4 ms·

"Like, there's tons of literature on good parenting. How many people read it? Like, none." I think that's a really bad example. There's a lot of bullshit in th

by dan00 16y ago

"Like, there's tons of literature on good parenting. How many people read it? Like, none." I think that's a really bad example. There's a lot of bullshit in the parenting literature. In a way I find it very disturbing, that we need to learn how to parent our children.

cookiecaper 16y ago
I agree that there's a lot of junk out there. Almost all the "professional", published advice I've skimmed or read on pregnancy, for instance, amounts to "do whatever the pregnant lady says". Somehow I find this less likely to be good advice and more likely to be fodder for sales, to get women to buy a so-called "authoritative" source that justifies unreasonable behavior under the guise of pregnancy.
edanm 16y ago
"In a way I find it very disturbing, that we need to learn how to parent our children." Really? Why? I've never understood why people look at parenting differently than any other skill you have to learn.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >I've never understood why people look at parenting differently than any other skill you have to learn. Parenting should be assimilated (learnt if you like) gradually over time from those around you. Humans IMO function best as family groups within a [close-knit] tribal system: under such a regime one learns from one's own parents, parents of peers, parents of younger children, older intra-generation peers and peers as parents as well as from looking after younger children as a child, looking after younger children as a teen, ... you get the idea. Even under such a regime it's possible that you can learn "better" parenting from outside the group but you're going to be able to actually do it already just like learning to eat or prepare food. The thing is we mostly don't have such a structure. It seems to me that society is in death throes; that as populations burgeon so we value one another and interaction with one another less-and-less. But perhaps this is just me; I tend to be too introverted and pessimistic for my own good.
  - eagleal 16y ago
    From experience I've seen that this "learn by your parents" is truly starting to be weak in the Western "thinking" countries. Poor countries on the other hand use this a lot. I was raised in a post-communist Albania, and people weren't influenced by consumerism. It was a more warm-environment for the child to grow. My sister was raised in Italy (during 00'). Between me and my sister, assuming the same age, I would learn better from my parents then her.
  - zephyrfalcon 16y ago
    "Parenting should be assimilated (learnt if you like) gradually over time from those around you. Humans IMO function best as family groups within a [close-knit] tribal system: under such a regime one learns from one's own parents, parents of peers, parents of younger children, older intra-generation peers and peers as parents as well as from looking after younger children as a child, looking after younger children as a teen, ... you get the idea." This doesn't seem to work so well in today's society, as we tend to consider older generations' ideas of parenting "old-fashioned". Maybe rightfully so, maybe not... but discarding the experience from older generations means you have to relearn everything all over. In that context, it may be useful to have books (etc) on parenting that tell you, "do X", "don't do Y", maybe put in a contemporary context, so there's less of a stigma of being "out of date".
- nradov 16y ago
  The problem is that most parenting literature is based on one person's subjective opinion. There is a dearth of real evidence to prove that one technique actually produces better outcomes than another. So how are we to know what skills to learn? There is a tremendous variation in individual children so mostly it has to be a trial and error process until you figure out what works for each.
canadaduane 16y ago
Read Laura Berk. She is an awesome researcher in child development.

by dan00 16y ago

cookiecaper 16y ago

I agree that there's a lot of junk out there. Almost all the "professional", published advice I've skimmed or read on pregnancy, for instance, amounts to "do whatever the pregnant lady says". Somehow I find this less likely to be good advice and more likely to be fodder for sales, to get women to buy a so-called "authoritative" source that justifies unreasonable behavior under the guise of pregnancy.

edanm 16y ago

"In a way I find it very disturbing, that we need to learn how to parent our children." Really? Why? I've never understood why people look at parenting differently than any other skill you have to learn.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>I've never understood why people look at parenting differently than any other skill you have to learn. Parenting should be assimilated (learnt if you like) gradually over time from those around you. Humans IMO function best as family groups within a [close-knit] tribal system: under such a regime one learns from one's own parents, parents of peers, parents of younger children, older intra-generation peers and peers as parents as well as from looking after younger children as a child, looking after younger children as a teen, ... you get the idea. Even under such a regime it's possible that you can learn "better" parenting from outside the group but you're going to be able to actually do it already just like learning to eat or prepare food. The thing is we mostly don't have such a structure. It seems to me that society is in death throes; that as populations burgeon so we value one another and interaction with one another less-and-less. But perhaps this is just me; I tend to be too introverted and pessimistic for my own good.
- eagleal 16y ago
  From experience I've seen that this "learn by your parents" is truly starting to be weak in the Western "thinking" countries. Poor countries on the other hand use this a lot. I was raised in a post-communist Albania, and people weren't influenced by consumerism. It was a more warm-environment for the child to grow. My sister was raised in Italy (during 00'). Between me and my sister, assuming the same age, I would learn better from my parents then her.
- zephyrfalcon 16y ago
  "Parenting should be assimilated (learnt if you like) gradually over time from those around you. Humans IMO function best as family groups within a [close-knit] tribal system: under such a regime one learns from one's own parents, parents of peers, parents of younger children, older intra-generation peers and peers as parents as well as from looking after younger children as a child, looking after younger children as a teen, ... you get the idea." This doesn't seem to work so well in today's society, as we tend to consider older generations' ideas of parenting "old-fashioned". Maybe rightfully so, maybe not... but discarding the experience from older generations means you have to relearn everything all over. In that context, it may be useful to have books (etc) on parenting that tell you, "do X", "don't do Y", maybe put in a contemporary context, so there's less of a stigma of being "out of date".
nradov 16y ago
The problem is that most parenting literature is based on one person's subjective opinion. There is a dearth of real evidence to prove that one technique actually produces better outcomes than another. So how are we to know what skills to learn? There is a tremendous variation in individual children so mostly it has to be a trial and error process until you figure out what works for each.

canadaduane 16y ago

Read Laura Berk. She is an awesome researcher in child development.