Our Babies Ourselves How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent
Our Babies Ourselves How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent
New parents are faced with innumerable decisions to make regarding the best way to care for their baby, and, naturally, they often turn for guidance to friends and family members who have already raised children. But as scientists are discovering, much of the trusted advice that has been passed down through generations needs to be carefully reexamined.
A thought-provoking combination of practical parenting information and scientific analysis, Our Babies, Ourselves is the first book to explore why we raise our children the way we do–and to suggest that we reconsider our culture’s traditional views on parenting.
In this ground-breaking book, anthropologist Meredith Small reveals her remarkable findings in the new science of ethnopediatrics. Professor Small joins pediatricians, child-development researchers, and anthropologists across the country who are studying to what extent the way we parent our infants is based on biological needs and to what extent it is based on culture–and how sometimes what is culturally dictated may not be what’s best for babies.
Should an infant be encouraged to sleep alone? Is breast-feeding better than bottle-feeding, or is that just a myth of the nineties? How much time should pass before a mother picks up her crying infant? And how important is it really to a baby’s development to talk and sing to him or her?
These are but a few of the important questions Small addresses, and the answers not only are surprising but may even change the way we raise our children.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars a gift for my daughter
this was another gift for my daughter she enjoys readin she liked this one also
1 Star Horrible
I’ve been reading this book for the past few days and I am appalled at how biased it is against any Western practices in child rearing. Any American or European practices are considered lacking at best and abusive at worst. I found this to be highly offensive. I have to say that I am surprised by the many positive reviews for this book! Perhaps those who enjoyed it are strong supporters of attachment parenting.
5 Stars Trust your baby-rearing instincts
Small’s book is a must read for prospective and new parents. I was amazed to discover how bizarre some American child-rearing habits are, when viewed with a global perspective. One of the passages that struck me most is where Small examines non-human primate behavior, and she describes a female gorilla in a zoo that kept getting pregnant and having babies only to lose them for lack of knowing what to do. She would hold the baby gorilla to her chest, but facing outwards! The zookeepers brought in a new mother– a human mother– to breastfeed her baby in full view of this otherwise isolated gorilla mom, and she learned by observation how to do it right! Amazing. Like many Americans who are newish parents, as a kid I didn’t see many babies close-up, certainly not breast-fed ones. I was lucky to have a sister-in-law that gave me this book while I was pregnant. Small’s cross-cultural perspective makes a lot of sense wtihout being proscriptive, and she gave me the courage to trust my nurturing instincts despite many relatives and well-meaning friends of my parent’s generation who gave me contradictory advice. I see other reviews that claim Small has some bias toward the !Kung society, but it’s probably because that is the last example of what early human societies were like (i.e., hunter-gatherer), and is most similar to the evolutionary context in which humans developed. Nothing in biology makes sense, exept in light of evolution (said T. Dobzhansky), and it’s true for human behavior as well.
5 Stars Every American Parent Should Have to Read This
I have found this book to be so interesting and useful that I recommend it to all of my friends. One friend credits it with helping her decide that she does want to have children! Small does not make judgements in her book about parenting choices. She is a scientist who presents information based on biology and anthropology. More than any “parenting” book I’ve ever seen, she gives details about the biology of breastfeeding. She explains the process, hormone shifts, and even evolutionary theory on the origins of nursing a baby. In my opinion, every new parent should know the biological expectations their new baby has of them. If someone is going to use a crib, bottle feed, let their baby cry themselves to sleep every night, etc. then they should at least know the costs those things will have. Educated decisions beat out “choices” any day.
4 Stars Interesting look at cross cultural care of infants
This book gave an anthropological, evolutionary, perspective on infant care. I thought the most valuable insight this book gave was identifying the Western culture’s focus on independence and how common parenting practices subconciously and consciously focus on independence. It gave me some perspective on why I was doing what I was doing.
You can tell she is a proponent of cosleeping, babywearing, and breastfeeding. So she emphasizes the positive health advantages of doing these things and how doing these things are more in line with meeting the biological/evolutionary needs of a baby, but she does continue that not doing these things, or doing these things on various continuums, do become cultural norms in order for parents to get the things done that they need to do. And that other cultures, (besides Western culture) do wean their babies, or allow other people to carry their babies, or have the baby sleep in their own bed, but in the same room. She notes that the Western culture is extreme in not doing these things, which is fine, but because it goes against a babies evolutionary/biological needs the trade off is generally a baby who cries more.
I liked the fact that this wasn’t a how to book. I liked it because it described how some primitive cultures care for their baby, and I liked the fact that primitive cultures had behaviors that I felt weren’t perfect. I liked it because it allows you to think about various parenting choices and analyze the motivations of your choices and whether or not you are willing to accept the possible consequences.
Filed under: Parenting Books