Our Babies, Ourselves

How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent

(1998)
Meredith F. Small

Finished Reading: 04.2010

This book reveals the obvious but disregarded fact that babies are brought up differently in the various cultures around the world. Care for human babies contrasts with that of any other animal, and American parents raise their children differently than African, Asian or European parents. Parents of our decade make different choices than the previous generation - and we all do things that make even our own peers wonder why we don't parent like they do. No one really seems to know what works best, but everyone has an opinion and these judgements are passed on from one generation to the next with small adjustments along the way.

Ethnopediatrics is the study of how human culture shapes parenting styles in various cultures and over time, and seeks to bring together the disassembled global information on good parenting. As an invention of Western culture ethnopediatrics admits that Western culture is not necessarily the best standard for raising a child, nor is there any other one way that works by default for all parents. All cultures are studied to evaluate whether or not a particular culture has something to offer our own. To study outside of one's own culture is always eye opening, but to look at the cultural values of parenting particularly reveals the possible cracks in our own culture. I think the author takes an objective anthropological view, and after presenting numerous facts, one must consider whether the norm of American culture is really unrivaled.

The author asks us to think about why we do what we do while raising children. Our American culture has developed norms that are followed without hesitation, but we don't consider the ramifications for our actions. Choices are made, for example, between breastfeeding or bottle use, the scheduling of sleep, and how to deal with excessive crying. Every culture in the world is different and every culture raises their children differently, but "...there are other, equally valid ways to grow up."

The way we raise our children reflects what is important to us. Generally, Americans want their children to fully experience childhood and not to worry about being an adult until they are old enough and ready enough, while independence and intelligence are highly valued. High levels of competitive learning are encouraged early on, and maintaining normal growth is a priority. We submit to the latest technology and the authority of pediatricians and scientists, assuming everything old needs to be made new and that change is never unhealthy. Other cultures value dependence and hard work from an early age. Children are expected to help the family get done what needs to be done, and idle time for play is seldom found among these children. There is no concept of normal and competition for intelligence among infants is ridiculous because survival is of primary importance.

While I'm not getting into the details of these difference for this post, it is clear from the book that there are significant differences, and I would encourage investigation. It is not simply the third-world countries that maintain such divergent parenting styles from Americans, but other industrialized nations (such as Japan and the European nations) seek different goals for their children's growth. The author maintains that American culture is veering the furthest away from what is biologically imperative for healthy infant development. While our society enjoys unparalleled technological advancement which makes our adult lives easier, faster, more accurate and more comfortable; all babies are born into our world as they always have been. Upon entering the world, if born into a highly technological, independence-accentuating culture, the baby is faced with incredible stress and a situation completely opposite what is naturally necessary for infant development.

For me, this is one of those books that really opened my eyes to something new. Usually when I read non-fiction, I feel I know a little bit about the subject before beginning. After reading, my knowledge has been widened or enhanced, but reading about parenting is a new frontier. I don't know the first thing about parenting, except the cultural norms that I overhear. I don't know how to change a diaper, and I rarely hold a baby. There are no small children in my family or among close friends, so the only place to learn is by reading books - the quintessential American parenting experience. In most cultures, children are everywhere, spending time with all ages of adults and it would be strange to make it to your late 20's without knowing the first thing about parenting! This book focuses on sleeping, crying and eating - the only things a newborn really knows how to do. Having read this book, I feel substantially enlightened on these basics.

But my enlightenment is not just that of a non-parent becoming a parent and picking up a few new skills to deal with children. This has been an enlightenment on what is not quite right with American parenting. American culture seems very strange when compared to the rest of the world, and I feel strange for always questioning my culture (not only in matters of parenting), but the more I study and learn about what is normal, the stranger it seems. Many of the choices parents make are purely cultural and have no biological or medical reasoning. Very often an un-American approach to parenting, though controversial, seems very intelligent and appropriate and is often best for the baby. A baby is not an accessory or a deficit in the life of a parent. A baby is a valued, wholly dependant asset.

Particularly disturbing is the trend of foreign relief workers instilling a Western style on parenting values for cultures that are vastly different from our own - simply because we think our way is the best and everyone in the world ought to be doing it. (The Crusades, anyone?) Bottle feeding, social taboos and other new exports are destroying the once-healthy mother-baby relationship and contributing to the upheaval of entire third-world nations. New diseases and higher birthrates and thus more deaths are the results of our interventions, though well-intended.

While I see many things that American parents are doing wrong, we are doing many things right and other cultures have their problems as well. But the ability to consider the merits of another culture and decide for yourself what is best for your baby, without blindly following your own cultural norms, is essential to an educated and proper upbringing of any child. I hope to never fall into a choice justified only by, "that's just what you do."

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

(1999)
J.K. Rowling

Finished Reading: 02.2010

Sigh. I really don't know what to write about Harry Potter anymore. This book is very good, just as the others are very good. Each one might actually be getting better, but there isn't anything very deep to comment on, though I was thoroughly entertained. You might even call the book gripping, really. I could comment on the characters, but we know the main ones pretty well by now, and I don't have much more to say about an old rat that turns into a greasy little man, a black dog that turns into your uncle, or a deer that stares annoyingly at you from across a lake - except, cool. Very cool. You get 'em Harry.

I like secret underground tunnels and mysterious treasure maps with disappearing ink. The Marauder's Map is like Google Latitude, except on parchment. It took the muggles ten years to figure that one out for themselves. The big question now, leading up to the next book, is who will be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher? Of course, you knew that would be an issue. Now if only I could gaze at the Marauder's Map to see him approaching...

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

(1998)
J.K. Rowling

Finished Reading: 01.2010

Let me take a moment to reflect on Moaning Myrtle and Nearly Headless Nick, two ghosts who roam around Hogwarts (independently), interacting with the students. I figure they might not get much reflection for themselves these days. (Not sure how ghosts actually work). What is more appropriate and Emo than a dead teenage girl haunting a certain toilet stall in the second floor lavatory of a dank old school, crying her eyes out, sobbing and moaning simply because she is a ghost? Talk about stage fright. She probably had skin problems, and that stall is probably covered in boy-band stickers. And then there is Sir Nicholas de Mimsey-Porpington, who died many centuries ago but escaped total separation of his head from his body due to an unfortunately dull axe incident, coming so close to being headless but now remaining nearly so. Very tragic. Let us not aspire to his fate.

I don't blame the young witches at Hogwarts for staying away from Myrtle's stall, but she is a lot better to unexpectedly run into during a mad dash for a quick tinkle between Herbology and Defense Against the Dark Arts than if you were about to drop your trousers and hear Nearly Headless Nick floating over from the next urinal, droning on about proper blade sharpening techniques. I don't think we cry in the bathroom enough.

Speaking of which, I wonder how the owls get on? After flying from London to Swindon, back to Hogwarts, back to London, and on to other places where the mail must be delivered, the owls have to return to their wee wooden cages in the dorms, with tired wings and what... some hay to sleep on?. Does Harry really keep Hedwig in a cage all night until he needs to send another message to ... oh wait, he doesn't have any other friends. Poor Hedwig. And does Errol just languish in his prison for weeks on end? We know teenage boys don't want to talk to their mother's very often, but this sounds like cruel slavery to me. I hope there is some sort of magic chamber that we don't know about, where owls can relax and shoots some billiards while off-duty. Maybe read the latest hoots or drink a brew. Of course, sparrows would probably deliver their messages, which is another issue for the unions.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

(1997)
J.K. Rowling

Finished Reading: 12.2009

Largely hailed as the greatest thing going these days in children's literature, I can't confirm that the Harry Potter series lives up to the hype because this is the first volume I have read, and I have not recently read any other children's literature for comparison. The book is accessible to adults as well as children, which does make it rise above other kids stuff (theoretically, as far as I know) but it is hard to comment on a highly promoted extravaganza, for I am looking into it for too much.

This is all said, but not to say I do not like the book. Only that I know too much about it going in, for I have seen the films and by virtue of simply being alive, it isn't new to me. The suspense and surprise is gone (which I greatly enjoy in a book). A positive note on having seen the movies first is that I do approve of the pre-existing images formed in my head for each character and event, as they were appropriately created on film to reflect the book.

I like that the character names are not the regular names of the people I know, and I like the characters themselves, and the way they interact. Having all this wizardness happen in the midst of our real world is intriguing, which I enjoy more than if it had been in a separate dimension. Sometimes I forget these are just kids, as the dialogue is a lot more engaging than what was ever said in my childhood. Truthfully though, I am not really into witches and wizards, maybe preferring sagas where magic happens a little on the side (Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings) to the whole concept of a school for young wizards. But I will give it a try and read books two through seven.

The peripheral things fascinate me the most, like having the mail delivered by owls. That makes me laugh.

Exquisite Corpse

Writings On Buildings

(1991)
Michael Sorkin

Finished Reading 12.2009

Unlike the previously reviewed collection of Sorkin ponderings entitled Some Assembly Required, which is rooted in the 1990's (a time which I remember), this volume spans from the late 1970's to the late 1980's and seems very unlike today. Presented chronologically, the book opens a few years before the days of Reagan, the content being the various published writings of the author. My first observation is not on the author Michael Sorkin, who writes most captivatingly, but on the Styles of the day which are emphatically postmodern and neo-classical; ideas which are now historical anomalies, short lived. This is a book about buildings and the people who design them. Many architects are described in their professional infancy who have since gone on to fame, and some are mentioned whom I haven't heard of. They are seen designing their sweet hearts away but never seen again. Many who were rising stars are now no more in this snapshot of architecture history.

Odd is the normalcy with which postmodern and neo-classical architecture is sewn into almost every project designed in the 80's. It seems like another world, and yet Sorkin was there then to say his choice words as he is now to say a few more. The perception of a newly built project completed in this decade feels strange. Finding ourselves now safely out of the 80's, I conclude, since we have more than survived, that Style is really a passing fancy and Sorkin heroically observed this fact in utero. These projects from thirty years ago seem to be more of Style and not at all of today's popular substance, green and sustainable. Both contemporary aggressors are missing from this now aging dialogue.

Aging is not to say unwanted or not useful, but different. We are simply on to other things. In all aspects of life, thirty years ago is like a blind spot in history. We remember events more recent and revere events long past, but thirty years ago follows us in every age as some kind of horrible dread.

Philip Johnson? Robert Venturi? Robert Stern? Paul Goldberger? Boo.

Michael Sorkin shoots from the hip. No preeminent architect, emerging style of the day or copied atrocity with windows inside of windows escapes the sharp keystroke of the author. These are the times when popular culture had turned its head away from the long heralded modernism, for it seemed so boring after so much time. But Sorkin does not think something so simple and which makes so much sense is boring, so he defends good design as he can. They went and made it worse by adding ornaments to the facades and tinsel to the balustrades, so Sorkin strips the garland off their naked forms, exposing nothing at all and everything. Postmodern architecture is like what the consumer Christmas holiday has become. Not over soon enough.

Though Michael Sorkin has plenty of good things to say about a number of projects, he is not a member of the Phillip Johnson fan club. I hadn't given Johnson much though before, but since he comes up so often in Exquisite Corpse as the essence of evil, I thought I would give him a few lines. Johnson is apparently a stealer of every good idea, who can't draw, was once a Nazi-sympathizer, jumped on every changing bandwagon, ruined as many cities as he could with his so-called architecture, and can't design his way out of a glass house. Just so you know.

Entertaining, funny, anti-Postmodern, anti-Phillip Johnson, culturally relevant, and blissfully engaging; Michael Sorkin's words are as important as the Architecture they chronicle.

The Children Of Men

(1992)
P.D. James

Finished Reading: 06.2009

It is the distant future, the year 2021: humanity is unable to sexually reproduce and the population of the world dwindles after a sudden mass infertility pandemic. Many lose hope and kill themselves but most live on in sorrow. Children slowly grow up, but no new children follow them into adulthood. England prepares for difficult times by moving the dwindling masses to selected urban centers where provisions can be more easily administered. Zero tolerance for crime sees offenders high and marginal shipped off to an island where they are out of sight but not out of mind. The tears of the approaching cessation of humanity are tremendous.

Britain faces this daunting storm under the leadership of unemotional Xan Lyppiatt, elected to govern as the Warden of England, but now rules as a dictator. He and a small council oversee an apathetic nation that cares little for democracy and desires only to be free of pain and boredom.

Xan is a dumb name. How do you pronounce Xan? If I ever write a novel about the future, the distance future mind you, I hope to remember to use names much easier on the ears. This name makes me very uncomfortable and sad.

Additionally, I never felt at ease with the main character, Theo Farron, a cousin of Xan. He seems distant from the reader, as do all of the characters. Unfortunately, these people are not well developed outside of their moment; that is, I can't imagine them doing anything at all outside the very page on which I read them, as if they are afraid to look over the edge of the page to find there some mention that all humans are dead.

All is not lost, however, as there are twists and turns to keep me interested enough in the small group of resistors who try to evade the authority of the State-run system to prepare for the End of Days, lead by Theo. When things seem darkest, hope is kindled when a woman mysteriously becomes pregnant. How this happens is not addressed, but by whom is revealed. A reason is not given for the original mass infertility, ominously called the Omega. Within the story, some speculate that this birth could mean the beginning of a time when women all over the world will again give birth to children, while some are of the opinion that this is an isolated incident. Either way, this moment of hope is known as the Alpha.

The most interestingly described scene is when Theo stops to enter the home of an elderly couple as he leaves town, being pursued by government police. He ties up the old man and the old woman that he finds there and takes the provisions that he and his waiting comrades need. One of those waiting for him is the pregnant woman. He takes sheets from the closet and food from the kitchen but being not a very violent man, Theo is overly careful with the old couple, allowing them drinks of water and a trip to the bathroom before he leaves them tied up and lying on their sides on a small bed. He repeatedly checks to makes sure that they are alright and learns the time at which the house cleaner will be coming the next day to find them so that he doesn't worry. It is excruciating to see him continue to waste time with them in this way while the police are on their way and could knock down the door at any moment. The pregnant woman is waiting as well as Theo stumbles into the role of reluctant burglar. This is ultimately the most tenuous situation in the book and contains more suspense than an unsatisfying ending that I won't justify with comment.