The Continuum Concept In Search Of Happiness Lost Classics in Human Development
The Continuum Concept In Search Of Happiness Lost Classics in Human Development
User Ratings and Reviews
1 Star astonishingly unscientific claims!
The author bases her outrageous generalisations on her observations of a jungle tribe with whom she spent a mere two years. Is she an anthropologist? A mother? I think she is neither. I’ll concede with her that nurseries are not ideal places to leave babies - I kept my own with me contantly during my hospital stay. But realistically, how many mothers in the West have the luxury (or the strength) to carry their babies constantly? She’s advocating a culture of total motherhood and inducing guilt in the stressed and overworked mother for not being 110% responsive to her child. What she sets out to condemn is really the nuclear set up of modern society, and if she made this more explicit it would have been kinder on poor mothers reading the book! Venezualan Yequana’s could carry their young precisely because they had the support structures we lack - on hand community support, a village existence, not an industrialised, isolating, urban existence!
I’m tired of books that suggest we can easily transplant the styles of parenting prevailing in non-Western cultures easily into our own. How romantic! I had an extremely demanding baby, colic reflux, you name it. I carried him as much as I could in the sling, but there were times when I simply had to leave him to cry just so I could eat and meet my own BASIC physiological needs. I don’t like being told that by doing so I ‘tortured’ my baby (as she claims) and that in years to come he will be neurotic! What an unsubstatiated, biased and unscientific claim! I noted she barely referred to any academic journals or anthropological/peadiatric works. If she did a study with controls over time to assess the advent of neurosis relative to parenting styles I’d be impressed. Instead she makes wildly polemical claims that reflect her own archaic mentality.
5 Stars My parenting bible
This book has been my parenting bible. I started applying its principles when my children were infants and toddlers. They are now 10, 13 and 15 and are happy, confident, competent, pleasant, cooperative, loving, in a way that I’d never seen in other families. I credit Jean Liedloff for her ideas which helped me achieve what I did with my daughters.
5 Stars A Better Way to Raise a Baby and Beyond
A must for all prospective parents and grandparents who want the best for their offspring.
4 Stars Contimuum Concept
This is a book everyone should read - not just parents. It is one womans account of the life of the Yequana Indians and how they interact with their children. It is not an insruction booklet or a scientific research project but it is worthy of attention. If you can get over the writing style which is a little old fashioned and look at the core message you will say - YES - deep down I know this to be true. THe only thing that this book will leave you dissatisified with is our poor Western Culture that really does our children and us a disservice.
5 Stars Babies DO Come With Instructions
Before my first daughter was born, a friend of mine urged me to read The Continuum Concept. Did it change my life and hers? Yes. I already new the modern way of parenting was and is wrong, but I couldn’t conceive of what the correct way would be. The continuum concept spells it out so easy and plain as day.
In living in harmony with Nature’s exact laws and principals, people can be happy, and feel free. Ms. Liedloff noticed that the people of the Yequana tribe whom she encountered in the Amazon jungles were, hold your breath, were HAPPY! She connected their happiness with how they treat each other, and their children.
The hall mark of our modern and destructive civilization is the painful separation between mother and baby. Whether it is the stroller for physical isolation, or day cares for surrogate mothers, our modern way inflicts untold pain and suffering on our young children. Chimpanzee’s and gorillas, hold their young ones in their arms for up to five years, yet somehow us modern humans think that babies hardly need to be held at all? Ms. Liedloff explains the indignity in which most of our modern children our raised and urges us to try a new way.
Perhaps the most memorable paragraph in the book, which I cannot quote exactly, is when Ms. Liedloff explained to a Yequana woman how people in the modern world live, AWAY from their mothers. Ms. Liedloff explains the shock and incomprehension by the indigenous women who could not even understand or fathom a civilization which involved living in isolated and separated ways from their dear mothers.
It’s quite simple. When you do not honor or nurture your baby in your arms, they cry, scream, and are terrified because they are being separated from their source of love, warmth and breastmilk. When held closely, babies are generally calm, agreeable, and not very fussy. I am very happy to raise my children the continuum style. This book is truly grace, and thank you Jean Liedloff for showing us the intelligent way to raise children.
If anyone is interested in further reading about healthy parenting that honors your wisdom and intuition as well as provides a holistic and comprehensive view on continuum style parenting see Healing Our Children: Because Your New Baby Matters! Sacred Wisdom for Preconception, Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting (ages 0-6)
Filed under: Parenting Books