Mother Madness II

Response to Monday's ExchangeEveryDay on Erica Jong's Wall Street Journal article was swift and strong.  I have excerpted a few of the comments below to convey the thrust of their concerns.  These expressions make me realize it is time to again spell out the purposes of ExchangeEveryDay:

• ExchangeEveryDay is intended to present a wide array of ideas that are bounding about in our world.  It is not intended to present or promote the philosophy of Exchange, or any other single point of view.
• We could just present happy news or only views that are politically correct.  However, when major publications feature controversial stories about our work, we think our readers need to be aware of these stories, to know who and what is impacting public opinion about our work.
• Exchange does not agree with every item it publishes, and we expect our readers will not agree with many of them as well.  What we hope is that some of them will provoke you into action or reflection.

Dr. Alice Sterling Honig, Syracuse University:
YES!!!!  There are rules!!!  Authoritative parenting works best. Permissive and authoritarian parenting result in children with far more difficulties.  YES!!!!  The attachment literature has powerful news for us all!!!  Meeting baby's distress needs promptly and effectively and providing lots of cuddling that first year are critical for the development of secure attachment to a caregiver.  Insecure babies grow up to be bullies in the research literature, or else victims of bullies or lacking in empathy!  So please do NOT print this kind of blurb when we have superb research showing how important quality caregiving is, whether papa or grandma or mom raises the little one.  You are right, of course, to note how few of the glowing reports tell about how the glitterati can best choose a nurturing and tuned-in nanny!

Deborah, Deb's 2nd home, Fresno, California:
I am unsure about your reasoning behind printing this controversial piece.  I see two extremes presented by Ms. Jong... interesting that she would pass judgment on parents (professional narcissists).  In the end, attachment still matters, parenting is important — whether it's a Mom, a Dad, or another Primary Caregiver, and fortunately — in the best interest of children, there are still rules.  We must be careful endorsing statements such as "Do your best.  There are no rules."  As professional educators and caring members of our communities and society, we must insist there are a few rules.  We must remain objective, supportive, sensitive, and responsive, as we support the maturation of our next generation.  The generation we are nurturing will make decisions and choices as adults, based in part on how we supported them.  I'll choose not to share today's article.

John Surr, Bethesda, Maryland:
Although there may not be any rules, attachment still matters enormously to a child's later development, and our culture tends to smother natural instincts to be in touch with and attuned to one's baby.  There's no real substitute for a sensitive, responsive, loving caregiver, male or female, especially in a baby's first year.  Our electronic and corporate age tends to draw us into our individual shells, but babies need our attention and interaction.

Macky Buck, Macky and Michael's house, Cambridge, Massachusetts:
She makes a good point, though it is hard to find in all the judgmental anger.  In particular I object to the cruel words toward interracial adoption, and the fact that while a few people have always had children for their own purposes, the vast majority of us are working hard to do the right thing by them.  But this raises an important point.  Lately, as she says, we are in a challenging cul-de-sac of believing the mother is the end all and the be all key to parenting.  It is not true, and has not been true.  But there is a counter idea to the one that we are a species that always 'wore' our babies.  Sarah Hrdy in her great book argues that humans are unique among the primate families in that we are the only species where someone other than an infant's mother can safely care for said infant.  She contends that babies, with their early smiles and intense social bent, have facilitated this by charming others to pick them up and care for them, thus allowing the mother two hands for various tasks.  She actually goes on to say that in this way babies themselves moved humanity forward. ...  The world and its problems are multi-faceted.  Never as simple as Erica Jong would have it, nor as diabolical either.  We are complex; most of us are trying hard to do the right thing.  We often just don't have a big enough picture.  I know the woman who puts this together likes to read. Try out Sarah Hrdy's (yes it is spelled oddly!) great, readable book Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding.  It is deep, well documented and very thought provoking.

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