The unusual ways Western parents raise children • Hacker News Board

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#641

Post by GreenWatermelon » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #106

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The child hasn’t had the opportunity to develop their reasoning faculties or learn to weigh the needs or desires of others with their own and circumstance. As parents we have the choice to use reason and patience. We can understand that children are developing and need support from adults to do so effectively. To hit them would show a lack of understanding, control, reason, and temperance. These are bad things to tea…

> To hit them would show a lack of understanding, control, reason, and temperance. These are bad things to teach. This is true, certainly. > The child hasn’t had the opportunity to develop their reasoning faculties You're mistaken if you think that poor self-control is predicated on a lack of logical reasoning. But anyways, point is that no trust is lost when a parent hits a child; children don't apply that kind of t…

There is. Children might grow up to despise their parents, like I do with mine. They won't see them as more than a nuisance, and will wish the parents were dead.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#642

Post by NovaJehovah » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #631

NovaJehovah wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> one should No offense, but that's still kinda condescending. I have 2 kids myself but I don't go around preaching. Stuff like post partum depression, pre-existing chronic conditions, overbearing grandparents, domestic abuse, etc are all real things and you and I are neither psychologists, pediatricians, nor social workers so best to leave the advice giving to licensed professionals.

Your point seems to be that parenting is hard so we can never publicly criticize any common parenting practices because it might hurt some parents' feeling. I disagree. If I'm doing something harmful to my child, I want to know about it.

The "licensed professionals" I've talked with about this, like my kid's pediatrician, gave me terrible advice and were either ignorant of the research that's been done, or grossly distorted it to fit their bias.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

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Post by sanderjd » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 6:21 PM UTC

NovaJehovah wrote: post #591

sanderjd wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is trade-offs. Less consistent sleep (for both the baby and the parents) is also clearly problematic.

In my experience, babies will get enough sleep one way or another, with or without "sleep training", though it may not be on a consistent or convenient schedule. Parents can easily get enough sleep as well. It's called "sleeping when the baby sleeps". Infants sleep like 15 hours per day, so it isn't hard. You just can't conform to any kind of a schedule-- that's the tradeoff, not getting enough sleep.

I think you're wrong about the first part. It's probably right for newborns but not even older infants and it is definitely possible (even extremely common) for toddlers to get too little sleep if left to their own devices.

"Sleep when the baby sleeps" sounds good but is not really how sleep works; sleep quality is very sensitive to cycles and time of day (it's also a very personal thing, with big differences between individuals). It also doesn't work at all for working parents. And even in households where one parent doesn't work, the other one does, and it is important for both parents to be rested.

Of course you can pull this off, I'm not saying anybody is going to die or anything, I'm saying there are very real advantages to more predictable and consistent sleep. For us, we were very hesitant (or maybe just lazy) about sleep training, but our ~15 month old was noticeably happier after being able to sleep through the night.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

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Post by mensetmanusman » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

zamfi wrote: post #533

souprock wrote: post #511

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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, qui…

I know an engineer who is a stay at home dad married to a professor wife. They have over 10 kids. Logistically it made more sense for him to decide to focus his problem-solving skills on the children for a decade or so.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

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Post by mensetmanusman » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

It was super stressful trying the crying it out method for our first child. (Now we have six.)

What eventually worked, and in hindsight it makes a lot of sense, was to respond to their cries at longer and longer intervals, (e.g 1 min, 2 min, 3 min, etc.)

At some point it seems babies get this wrong idea in their head that they are helping you when they are crying out.

This slow weaning of response time teaches them that you are in fact close by, so it reduces their stress.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

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Post by throwaway_prnts » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

NovaJehovah wrote: post #583

heleninboodler wrote: post #444

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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...

I don't have any opinion on sleep training, but you've been downvoted a lot here and I would just like to make an observation that I don't think has been stated explicitly so far.

IMO, you are coming across as someone who views themselves as morally superior and so feels entitled to try to control others via shaming them. This is probably not who you are in real life. But IMO this is the major reason why you have been so consistently downvoted in this thread, it is not mere disagreement on the sleep issue. Even if the evidence is easy to Google, linking to it and basing your argument on that would have gone a lot farther.

If you are sincere about taking the hard road (which I have no reason to doubt), I would do some self reflection about why your communication style has not been effective here.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

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Post by lhorie » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

NovaJehovah wrote: post #642

lhorie wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one should No offense, but that's still kinda condescending. I have 2 kids myself but I don't go around preaching. Stuff like post partum depression, pre-existing chronic conditions, overbearing grandparents, domestic abuse, etc are all real things and you and I are neither psychologists, pediatricians, nor social workers so best to leave the advice giving to licensed professionals.

Your point seems to be that parenting is hard so we can never publicly criticize any common parenting practices because it might hurt some parents' feeling. I disagree. If I'm doing something harmful to my child, I want to know about it. The "licensed professionals" I've talked with about this, like my kid's pediatrician, gave me terrible advice and were either ignorant of the research that's been done, or grossly di…

> Your point seems to be that parenting is hard so we can never publicly criticize any common parenting practices because it might hurt some parents' feeling.

I mean, parenting being hard is neither here or there. You said it is "hard" yourself. There are parents that think parenting is wonderful and can't see themselves do anything but raising kids.

> If I'm doing something harmful to my child, I want to know about it.

That's great, and it's exactly what I meant when I said I took issue w/ the "you" pronoun: wanting better for oneself is very very different than telling others what ought to be what.

Medical professionals are known to make recommendations based on probabilistic heuristics (i.e. 95% of cases with certain circumstances fall into the same bucket so they usually assume said bucket) and this is why celebrity doctors like Dr Mike say that it's important to build rapport and have an open dialogue with the physician, armed with all the knowledge you are able/willing to muster yourself.

The thing w/ online advice is that people seeking help on the internet are often already very apprehensive and vulnerable and having a flood of strangers on high horses passing judgment doesn't necessarily help. The irony is that if we're in "I did my research and know better than professionals" territory, then the problem is that everyone and their mothers also claim to have done "research" too and "how dare they question my self-acclaimed expert authority", and that type of thread derails real fast.

Many of these parents are well-meaning but are in fact woefully underprepared to effectively provide help that is clear cut among medical professionals (e.g. dealing w/ a fever), and they often are eager to offer quick takes on topics where the research is mixed, non-existent, poorly done and/or where it doesn't really really matter (stuff like optimization advice for parents worrying about late blooming in development milestones like potty training). And then there's topics like spanking, where it's pitchforks galore, and the signal-to-noise ratio is basically zero.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

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Post by genrez » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

LegitShady wrote: post #548

genrez wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the article is poorly written, and doesn't more than tangentially make the point I was making. I think I can understand why you would want criticism a poorly written article in the supposedly high quality BBC. My curiosity is peeked about the inclusive society point. Nothing in the article ran afoul of my speech norms. I don't think my speech norms are particularly well developed though. What part of the…

If we're accepting of other cultures, you shouldn't call one weird because it doesn't' conform with other cultures. Isn't the point to celebrate differences? The whole premise of the article is nonsense.

I think I understand now. Thank you for explaining. To me Western culture is a set of knowledge and practices one grows up with, but I don't attach my identity to any particular culture, nor do I hold people responsible for any harm caused by practices their country's culture accepts. I can see that if someone had said something like "programmers are weird", then it would feel like an attack to me though because I identify as a programmer. Many people do attach their identities to their county's culture, so we should be careful about how we discuss cultures. Did I miss anything?

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

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Post by NovaJehovah » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #647

NovaJehovah wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point seems to be that parenting is hard so we can never publicly criticize any common parenting practices because it might hurt some parents' feeling. I disagree. If I'm doing something harmful to my child, I want to know about it. The "licensed professionals" I've talked with about this, like my kid's pediatrician, gave me terrible advice and were either ignorant of the research that's been done, or grossly di…

> Your point seems to be that parenting is hard so we can never publicly criticize any common parenting practices because it might hurt some parents' feeling. I mean, parenting being hard is neither here or there. You said it is "hard" yourself. There are parents that think parenting is wonderful and can't see themselves do anything but raising kids. > If I'm doing something harmful to my child, I want to know about…

To be clear, I’m not asking anyone to accept my “authority”, which as you rightly point out, is nonexistent as a random anonymous person on the internet. I’m not claiming to be an expert on child psychology, but I do have some knowledge of statistics and research methods, so I can read the abstract of a study and know, at minimum, if its methodology renders it worthless BS, scientifically speaking.

But, ultimately, the experts are divided on this issue, and the research is available for anyone to look into on their own. I gave my interpretation. Anyone else is free to give theirs. People can make up their own minds.

My experience is that it’s usually the sleep training people who handwave away the research, relying instead on appeals to convention (in the US) or emotional lectures about “shaming” the poor, helpless parents. But again, people can decide for themselves.

Also, for the record, I’m in the group that loves being a parent. It’s my favorite thing in the world and brings me joy every single day. It has been hard at times, but that never reduced my enjoyment.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

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Post by Viliam1234 » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 8:23 PM UTC

v-erne wrote: post #602

Viliam1234 wrote: post #495

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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.)

I personalny blame american culture (and protestant work ethic hidden behind it). Add some capitalistic rat race to that and You will get richest society on earth in which almost no one can stop for a moment to take a breath and maybe even do some parenting. Meanwhile here in Poland my wife was able to take year long parent leave (two times - one for each child). Some may say this is sociallism - and I would say that…

I am not American, but I heard there was an era when the American family could survive on one salary. Not sure if that applied to all social classes.