of his upbringing I can make it up to him.