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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Do you have a good article backing this -
> I think the messaging shouldn't even be "breast feed if you can"- it should be "breast feed if you want".
Preferably a solid journal article, or an analytical news article. The top ones on Google are just emotive.
Nutrition from womb to 2 years is vital, it's probably the most important deal-able issue in the world today. I'll assume that advice is only for HN users who have clean water and access to good baby formula and the IQ's and education to do it properly.
I don't see why formula is not as good as, if not better than breast. But evidence is breast is best as far as I can see.
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!
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
“ 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
“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
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.
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.
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.
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...
There's a right balance, and expert coaches know what that balancing point is.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that in "ancient" societies, other mothers with experience would often help feed a new baby themselves until the new mother got up to speed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Anecdote: My son had a close friend growing up whose parents didn't allow candy in the house. Every time a friend's birthday party came around, he would eat himself sick on sweets.
Eventually he learned some restraint but there was a solid 5-6 years there where my son's friend could not be around sweets without ruining his day. Better education combined with a bit of modeling moderation by his parents, might have saved him a lot of miserable evenings.
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.
@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?
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.
Thank you for your comment. I feel the same way about food and I'm rather shocked at the response you get.
And I didn't eat fast food as a kid myself, and that didn't make it attractive to me. Although we went to McDonalds every wednesday after going to the library to get a fresh orange juice.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
> 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)?
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.
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.