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The unusual ways Western parents raise children

bbc.com

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Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#221

Post by throwaway0a5e »

rootusrootus wrote: post #156
nomdep wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So - if you don't mind the question, sorry for asking if you do - how/when you have sex?

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 ti…

Jokes about having less sex after marriage and practically none after kids wouldn't be so universal if they weren't relatable.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#222

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

kube-system wrote: post #184
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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...

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.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#223

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

Grustaf wrote: post #220
ragnese wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. The…

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

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#224

Post by bkav »

Clewza313 wrote: post #130
timerol wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#225

Post by Grustaf »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #207
ragnese wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

> 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.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#226

Post by zeku »

rajin444 wrote: post #194
Dumblydorr wrote: post #136

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.

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.

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.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#227

Post by [deleted] »

gonehome wrote: post #218
meowster wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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]

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#228

Post by alistairSH »

opportune wrote: post #209
alistairSH wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That has never been the meaning of the term historically and doesn’t capture the magnitudes-difference between the middle and upper classes.

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.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#229

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

Grustaf wrote: post #225
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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.

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."

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#230

Post by suchire »

aiilns wrote: post #203
ragnese wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

“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

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