Please procure for me, if possible, an excellent dissertation on the physical education of children published by M. Ballexserd of Geneva. I am about to become a father, and am thinking of how I can best fulfill my duties.
- from a letter by Jean Ranson to Swiss publishing house Société Typographique de Neuchâtel, Nov 29, 1777; quoted in The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton.
One thing I didn’t expect to encounter so much of during parenting is self-doubt. 5pm rolls around and baby is grizzling, but the moment he’s put in his cot he begins crying and thrashing around, and nothing you do helps. You lift, you carry, you sing, you sway, you walk, you stop walking, you try the cot again, you wish you had a ‘We are not murdering the baby!’ sign pinned to the front door, until he finally drifts off after a peak of screaming that leaves your ears ringing. You spend a minute or so watching the soft curves of his dozing, angelic face and then you sneak out of the room, miserably wondering what you’re doing wrong. After all, the babies in The Books don’t have days like this!
I love books. I find them immensely helpful. I like being able to consult experts from all over the world at the drop of a hat. But The Books are not always my friend. Sometimes when I go to them with my problem (Why does he only nap two or three times a day, for fifteen minutes at a time?!), they turn around and blame me. ‘You’re picking him up too much!’ they tut. ‘He should be on a schedule!’ Except for the ones which say, ‘You’re not picking him up enough! And schedules could be making things worse!’ HEY, Books, what’s the big idea? I come to you for help and you’re all blameblameblame and bickerbickerbicker.
Jean Ranson’s request above suggests I am not the first to try getting to grips with this parenting business via the printed word. The great parenting guru of the 18th century was the philosopher and novelist Rousseau, whose belief in the essential goodness of children and the necessity of lovingly fostering their virtues ran counter to previous paedagogical theories (which, judging by other chapters of the book, made enthusiastic use of physical chastisement). My reading in the current crop of popular parenting titles gives me the impression this ebb and flow of advice was mirrored over the past hundred years when Behaviourist theories of reinforcement, reward, and punishment dominated the first half of the 20th century, only to be critiqued and largely dismissed by child psychologists in the second half.
Inevitably then one wonders if the current advice is going to go out of fashion in similarly short order (two generations?). On reflection I tentatively think not, on the grounds that at least most modern advice is based on research rather than proceeding from ideology or experience (snarky quote popular among scientists: ‘The plural of anecdote is not data’). Which is not to say that everyone is in agreement (perish the thought!). There is a spectrum of sorts with the Sears’ hard-core attachment parenting theories at one end and various cry-it-out Schedulers at the other, with each side sniping at the other via unfair generalisations (the Sears don’t tell you to ‘wear your baby 24/7′; no one is suggesting you ignore a crying baby forever) and ecstatic encomiums from converts (‘We tried everything you suggested and it WORKED! Our child is now a calm happy attached independent self-confident obedient intelligent sleeping genius!’). Extra points if an anecdote manages to subtly skewer the opposing team.
So what to do? I remember a scene from the sitcom Mad About You in which Jamie despaired of the conflicting advice she was getting from all of the parenting books she’d been reading and Paul exclaimed, “Just keep the ones you agree with and throw out the rest.” Whatever you do has to ‘work’ for you — make you happy, make your baby happy (as far as possible! We are not murdering the baby…); make your lives together more managable, not less — and you’ll only discover what that is by measuring the suggestions against your instincts, ethics and experiences. No quick fixes for 5pm it seems, but no shortage of sympathy and advice either.
You know the problem with babies? They haven’t read the books
They are so unprepared!
And what would they read if they could? If Finn is any indication, it would be something with a crinkly page. He is all about smooshing the crinkly pages.