Thursday, July 28, 2005

It Takes A Village.....

So I went online today to find a workaround for PRB: "Table 'TempMSysAccessObjects' Already Exists" Error Message May Occur While Using the Compact and Repair Database Utility and I ended up here reading this.

I, too, am almost at a loss for words… and not just because someone so in-tune with the latest parenting trends should know researchers have disproved (disproven?) the whole “Mozart Effect” intelligence theory.

I am seriously considering adding google ad sense to my blog just so I can donate the proceeds to a fund for this poor child’s therapy.

Now, I admit, I am a fan of Brain, Child magazine and some of the theories of John Rosemond so that makes me a little schizophrenic in my parenting “style” anyway but this article really just made me think, “Well thank all the powers that be…. I am not that woman or that child or that poor, poor husband!”

Discuss.

4 comments:

SierraBella said...

I only read page one of the linked article, but-
I don't believe couples both working 80+ hours per week should have children. I'm a big fan of a parent (either one) staying home and raising the child for several years at least.
I know people who are letting their live-in help raise their children.
I also believe children's lives should be way less structured. They need free time to play and develop their imagination.
The family mentioned needs some group therapy, assuming the parents can tear themselves away from their careers long enought to attend.

Susan said...

Wow . . . you found me HOW?

Sorry--I got distracted.

I'm not so sure I'm feeling for Isabel Kallman's husband--what was that odd thing he said in the article about her career and her parenting 'dovetailing' so nicely? Something like that. He strikes me, really, as the bigger idiot--at least she has a plan for this child; he's just standing around saying, 'Isn't THIS nice?'

I do NOT, however, agree with her plan--frankly, I find it deeply disturbing. I am unsettled by this cultural trend toward Whole Body Parenting--I think Kallman is one extreme, and Andrea Yates was another. I went into my first pregnancy fully intending to follow Dr. Sears' guidelines for Attachment Parenting, but in the few months that I tried it, all it did was make me feel inadequate. And Kallman worries me because she is banking on her peer group's collective sense of inadequacy, at the cost of her own child.

Put that ad sense link up--the kid is going to need it, although I really DO suspect the money might go to his defense lawyer. Just a hunch.

Homestead said...

Sierrabella- Amen to the way less structured lives comment. Less structure & fewer plastic toys. Although I'm sure I will eat those words later....

Susan- I found you because m&co commented here so I went to her site and saw you and.... well, blame it on her!

I read "dovetailing" and immediately thought of woodworking and remembered I have to find the big clamps so I can glue the old potty chair back together.... Welcome to my brain.....

What the heck is Whole Body Parenting and Attachment Parenting?? Did I miss a whole theory of parenting? I plan to do the best for my child(ren) that I possibly can and if that means taking all those thick baby/parenting books, not reading them and using them to prop up the crib instead then so be it....

Susan said...

Attachment Parenting is the Dr Sears deal where you breastfeed until the baby weans itself,'wear' the baby in a sling, co-sleep, etc etc. I'm not opposed to any of these things per se, but I find the underlying notion that unless you are with the baby ALL THE TIME you are not properly parenting the baby is, well, problematic. And frankly, I think one-size-fits-all parenting prescriptions are doomed to make mothers feel inadequate.

I tried the attachment thing with my first son. After ten days in the NICU, he was not able to latch on; he hated the Bjorn; he would sleep ON me but not WITH me. I spent every moment of every day with him for the first, oh, I don't know how many months--nine? ten? and I was a wreck. I was exhausted and physically drained and frankly, not really loving my mommy life.

Then my husband came home with the Dr Ferber sleep book (which I also have issues with), and we cried it out (Henry AND me) and all got some sleep, and a little time apart, and holy moly if we weren't ALL happier.

So what's my point? Just this: I think the parenting extremes--attachment parenting, baby as 'project'--are equally bad. And I think the fact that the media play on our fears that we're not doing this right makes it worse.

That is all. Goodnight.