Book Review
Our Babies, Ourselves:
How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent
By Meredith Small
Anchor Books, 1998
From: LEAVEN, Vol. 35 No. 2, April-May 1999, p. 38
Reviewed by Cindy Stotts Howard
Early bottles and supplements.
Separate rooms for sleeping. Don't nurse too long. Stop those night
nursings right away. The directives in mainstream American culture are
clear: this is what babies need for healthy development. In fact, babies
and children are raised differently all around the world and seem to
thrive regardless.
Kung San parents practice
sitting, walking and standing with their babies to make sure their babies
acquire these skills as quickly as possible. Achenese children are carried
until they are around five years old. Gusil mothers do not kiss or cuddle
their babies. Japanese mothers work hard to foster infant and child
dependence. Mothers in the United States are told to do all they can
to move their babies toward independence.
Some babies adapt well to
the terms of their culture but others do not. This leaves parents with
a difficult choice: follow the culture's directives and hope baby adapts
or ignore them and respond to baby's needs. Just how can we tell when
the problem lies with our cultural expectations?
Our Babies, Ourselves
by Meredith Small examines both the cultural biases reflected in
parenting practices and the underlying biological needs of infants.
Small is a member of a new academic field called ethnopediatrics. Ethno
means the study of cultures and how they compare to each other. Ethnopediatrics
focuses on child-raising practices across cultures and how different
parenting styles affect the physical and emotional health of infants.
Researchers in this field include pediatricians, child development researchers
and anthropologists.
Small believes that infants
have evolved to expect particular parenting styles and goals. Although
there are as many different ways to raise children as there are parents
and children, infants around the world have similar physical and psychological
needs. Small believes ethnopediatrics can dramatically impact the way
we parent.
The first chapters of the
book provide a world tour of parenting styles. Small emphasizes that
parenting styles reflect the cultures that created them. Parents around
the world want the best for their children. They parent in ways they
feel will best prepare their offspring for the life ahead of them. Thus
Kung San babies who will lead a physically demanding life are encouraged
and trained to develop physical skills early. Parents in the US value
independence and encourage their babies to spend time separate from
adults in order to foster this independence. Japan is similar: heavily
industrialized and economically successful. But Japanese culture values
group success over individual achievement. A Japanese mother sees her
baby as an extension of herself and encourages infant and child dependency.
What about parenting practices
that are not sanctioned in my culture but feel right to me? In my culture
babies do not sleep with their parents. My babies do. How do parents
who want to step outside of their culture know what is best for their
child? These questions are answered in the latter chapters of the book.
Chapters 4, 5 and 6 look
at sleep, crying and breastfeeding. The chapters complement the information
on evolution in Chapter 1 by looking at what infants expect biologically.
Chapter 4 quotes extensively
from James McKenna's research on co-sleeping and its role in the prevention
of SIDS. Although McKenna's research is still somewhat controversial,
many mothers will appreciate the cross-cultural insight that infants
around the world sleep with their parents with no noticeable sleeping
problems in later life.
The chapter on crying addresses
why babies cry and how parents can best respond. Crying is a signal
sent by infants to their parents. When a baby's cry is ignored, the
baby often responds by crying harder and longer. Mothers who spend a
lot of time apart from their babies have a hard time learning what baby
is trying to communicate. When mothers and babies are together frequently,
they begin to work together recognizing each other's signals. Mothers
find it easier to understand and respond to babies' needs; babies find
less need to cry to have those needs met. The result is a symbiotic
relationship between mother and child, or as Small calls it, a "dance
of equilibrium."
Chapter 6 includes extensive
information about the biological specificity of breast milk and the
many health benefits related to breastfeeding. Leaders will find nothing
surprising in this chapter but plenty to share with mothers. Katherine
Dettwyler's research on the weaning ages of other mammals is discussed
in detail. (See Dettwyler, K. A Time to Wean.
NEW BEGINNINGS, May/Jun 1995; 87-7.)
Leaders should be aware that
the author makes strong statements about the risks of breastfeeding
if a mother is HIV positive (page 197). Current research shows that
there are many unknown factors involved in maternal child transmission
of HIV. In some situations, the risk of not being breastfed is greater
than the risk of acquiring HIV through human milk. At this time, members
of the LLLI Health Advisory Council are being asked to review current
research and assist LLLI in developing a statement regarding HIV and
breastfeeding. LLLI has been advised by the author that her statement.
regarding HIV will be updated in the revised edition of Our Babies,
Ourselves, due out May 1999.
This is not a "how-to"
book. Although the research presented supports LLLI philosophy, the
book is not a statement of the philosophy. It does not provide the mother-to-mother
support and information that new mothers need. What Small does provide,
however, is research: dramatic, startling and well-done research that
supports the information LLL has worked so hard to promote over the
past 42 years. Parents can use the research as they develop their own
parenting styles or to defend the choices they have made to others.
Leaders can use the research to increase our own understanding of why
the information we share works so well for babies and their mother.
Ultimately, the information in this book offers encouragement to mothers
who struggle to balance their babies' needs with cultural expectations
that may or may not support those needs.
Our Babies, Ourselves
states explicitly what I have privately believed for some time now:
parenting styles are culturally determined; much of the information
about parenting is counter to what babies need and what mothers are
biologically driven to provide. Small speaks out against misinformation
in a reasoned, well-researched way. Although I believe that a mother's
personal experience of parenting is more important than what experts
say, even those I agree with, it is reassuring to read a book in which
the parenting information is backed by research in many disciplines.
That the research supports what LLL Leaders and mothers have been saying
for so long is an extra bonus.
Last updated 11/17/06 by jlm.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:32:24 UTC 2007.
