Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

phys.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 325 posts

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#131

Post by dragonwriter »

watwut wrote: post #65
getpost wrote: post #54

> the researchers say that children may be "evolutionarily primed" to expect exceptionally high levels of physical contact and care, What strikes me here is the phrase, "exceptionally high levels." I imagine children need a "normal" level of care; it's only "exceptionally high" in comparison to the deprived state of family systems in these degenerate times. I often reflect on the understanding in Attachment Theory, w…

Given that we actually give kids massive amount of attention compared to historical standards ... calling current situation "degenerate" is absurd. Also considering that by many statistics, children do better then they used to just a few decades ago.

> Given that we actually give kids massive amount of attention compared to historical standards ...

This is literally based on a comparison with hunger-gatherer societies.

To the extent that there is any accuracy to your "compared to historical standards", its probably based on a low point reached (in the "developed" world) somewhere between the first industrial revolution and mid-20th century,

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#132

Post by Feathercrown »

rexpop wrote: post #73
11235813213455 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's not really about responding to 100% of a child demands, it's maybe even detrimental, and probably better to start teaching him patience, and let him learn what to do in boredom. But the other part is having long and meaningful activities/experiences with a child

We decry "demands" when we should acknowledge "dependencies;" kids won't properly compile without their needs met.

Compilation error: I don't feel like it

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#133

Post by cycomanic »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

> When considering the implications for Western countries, the authors highlight that the provision of affordable high-quality childcare support, which goes beyond effective supervision, should be prioritized. > Ratios of caregivers to children were greater than five-to-one in the observed hunter-gatherer groups, whereas in UK nurseries each adult is responsible for numerous children. There is now way you can pay for…

I find that part of the article and the parallels drawn to nurseries in the UK (by one of the researchers apparently) quite weird. My understanding is that what is denoted caregiver in the article is quite different to a careperson in a nursery.

I don't think that a caregiver in the hunter gatherer society will exclusively watch one child only (and not all the time). I suspect more that they are available if needed.

If we look at the scientific article, it studied 18 children across 3 camps and the camps of 20-80 individuals. The article says children had often 10-20 caregivers, based on the 18 children that's a minimum of 180 adults. Assuming an average camp size of 50 that would mean more adults than living in the 3 camps.

So clearly caregivers are not exclusive which makes the whole comparison to child to adult ratio completely non-sensical IMO and I'm quite disappointed that researcher was tempted to make a comment in this way (to be fair, often journalists try to pull out a political angle in stories, in our communication training as researchers we were actually warned to be vary of this).

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#135

Post by Guthur »

secondcoming wrote: post #118
kaskakokos wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the word "exceptionally" arises when comparing with other animals, the amount of effort a human child needs from its parents and family until an advanced age is unprecedented in other terrestrial companions.

Indeed, it always a source of surprise to me that human babies will cry regardless of the situation, whereas the offspring of other animals seem to have an instinct to remain quiet while the mother is not about, or there's a perceived danger.

Well if you come with an assumption we are like the other animals you are going to make an ass of someone.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#136

Post by wslh »

The Zionist youth organizations [1] worked and work in a similar way where teenagers take care of children and a cycle is built. This is implemented also in Kibbutzim [2] and the diaspora as well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_youth_movement?wprov=s...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz?wprov=sfti1

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#137

Post by seec »

eastbound wrote: post #103
seec wrote: post #90

I hate those types of "research" that base all their "findings" on observation of what is undesirable primitive living. What's more they don't even meaningfully quantify what can be qualified as neglect or abuse. My opinion as well as my own experience is that those children are far more likely to be subjected to much higher levels of abuse and neglect in this type of situation. As someone who has been neglected by h…

I’ve been down this alley. No-one will understand you. Now I just moved back to being a normal person seemingly integrated and all in favour of feminism and all this shit, and I just laugh internally every time a woman tells me “I have been raped.” In my city, they add “But don’t tell anyone, it will make people racist.” Every. Single. Time. Ahh, it’s already bad enough that I know several of them. Not very healthy,…

Well, I know people try very hard to not understand. So, they don't have to feel concerned and actually do stuff to fix it. That's how people are generally, let's just ignore everything until the house is on fire...

But that doesn't make it much less frustrating. And to be honest there are more and more people understanding my view in between words telling me their stories and ultimately agreeing. I have to say that is somewhat necessary because otherwise it makes you feel crazy for being the only one that can see. Like giant permanent gaslighting...

And yeah, people are still delusional but the stats keep telling the same story. At some point we are going to run out of prison and benefits for single moms I guess...

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#138

Post by hattmall »

scruple wrote: post #48
hasoleju wrote: post #14

> childcare needs to give parents an actual break. In my experience caring for your small children is really demanding work. On the one hand you need to be focused on the situation in order to protect the children and on the other hand there is not much going on for entertaining yourself. Creative or focused deep work where you get a positive feeling of accomplishment also counts as a break from childcare for me. So…

I'm already hearing the comments on Monday, people asking me how my "break" was, since I took off all of last week (I mean, I had to since the preschool our twins attend and the daycare our singleton attends were closed). Work is typically a break from what happens in the home, but when things at work are stressful it feels like coming out of the frying pan and into the fire. We also have a similar experience, where…

In a very similar situation too, but add in that both sets of grandparents have one with Alzheimers so instead of extra care givers we actually have even more work with having to actively baby sit parents. Holidays are pretty stressful and this year we threw a nice thanksgiving stomach bug into the mix!

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#140

Post by j45 »

caesil wrote: post #107
getpost wrote: post #54

> the researchers say that children may be "evolutionarily primed" to expect exceptionally high levels of physical contact and care, What strikes me here is the phrase, "exceptionally high levels." I imagine children need a "normal" level of care; it's only "exceptionally high" in comparison to the deprived state of family systems in these degenerate times. I often reflect on the understanding in Attachment Theory, w…

[flagged]

Respectfully, I did not read it as this.

If anything, I read about how helpful it is to support parents and children, especially the parent that gives birth.

See how I said that without gender?

I understand it used the word mother. And child. But learning to read into and past something can leave valuable advice undiscovered.

Sometimes the partner that doesn’t give birth can’t fill the gaps no matter how much they do. They should never stop trying, including seeking support. While it might not be every case, it’s not uncommon either.

Instead of taking this in a negative direction, we could say ask is there anything insightful there could apply to some or most parenting situations?

I’m starting to learn about the studies that are exploring how much postpartum can or cannot be affected by unconditional support that is not there to make the parents feel any less capable.

As a the non birthing partner, this approach might have more of an effect of silencing conversation than was intended. It’s in the spirit of keeping the discussion open that I am responding.

Edit: typo, clarity

Post reply on HN