How the Science of Parenting Hurts Parents
From the day she was born, my daughter slept every night for six or seven hours straight. I know what you’re thinking – I’d hit the baby jackpot, right? But instead of thanking the sleep gods, I was tearing my hair out. Since my midwife gave me strict instructions never to let Emily go more than five hours without a feed, I’d set the alarm so I could rise, strip my baby of her onesie and wipe her down with a wet washcloth in a fruitless effort to wake her.
My mother was baffled. “Never wake a sleeping baby,” she said, shrugging. My youngest sister had slept through the night from birth, and since Mom had three other children to care for, she simply counted herself lucky. But then she wasn’t reading paediatric society position statements on the Internet, nor was she drowning in parenting tomes. Ultimately I did follow my mother’s advice, mainly because I couldn’t interest my infant in a midnight snack. But I felt guilty for listening to my mom instead of the experts. And I worried I was doing something wrong.
This self-doubt seems pandemic among my parenting peers, and it’s a far cry from our parents’ days when they’d plunk us in playpens and get on with the vacuuming. More professional attention is focused on child rearing today than at any other time in history. Moms and dads have at their disposal literally dozens of approaches for taming Tommy’s temper tantrums.
Our parents and grandparents relied on a few common parenting principles, maybe turning to a neighbour or Dr. Spock when they really needed advice. So why are we second-guessing ourselves at every turn? Why have we let a bunch of people with white coats and clipboards turn us into nervous wrecks?
SIDESWIPED BY MIXED MESSAGES
It’s easy to forget we are actually the experts on the subject of our own children. One day we might peruse a book that encourages us to trust our intuition, but the next day pick up a newspaper and read about the vital role of Latin flash cards in wiring a toddler’s brain. The implication is that we can wreck our kids with one misstep.
“Parents believe that everything they do is so consequential,” says Richard Koestner, a psychology professor at Montreal’s McGill University who studies what motivates children. The result? Many of us are too involved in planning every aspect of our children’s lives, he says. It’s known in psychology circles as hyperparenting. We read all the books. We absorb all the theories. We buy all the Baby Einstein videos. We eschew free play for Kindergym. We agonize over the best age to introduce peanut butter. We drive ourselves batty weighing the benefits of Montessori against the public school system. Some of us have even been convinced – based on the latest research, of course – that our influence begins in utero, where our baby’s temperament and learning capacity can be shaped by every choice we make. “Not only is this stressful,” says Koestner, “but it can lead parents to neglect their own personal well-being and their marital relationship.” That’s the technical way of saying it can make us lose our minds.
see all contests
