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The unusual ways Western parents raise children

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Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#531

Post by barry-cotter »

whatever1 wrote: post #496

The thing that I don’t get from the Western culture is what is the point of parenting? Both parents work and they immediately unload their baby to a day care. I was shocked to learn that 9 month babies are sent to day-cares. Is paying the bills for a human you barely see called parenting?

Even with both parents working full time jobs the child spends more time with their parents than any other adult. They definitely get vastly more, and more focused one on one time as well. This is not “barely see” by any measure.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#532

Post by sethammons »

cloudc0de wrote: post #215

> For her part, Kuroda co-slept with her four children as a way to adapt to being away from them during the day. "I'm working full time and if I separate the whole night, it's really minimal time for the baby. We can intensely communicate, even in the nighttime. It’s real communication and time together." IMO the rise in attachment parenting methods stems from the high rate of mothers working full-time outside the ho…

We did co-sleeping with our kids. The motivation was our own sleep. Mom could feed baby with near-zero fuss. We moved away from it as they started sleeping through the night.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#533

Post by zamfi »

souprock wrote: post #511
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…

That situation is choice, pure and simple. You appear to be some sort of web or database developer, or possibly a system administrator. You can afford to support a family. The problem is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses You forgo a lot to keep up with the Joneses. Family time gets cut. If that's the choice you really wish to make, OK. If not, cut costs until you can live a different sor…

> That situation is choice, pure and simple. You appear to be some sort of web or database developer, or possibly a system administrator. You can afford to support a family.

I think characterizing mothers (or perhaps all parents?) who choose to work rather than stay home to care for children (and taking the consequential career hit) as "Keeping up with the Joneses" is a pretty blinkered view of human motivations, quite reductive, and frankly insulting.

It's often a choice for parents to both work. But many parents choose to stay in the workforce because they derive meaning from work and a career, not so that they can enjoy entertainment, restaurants, single-use items, and excessive travel. In fact, some parents are forced to leave the workforce because childcare can cost more than their after-tax income (think an infant and two kids in daycare / with a nanny).

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#534

Post by barry-cotter »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #424
dagw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. That has nothing to do with being a mother and everything to do with spending a lot of time with that child. I'll bet that anybody who spends enough time with a child will be able to do that, regardless of that persons gender or genetic relation to the child…

Please see my general response to all the negativity I've received here [0]. To address your specific point, though, which was echoed by others in this thread, there is a lot of truth to the human ability to hone their auditory memory, especially when it comes to sounds that fall within the human auditory frequency range. Many of us have experienced this phenomenon not only with their own and others' children, but al…

I taught kindergarten for five years and I was able to identify more than 30 children’s voices whether they were speaking out making some unidentifiable utterance. Humans are really good at distinguishing very small differences in the vocal range of sounds.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#535

Post by heleninboodler »

NovaJehovah wrote: post #455
heleninboodler wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I'm not downvoting you but I strongly disagree. You have an obligation to do an adequate job of this. I think it's also important not to become a slave to the idea that you must always do more because it's "supposed to be hard." Doing a great job of raising kids doesn…

Who said it has to be a grueling slog? I said do your best, not wear a crown of thorns. I don't think it necessarily has to be hard, but people often make it harder than it needs to be because they're unwilling to make personal sacrifices. I just don't think we should give people participation trophies. If you're not doing a good job and you know it, you should face reality and fix it, not be told "there's no right o…

> Who said it has to be a grueling slog? I said do your best, not wear a crown of thorns.

> I don't think it necessarily has to be hard

That's not necessarily coming through in your message, for what it's worth.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#536

Post by johncessna »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #454
johncessna wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income doesn't equate to wealth. You have to look at the other side of the equation, outgo, to determine what someone's net worth is. In addition to student loans, there's the house payment. People tend to buy a house based on what they can be approved for, not based off of a budget number they developed before talking to a bank. A 300k salary will get you pre-approved for a a lot of house in the US. Docs and Lawyers…

This doesn't jive with any data or personal experience I have. The Ramsey Solutions study also seems like garbage, especially because it seems like their definition of millionaire is someone with $1M in a 401k. But if you line up 100 teachers or CPAs and 100 doctors in the USA, you can sure as hell bet the doctors will be far wealthier than the teachers or CPAs. It's a fact that US doctors, across the whole populatio…

Well, their definition of a millionaire is someone with a net worth of greater than a million dollars. That's also my working definition of a millionaire, and I thought was the definition of a millionaire.

Can you provide your definition so that I can frame your comments with it?

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#537

Post by zamfi »

NovaJehovah wrote: post #462
spamizbad wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the impression you're equating sleep training with the old fashioned "cry it out" method. We loosely followed the Karp method and had very little crying and a very happy baby.

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 ARE going to respond to distress (and in fact, you do, at time intervals) but that being alone in a room at night time when it's time to sleep need not be cause for distress.

Whether it works that way is a separate question, but it is not a "euphemism".

Even assuming it is the case that cortisol spikes are long-term harmful (though it's unclear that sleep training causes a disproportionate amount of this), the balance of harm from sleep deprived parents to cortisol spikes from sleep training is also not obviously in favor of one over the other.

If we structured our society so that parents had more support when their kids are very young, we would not have to make these tradeoffs in quite the same way, which is the ultimate point of this piece.

> [Quoting another of your posts] > 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.

Sure, some people are like this, but few, and fewer still make a conscious choice here. Your consistent shaming in this thread of straw man parents who are prioritizing work over some critical aspect of their children's wellbeing, without recognizing the hardcore tradeoffs involved in "Western" society child raising, is unlikely to change anyone's mind.

Parenting in American society is damn hard. It's damn hard even without zealots who are so sure that they know the right way to do certain things -- that's why you're being downvoted, not because people disagree that you should "step up" and do what you can for your kids, but because they agree, and you're shaming them for it.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#538

Post by jaimex2 »

Two kids, western parent.

We don't sleep with them so we can be well rested the next day and be better parents for them. This includes making sure the relationship with your partner is in good standing.

Prams are a convenient way to keep your children safe while being able to do your errands. Bending down especially with a child attached is not fun.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#539

Post by exporectomy »

jl6 wrote: post #409
eurusdac wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, my advice to any new parent would be to listen carefully to advice about how not to drown your child while bathing them, and how to make sure they're not suffocated by their bedding. Both real issues where some simple practices avoid the small risk of an absolutely catastrophic outcome. Then take all other advice with a pinch of salt. Just follow your best instincts and do what seems right. Your child will b…

Generally agree, except I’m not sure there is a bright line between the obviously-worthwhile precautions you mention and the paranoid overprecautions that might themselves carry harm. Seatbelts... yes. Choking first aid... yes. Healthy eating, talking to them frequently... probably? Lots of sunlight and fresh air... maybe?

About to be a parent and the main conclusion I've come to is that being consistently reliable, caring and responsive to any distress the baby has in the first 6-9 months is number one more important thing to keep in mind. Those physical health things are either obvious or hardly matter but making a kid who grows up to experience a lifetime of emotional suffering due to poor attachment styles or mental health problems is extremely common and bad. The world is filled with these walking wounded who can't function well, can't form stable relationships, commit suicide, become drug abusers, etc. Far more common than SIDS or choking to death.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#540

Post by exporectomy »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #313
eurusdac wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, my advice to any new parent would be to listen carefully to advice about how not to drown your child while bathing them, and how to make sure they're not suffocated by their bedding. Both real issues where some simple practices avoid the small risk of an absolutely catastrophic outcome. Then take all other advice with a pinch of salt. Just follow your best instincts and do what seems right. Your child will b…

For myself, the risk SIDS didn't even enter my calculus. (I confess I am a little skeptical that it exists at all.) Regardless, I perceived the emotional bonding with the mother & father to far outweigh anything else and so we shared our bed with our children until they were perhaps 1 year old or so. And even after, they moved into their own small bed just a foot from ours in the same bedroom for another year or so.…

I completely agree. SIDS is just another safety thing like not letting it get strangled or stick a fork in the power point. But keeping them close and feeling secure is super important for them to develop independence and self-confidence later. Unfortunately, there's this perverse idea that rejecting your child will make them independent when it typically has the opposite effect.
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