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

The unusual ways Western parents raise children

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 684 posts

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#411

Post by AnimalMuppet »

gumby wrote: post #403

As a parent myself I have only one piece of child rearing advice. First: Read a bunch of books (which will contradict each other) Then: a) do what you think is right and b) when someone tells you to do X (especially, but not only your mother or mother in law), if you disagree just say "Funny you should say that because I just read the exact opposite" and hand them a random baby rearing book. This sounds like a joke b…

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, because they're the ones that are against your natural bent. (Nobody needed to tell you to be permissive, you were going to do that anyway.)

(My position here is that either strict or permissive, taken too far, will be problematic. So you can swap strict and permissive in the previous paragraph, and everything is still true.)

So don't just read parenting books and listen to the ones that strike a chord with you. It's the other ones that you need to carefully consider what they say.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#412

Post by NovaJehovah »

u678u wrote: post #404
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…

> Like anything else in life, you can do a good job or a bad job at being a parent. If you're prioritizing your own convenience or ego or career over the wellbeing of your child, then you're a bad parent. Sounds like you have no clue. Try looking after 3 babies then come back an talk to us.

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

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#413

Post by [deleted] »

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.…

[deleted]

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#414

Post by thebigman433 »

sdevonoes wrote: post #121
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…

Best decision my parents made for me when I was kid: no extra activities after school, no summer camps, no music lessons, etc, no soccer teams, etc. I did have "unofficial summer camps", I did play some music instruments (without teachers), I did play a lot of soccer (without teams, just in the street)... I (and the kids in my neighbourhood) did all of these without adults.

Did you not have any desire to do these things? This strikes me as an odd "rule" to have since a lot of people genuinely enjoy these activities. Playing football in high school was one of my favorite parts of the time period, and going to a summer camp legitimately changed my life path. I think these things can be extremely good if the child wants to participate.

I couldnt imagine not letting my own child not do these things if they wanted to.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#415

Post by bihla »

NovaJehovah wrote: post #410
bihla wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are not clay to be molded, and they are not computer systems to be planned and carried out. They are individuals. And there are no clear solutions to mental health, substance abuse, or suicide--but there are clear non-solutions like helicopter parenting. EDIT: And best-efforts at laying out everything for your kid are more than potentially-wasted energy. It's smothering, controlling behavior of someone who s…

"Helicopter parenting" and "smothering" are not the only alternatives to self-serving, self-absorbed neglect. Throwing your hands up because something is hard and there are no obvious answers is not a recipe for doing a good job at... anything.

I guess I see fewer under-concerned parents than I do over-concerned parents. Of course there are both.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#416

Post by renewiltord »

Honestly, we're a damned resilient species. This is micro-optimization. Your kids are going to be awesome almost certainly, just like every generation so far has been more capable than the ones before.

The science on this stuff is half-baked. The real evidence is very low. If you took the same standards people hold to something they don't want to happen (let's say legalization of LSD use) and then applied it to most of the papers, they'd fail the test.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#417

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #16
swader999 wrote: post #5

We put the crib close to our bed, much easier for mom. Dad got ear plugs.

It's funny, human mothers have a unique trait through which they can identify the cries of their particular child, even at a playground where a lot of kids are making noise. Somehow, mothers are able to cut through all the din and identify the voice of their young child, at the exclusion of all others. Nature does so much to bring mothers closer to their young, yet fathers do not possess this "talent." In fact, we se…

I am shocked by the responses I have received to this comment.

First off, I thought it was a lot more conventionally understood that mothers' bodies undergo permanent hormone-driven changes during pregnancy - and that these changes yield some more-or-less common outcomes across cultures and locales. [0] One of those outcomes is the following:

> The researchers found that the mothers had surprisingly consistent responses to their crying babies, “and in a very short amount of time from the start of the cry, five seconds, they preferred to pick up and hold or to talk to their infant,” Bornstein said.

I also thought it was much more conventionally understood that fathers do not exhibit the same changes as mothers do. [1] Nevertheless, I want to make it clear that I do not have children. My understanding of this phenomenon stems from my background in psychoacoustics, not child-rearing.

Second, though, and perhaps more importantly, I am pretty disappointed in this community for laboring to interpret my points as misogynistic, out of touch with modern norms, or whatever, when a simple google search would have easily brought my points into context. Perhaps I failed to follow the conventions of citing resources to learn more about these things, but as I already indicated I didn't do this because I thought the majority of those commenting would have already been aware of this research. I apologize for not including it and I will try to do better in the future.

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/23/health/moms-babies-crying-res...

[1] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/womens-mens-br...

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#418

Post by novembermike »

NovaJehovah wrote: post #338
ramblerman wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't rationalize it with clichés like "love is all that matters" Counter data point. My wife is Argentinian. I'd say the values you see in her family primarily is "love does come first" and strict boundaries on kids. E.g. the adults are talking, go away. When I compare that to my own nieces and nephews, they have little boundaries, are quite lethargic and can be quite arrogant. Yet their parents would all describe…

I'm not trying to say there's one right way to do things. But there are a lot of plainly wrong ways. If your parenting philosophy is not based on any research or learning about what's best for your child, but instead on what's easiest and most convenient for you , then you're probably doing it wrong. That doesn't mean you can't set boundaries for kids who are old enough to understand them. I think the way we discard…

Keep in mind that the research around this is very poor. It's in the realm of things where flipping a coin might be better.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#419

Post by cma »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #358
eurusdac wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think SIDS is a real thing and there is clear evidence that not using pillows or excessive blankets in cribs has reduced deaths. I think sleeping with or not with your kid, is a much more complicated question and probably one where your instinct is right. After all, with a baby in the bed you can't help but be aware of its comfort, needs and amount of movement.

In the UK the NHS have posters and leaflets about how parents should NOT sleep with their baby as deaths have occurred from parents "lying on and suffocating their new born". Of course this from drugged-up and/or drunk parents. If you don't fall into the "bad parent" category you'll be fine.

Or if you take ambien or something like that it might not be a good idea.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#420

Post by NovaJehovah »

bihla wrote: post #415
NovaJehovah wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Helicopter parenting" and "smothering" are not the only alternatives to self-serving, self-absorbed neglect. Throwing your hands up because something is hard and there are no obvious answers is not a recipe for doing a good job at... anything.

I guess I see fewer under-concerned parents than I do over-concerned parents. Of course there are both.

I most often see that kind of thing from parents who are trying to compensate for failing to be present in more fundamental ways.
Post reply on HN