Babywise Hurts Babies
Talking to Brian always works up my brain cells. We had a good three-hour chat on Skype tonight. Technology is a good thing.
While we were having some casual talk about religion and childraring practices, he brought up a practice by some parents from a book called Babywise. It literally broke my heart when he told me that someone he knows is following the teachings of that book, a book that instructs parents to treat babies as if they are mind-manipulating bastards, a book that goes against EVERYTHING modern science and research has told us NOT to do to a baby. It broke my heart not because the book exists, but rahter, that I kept on having an image in my head of a baby being treated the way the book instructs parents to treat him/her — how can any parent have the heart to do those things to an newborn infant!? It’s so distrubing on so many levels. And I wish there was something I can do for those poor babies.
People are blind when it comes to inaccurate information published in books — if it’s in print, it must be true. Or, is it?
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April 17th, 2006 at 11:28 am
I personally think that “Babywise” is total evil.
Check out http://www.ezzo.info for more about it.
April 22nd, 2006 at 12:42 pm
I agree with what you say Chu. Babywise or ANY publication about parenting, followed blindly, is dangerous. I gave birth to four boys within seven years and I never let a crying baby go unattended…. EVER! Two of my sons have children of their own now and I am proud to say that they have such good common sense and instincts about parenting . I see both of their children thriving and happy, and well ajusted. I must say that when I had my children years ago, I never read any book about raising children and of course we didn’t have the web to resource. I guess I was too busy actually raising my children that I didn’t have time to spend reading up on it. Common sense and asking our parents advice was the way then….right or wrong…. and our kids grew up healthy and happy. A lot of what I read about the subject now is a lot of bunk in my humble oppinion. I pity these poor young parents who do not trust their own common sense and feel the need to raise their children by a book.
April 30th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
“Babywise or ANY publication about parenting, followed blindly, is dangerous.”
I just wanted to add in. . . Babywise, even followed with “flexibility and common sense,” ie, not blindly, can still be problematic for parents and babies. Foundationally, the information is flawed. And common-sensical parents trusting the information to be accurate, can make some flawed decisions for their little ones. . .
May 1st, 2006 at 12:08 pm
I totally agree. My point was that there is so much “flawed” information out there, not just babywise, that I hope it challenges young parents to rely more on common sense rather than to follow all the various books and web sites on the subject. It’s like all the extreme fad diets that are sold to the unsuspecting and insecure public. People follow them in hopes of finding the magic bullet to solve their weight problems when the bottom line has not changed over the years….eat less and exercise. The diet industry has made billions on the desperate public. This generation is more intellectual and seems to depend more on outside sources to get information then my generation did. This isn’t wrong, just very different and it’s mostly because there is more information available to sift through….good and bad. It’s confusing . On some levels, Parenting doesn’t seem as easy as it used to be. There is an old saying “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”. Glean the good info and throw out the bad and use common sense to tell you which is which. I guess we need to regulate the info that gets out there more closely and that opens a whole new can of worms.