Patriarchy and the 'detached mother' article

Oops, hit enter by accident.

OlennasWimple

I was advised to put DS feet to foot on his back over ten years ago, but also three blankets and a hat because he was premature and had no fat on him at all

My DS was very prem 16 years ago and I was told never to put a hat on him unless I was out and it was chilly. It was emphasised to me that over heating was a billion times worse than being cold.

Although, thinking about it, this is probably a medical thing rather than a typical child raising thing. I wouldn't have even posted it only for the above mistaken post.

OlennasWimple

What I find interesting historically is how, whenever women's rights and living conditions start to improve relative to men's, bringing up children suddenly becomes a terribly difficult and complex undertaking that mere mothers can't be trusted with. In the late 18th century when the education of middle class girls began to improve and women novelists made their names, you got the likes of Rousseau introducing the cult of childhood innocence and raising child-rearing to something approaching a divine undertaking.

In the industrial age child-rearing became something to be standardised and measured and marked out of ten, and the standards seem to change as much according to political fashion as scientific discovery. It's notable now, when women's legal rights in the West have never been better, that mothers feel less confident about bringing up their own children than ever, because looking after your own child is so full of pitfalls and difficulties which need checking with experts at every turn. And yet this terribly difficult work will not earn you any money. It's not even work, according to employers. It's fairy work done by invisible house elves and doesn't really exist.😞

I was advised to put DS feet to foot on his back over ten years ago, but also three blankets and a hat because he was premature and had no fat on him at all...

DS was also the first baby I had held, the first nappy I had changed, the first everything really. Back in the day I would have grown up with my sister, cousin, neighbour, possibly my mother having children around me and I would at least have known how to burp, give a bottle, change a nappy and soothe a baby. And if I was struggling, they would have been there to help me.

Thankfully the internet has gone some way to plugging that knowledge gap for new mums today, but MN doesn't provide a pair of hands to hold a baby while having a shower, or give a second opinion on a fevery head or funny rash. We aren't going back to the community living that we had 50 years ago any time soon, though.

I think it's overly simplistic to refer to evolutionary traits that we should now emulate in modern parenting, because we can only do this if we cherry-pick. What about the tribes that abandon children who are too noisy and thus imperil the whole group? Lactose intolerance or other eating problems? Also abandoned. Too small or frail? Better to focus on the children who are likely to make it through...

Oh you know why it is important Batteries ?

Women followed the advice given by doctors and midwives up to the mid 90s that lateral placing was fine. Then they were told it was wrong. Fortunately for me and my friend the fact it was wrong had no consequences. I don't need your patronising comments to tell me if I'd just read up a bit I would have known better.

If that is how I feel imagine how someone who had also followed the official advice and lost a baby would feel?

Feet of baby to foot of the bed. 'Feet to foot'.

Batteries You posted several posts which were actually quite rude and dismissive.
The suggestion that I wouldn't have read up and just went along with a health visitor giving out of date advice.

And unless your mil, whom you cited as an authority , was in Hong Kong or mainland China, actually wrong as to the dates advice changed.

Lass I'm not really understanding why you're arguing so hard about this.

I objected to another poster referring to sleeping position as 'mothering fashion'. Not only is it a bit odd to refer to 30ish year old unchanging advice as simply 'fashion' it's also IMO pretty crass to refer to lifesaving advice as 'fashion'.

You are saying the advice changed a fair bit pre the 90s, including some advice from 1955. OK, I defer to your knowledge on that. Not really sure why that's relevant now, in 2017.

I thought at the time the advice about putting baby on his side was odd but apart from a friend whose daughter was born 4 months earlier (and who got the same advice) I hadn't been near a baby since my brother was born in 1969 so had nothing to compare.

In 1990 the Edinburgh maternity unit must have been ahead of the official UK campaign but why it decided to suggest lateral rather than supine or lateral I don't know.

What is "feet to foot"?

Re co-sleeping I only did that in the mornings after husband had gone to work and I agree it was lovely - despite getting told off by health visitor although absolutely none of the risk factors were present.

We discovered many years later when we hadn't the heart to turf out a frail, elderly cat who slept between us under the duvet that your body is aware of a small living creature beside you.

Re sleeping babies, on their back with my first two and then feet to foot with the last.

I co slept with all my babies. They came into us from an early age. But especially I loved sleeping with a child. It's one of the most delicious memories I have of being a mother.

Oh and I'm surprised at you saying you were told in the 90s to put babies to sleep on their fronts. My MIL remembers its changing from front sleeping to back sleeping from 84 to 88

Firstly I didn't say that. I referred to advice changing from supine, to prone to lateral and back. Spock reccomended prone in 1955.

In 1985 American researchers reported that babies in Hong Kong, following Chinese habits, placed babies supine and had low rates of cot death. The Netherlands started campaigning in 1987 , UK , New Zealand and Australia in 1991, US and Sweden in 1992 and Canada in 1993.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended supine or lateral until 1996 when advice was changed to supine only. Clearly the UK was advising the same.

Therefore , so far as your patronising comments about not reading/out of date health visitor unless I had been involved in post-natal infant health research in 1990 it would have been extremely unlikely I would have been able to read up on advice which wasn't available, except in the Netherlands.

No one is suggesting ignoring advice. I followed the advice given by experienced, qualified midwives.

Have you read The Feminine Mystique, OP? Brilliant book on exactly this topic, although written in 1963. It's not perfect, and there are certainly bits of it I'm highly sceptical about but the basic principle that this obsession with turning women into the self sacrificing Perfect Mother is damaging to both women and their children (and society). I wish I'd read it 12 years ago before I became a parent.

cupoftea Well it depends on the baby innit. And it's not working with this one as last night showed. But it's 9:30pm now, he's been asleep for nearly three hours so fingers crossed for tonight.

No method, just patting through the bars if he wakes. Lots of outraged bloodcurdling screams. Joy for our attached neighbours. I'm still giving one night feed which i was going to cut out until it went pearshaped.

He never cried until he was one or so. I had a very relaxing first few months!

I couldn't understand the main points of the article because IMO is was badly written, unclear and full of jargon.

I think in the past women were more likely to know what to do because they grew up in proximity with babies. It helped me certainly. My partner said he'd never actually held a baby before. In the age of nuclear families we do need to have all this advice.

Sorry "sleep training" is "controlled crying" - cot is pulled up to the bed and I'm cuddling him while he yowls. I wonder if that meets the benchmark presented here?

Cupoftea i've been doing sleep training but it's gone downhill this week (perhaps because it doesn't work as the article claims). Back to five wakenings from only one. Anyhow, at least I feel rested for the first time in months and can drink some red wine instead of just bloody light beer.

On another note, i prefer to stay away from advice, or i read it blandly. Winging it and instinct has worked for me, especially as i'm prioritising bonding as I feel I had no motherly bond as a child.

The back to sleep campaign is based on sound epidemiological data. It's also I think a behaviour that isn't subject to the same guilt inducing crap that more visible behaviours are (feeding methods for example.) I think some behaviours are more subject to scrutiny than others - perhaps the ones that people are able to virtue signal with?

Yes, my Dh watched the handmaids tale the other week. He was quite disturbed by it. He actually said to me "have you read this book it's based on?" 😂 Yes dear, I have... Parts of it are terrifyingly close to Enaction.

Interesting megle - if you're into anthropology at all that book is an excellent read. The noble savage crap really annoys me...

www.amazon.co.uk/Anthropology-Childhood-Cherubs-Chattel-Changelings/dp/1107420989/ref=dp_ob_title_bk?tag=mumsnetforum-21

to teach them to get up and walk so they didn't have to carry them anymore

Well, exactly. I hate mucking about with buggies, so I used a mei-tai for both of mine (first was in a city, so walk/bus everywhere, by the second we'd moved elsewhere so had a car) - but mine were both walking at well under a year, so it wasn't an issue. If I had my sister's kids who walked much later, and I didn't have a car but still had to do shopping, of course I'd use a buggy. You use whatever's practical in the circumstances.

anat yy, slings are pretty essential if there's rats, snakes, cholera and no paths in your neighbourhood (let alone the money or place to buy a buggy). Nothing to do with more natural parenting.

There was a doc on BBC1 a few years ago and sling carrying parents were putting their almost toddler dc's on the floor with gentle stinging nettles in order to teach them to get up and walk so they didn't have to carry them anymore. I wish I could remember what it was called.

Pro choice is fine so long as all choices have equal value and weight. Mothering is still looked upon as lesser than paid work by society I reckon. That is not good for society.

Can I also say that, after watching 'The Handmaid's Tale' last night, I find that article absolutely chilling.
The generalisations and assumptions alone massively undermine the argument. Never mind the almost pejorative use of the word 'liberal'. The whole thing is very anti-choice of any kind and very pro tribalistic bullshit.