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The unusual ways Western parents raise children

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Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#581

Post by NovaJehovah »

lhorie wrote: post #560
NovaJehovah wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll probably get downvoted, but I strongly disagree with this mindset. Raising kids is not a fun hobby or a side project that will fit into a neat little drawer in your life. You have an obligation to do the best that you can. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's stressful. Like it or not, that's what you signed up for. So step up. Like anything else in life, you can do a good job or a bad job at being a parent. If you're pr…

> You have an obligation to do the best that you can The problem I have with this attitude is the pronoun. If you have some standards, great but please try to keep them to yourself. There's a lot of toxic "you should do this, you should be like that" type of talk in parenting circles, a lot of which is frankly condescending and non-actionable and add a lot of unnecessary stress, especially for insecure people. People…

Feel free to change every "you should" to "one should" in your head.

I understand that this is a sensitive subject, but there are people reading this thread who are about to become parents, and they need to know the truth.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#582

Post by selimthegrim »

carabiner wrote: post #285
alistairSH wrote: post #29

Of all the "weird" things we do as parents in euro/anglo nations, sleeping arrangements seems nowhere near the top. IMO, the top "offender" is over-scheduling kid's activities. So many kids in my area have their days booked solid with sports, academic tutoring, music lessons. Approaching zero free time to enjoy being a kid. Edit - and this isn't really a western thing, "Tiger Mom" and similar probably pre-dates this…

My coworker did this with her son. She was spread thin with afterschool programs, sports, projects and so on. Well, the kid got into Caltech. Where he'll probably meet amazing people and receive an excellent education. So maybe it worked? How many YC founders had this overbooked childhood? I'd guess over 70%.

As someone who went to Caltech I assure you Caltech faculty care very little about the name on the undergrad programs of their grad students. I.E. the value proposition of a Caltech undergrad education barring a few IMO cases (which Harvard tends to grab) is doubtful

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#583

Post by NovaJehovah »

heleninboodler wrote: post #444
NovaJehovah wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you're making excuses instead of stepping up and taking responsibility for the choices you made.

This is a pretty terrible accusation for someone who you know nothing about. Why would you take the argument here?

Sorry. In retrospect, I shouldn't have engaged. Too late to delete now...

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#584

Post by reader_x »

What fascinates me about this topic is the amount of words spent on it, yet the topic of how/when to have conjugal relations with a kid sleeping in the room is never brought up. What is the norm about this in cultures that commonly cosleep? Do they stop having sex? Only get their loving on the fire escape?

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#585

Post by AnimalMuppet »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #549
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the books are also well-meaning busybodies. Worse: The books that most resonate with you may well be the ones you need to ignore. Take strict vs permissive parenting, for example. Say you're by nature a more permissive parenting. The books that say you should be permissive will resonate more with you than the books that say that you should be strict. But it's the ones that say to be strict that you need to hear,…

I'm confused... Why would I want to ignore something which resonates with me? Isn't that the whole point of "resonance" and "feelings", to use them to guide our reason? I would read the books on permissive parenting not to convince myself that it's right, but to find techniques and strategies which work.

In Zion National Park, there's a trail called Angels Landing. It goes up a ridge with a 500 foot dropoff on one side, and a 1000 foot dropoff on the other. The ridge between them is only a couple feet wide in places.

I think of parenting that way - there's a cliff on one side (too much strictness, say), but don't back too far away from it, because there's also a cliff on the other side (too permissive). So when you see the cliff, don't back too far away from the cliff you see, because there's a cliff in the other direction too.

So if you lean toward permissiveness, say, you don't need a book that warns you not to be too strict. You're already not going to be too strict. You need a book that warns you not to be too permissive.

> Isn't that the whole point of "resonance" and "feelings", to use them to guide our reason?

That only works if your feelings are more correct than your reason is. That happens, sometimes, but... I don't think it should be the default mode of operation. Reason alone can also lead you to absurd results. You need both, your feelings to know when you have reasoned yourself into a position that just doesn't fit, and your reason to know when your feelings are liars.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#586

Post by tobib »

watertom wrote: post #232
gdubs wrote: post #171

One of the hardest thing about being a parent today is the constant shame and confusion about the “right” way to do it. We don’t live in a hunter gatherer society anymore, we just don’t. There’s lots of wisdom in that way of life, and sure we could learn from it — but there’s enough anxiety as it is, parents don’t need more of it. We have three kids and we sleep trained them. (Not a pediatrician, standard disclaimer.…

3 children, we only slept them in their rooms, starting day 10. Naps, day sleep, everything, they slept in their room and in their crib. The room was light controlled, meaning there was no light at all. They quickly associated any sleep with their room and their crib. We used a baby motion sleep mat for peace of mind for SIDS, the thing was so sensitive it could detect the breathing, but if the baby moved off the mat…

Did you make up you own process or did you follow a certain technique? Could you share a few details?

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#587

Post by tobib »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #495
leokennis wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, it’s very simple: I work and my wife works. After some maternity/paternity leave, we both need to get to work again to earn money to provide our kids with food, shelter, a future etc. To be able to work, we need to sleep. For us to sleep, our kids and the baby needs to sleep. So we put the baby in his own room on day three. Always had him sleep in his bed in his room. Didn’t let him sleep anywhere else (or whe…

It is sad if in 2021 a wife (or a husband) cannot take even a year or half-year break from the career. (To avoid possible confusion, I am shaming the society, not you.)

In many societies, organizations, families, the parents can. I'm so glad where we live we have access to governmental maternal and parental leave options and we're able to make it work financially.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#588

Post by tobib »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #570
Viliam1234 wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is sad if in 2021 a wife (or a husband) cannot take even a year or half-year break from the career. (To avoid possible confusion, I am shaming the society, not you.)

Agreed. Fortunately my wife's University employer provides 14 weeks full pay, then 38 weeks 60% paid maternity leave. I would still argue that society needs to figure a way to balance this out for both the male and female partnership(IE figure out a way for men to participate in equal fashion for that year) but that hasn't happened. As it is, we're grateful for this much compared to what many have.

Many countries other than the US have figured it out, maybe something to aspire.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#589

Post by NovaJehovah »

zamfi wrote: post #537
NovaJehovah wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, "sleep training" is just a more palatable euphemism for "cry it out". My view is that however you slice it, you are conditioning the baby that no one will respond to its distress. I'm glad you feel it worked out well for you. I honestly hope it doesn't cause problems, because it's very widespread. Based on our reading of the available evidence, we weren't willing to take the risk. Our lives certainl…

> In my experience, "sleep training" is just a more palatable euphemism for "cry it out". My view is that however you slice it, you are conditioning the baby that no one will respond to its distress. You claim to be doing a lot of "research" in other posts but also drawing on your "experience" -- "sleep training" is not "cry it out", and in fact modern sleep training is explicitly about telling your child that you AR…

A 'euphemism', according to Merriam-Webster, is "the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant."

"Sleep training", in all its forms, means ignoring your crying infant for significant periods of time until they get used to the idea that no one is coming and stop crying. Whether it's done in one night or dragged out over a longer period of time, the result is the same, and the method is more-or-less the same. But we don't call it "ignoring a crying baby training" do we? No, we made a nice and harmless-sounding name for it. There are even consultants you can pay who will tell you it's perfectly fine so you don't have to feel an ounce of guilt.

Fyi, I got plenty of upvotes too.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#590

Post by D13Fd »

gdubs wrote: post #171

One of the hardest thing about being a parent today is the constant shame and confusion about the “right” way to do it. We don’t live in a hunter gatherer society anymore, we just don’t. There’s lots of wisdom in that way of life, and sure we could learn from it — but there’s enough anxiety as it is, parents don’t need more of it. We have three kids and we sleep trained them. (Not a pediatrician, standard disclaimer.…

I’ve sleep trained 3 kids by myself (my wife wants no part in it) in the last 4 years or so. It takes a couple of days and then everyone involved is happier going forward (mother, father, and child).
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