Research is a load of baloney...?

[Kmg]

I am very sceptical of any 'latest research project results', and even more so since Child of our Time. Last week there was a child who went through a dreadfully difficult first year - parents arguing, splitting up, being shunted from one to the other, moving around the place, and it was fairly easy to conclude that this would have an effect even on a young baby, and she was clearly 'deprived'. Winston then said there was a well-accepted test of a whether or not a baby is happy, and they did this thing where you observe the baby playing with toys through a one-way mirror, and observe the reaction when the mother leaves the room for a while, and then re-enters.

My son is part of a research project, and we underwent this 'test' too. His behaviour was almost identical to the child on the TV - which apparently 'proved' that she was desperately unhappy, had no bond with her mother, and was clearly damaged and deprived!

I could go on to explain why my son behaved the way he did, but I do not feel the need to justify myself or his behaviour. Many, many of the other aspects of the research project are equally suspect to me, and the visits often seem a waste of my time, and I cannot have any faith in the validity of any results they might come out with.

Kmg, I didn't see the programme you mention. Can I ask how did the baby behave in this test?

KMG, I don't think that they were saying the baby was deprived or damaged. What they were saying was that the baby's behaviour suggested a poor attachment to the mother. To reach this conclusion they would have assessed the child's behaviour on a number of occasions and not just once.
Many studies have shown how important it is for a baby to form a strong attachment to their primary carer. This does not have to be the mother but it does have to be a constant person in the child's life, someone who is there for the child not just physically but emotionally.
In the programme you will probably have noticed how pleased the mother was when, after some work had been done to develop the child's attachment, her child appeared to need her and miss her.
I thought the outcome was a very positive one and it made me glad that work has been done with young children and babies to help us know better what their needs are.
Have you tried raising your concerns about the project that you are part of with the research team?

Kmg, I agree with Bugsy. The 'test' illustrated not that the baby was desperately unhappy or deprived, but that she didn't have a strong attachment to her mother. This effect was mitigated when the family was more settled, and the mother and her baby started to make up for lost time...and they clearly loved each other a lot. This was cheering - it means that relationships can change.

The research you are involved in may not be seeking to 'prove' you and your son are in the same position, but to raise other questions about behaviour and personality, maybe looking at trends, which might not be applied to individuals anyway.

Babies change all the time. I knew a couple who due to having a lot of money took about a year off and were always with their baby. But the baby still got "clingy" to his Gran! They change all the time.

It could be a load of rubbish as well but there is a doctor at a London University who says that children don't even get attached to anyone and see people just as a source of food for at least a year. He was protesting about a website who don't like women working (kids get some sort of disorder if they aren't with their mums from birth until the age of 3 according to them! Bollocks!) and he said children don't get attached to someone just because they happened to carry them! It could be rubbish as well but if it is in our defence, good on the man!

I hated last nights "Child of our Time". He didn't say how wrong it is to stereotype, unless I missed something.

I only caught the first episode - missed last night's. What concerned me was how they labelled one little girl "anxious" as a result of her mother being very depressed and stressed following the birth. The poor woman had spent years trying to conceive, spent thousands on IVF only for it to happen naturally when she least expected it, and then her own mother died weeks before her daughter was born. She was going through the most horrendous post natal depression combined with grieving for her own mother. (I can't imagine how I would have coped in such a situation, my mum helped to keep me sane through those first few months and I can't contemplate life with her not around). Plus she was guilt tripping because she hadn't yet bonded with her baby and felt awful that, despite having wanted the child so badly, she couldn't connect with her. I don't think the programme helped her at all by stating that her child was anxious as a result of all this. But then what price entertainment.... oh sorry, my mistake, this is science isn't it.

Kmg, I didn't see the programme you are discussing but I would, as Bugsy suggests, talk to someone from the research you are involved in about your fears. To label you in such a way and not follow it up with with further discussion (which you don't mention so I am guessing) is appalling. Good luck.

Jbr, last nights Child of our Time annoyed me because the difference between sex and gender wasn't adequately explained, and it seemed to me that the 'research' was simply set up to 'prove' what they wanted it to prove. That might be down to editing but that is how it came across to me. Also, I had to laugh that the very final sentence was something along the lines of 'genderisation is basically about up bringing'!!!!!!!!!!!! With out explaining the difference between sex and gender this sentence seemed to undo all of the previous hours programme. Plus, sorry I am having a rant, it annoys me so much when people say they won't give their sons dolls because they don't want to encourage them to be gay!!!!!!!!!!!?????? Arggggghhhhh! Did anyone read the Guardian article yesterday about a four year old boy who loves flouncy dresses etc and whose parents allow him to go out in them... it was a great article. In PARENT section. Very interesting and it said so much about preconceptions... (sorry got off the track). I will go and hound another thread now...

Sex is your physical make up, and gender is a false, constructed idea about how men and women should behave eg men can work and women shouldnt' to use an obvious example LOL. It annoys me when filling out forms and they put "Gender" and you have to tick male or female!!

Batters, my point, and I think Jbr's is the same,
is that SEX is often what people mean when they use the workd GENDER. The terms mean different things. I think it would indeed be rather ridiculous to suggest that the sexes are the same biologically; they plainly are not. I celebrate the fact that I am a woman and therefore different from a man. Despite this GENDER is socially constructed.

I agree that men and women are very different, I don't think anyone can dispute that. I too, saw Child of our Time and it annoyed me no end! They measured the babies ring and index fingers to see which of the girls would turn out to be a tomboy...is this science?! Sounds like superstition to me! Also, they asked an audience to draw a picture of a bike. The men drew bikes that worked, the women drew more haphazard bikes with people on them, this was supposed to show that men and women think differently...duh! Well there's something I never knew!!

This program goes on about stereotyping but it is stereotyping itself by doing pointless exercises like that and making sweeping statements as a conclusion: "These girls will all grow up to be tomboys.." Arrggh!! How can you make conclusions about society and children when you are only basing your experiments on about 5 children and their families anyway? This is done purely for entertainment and not out of any scientific reason.

I never did like Robert Winston!

You see. Batters has done what I meant. They put GENDER when they mean SEX. I know why SEX gets ticked but why use the word gender, when presumably they mean sex. The whole point of that was that people don't seem to realise sex is your physical make up and GENDER is the social false construction. It annoys me when they use the word gender when they mean sex. I know why the equal opp forms exist.

I hate the word "tomboy" it is sexist. It's used to describe a girl (usually) who behaves like a boy as though there is some inherent way a boy would behave. Of course when these girls get older they get called "ladettes". I knew someone who said she stayed home because she wasn't a man and wasn't going to act like one. She moved eventually and I was quite glad because relations were a bit strained!

Star, I am a feminist too and have even been accused (much to my amusement) of daring to be a radical feminist by some. It is my feminism that acknowledges the similarities between the sexes but also the BIOLOGICAL differences. This does not mean that men are stronger than women or that women are more gentle than men; it means that men and women's biology sets them apart. By celebrating the differences what has traditionally been considered female and therefore undervalued and irrelevant can gain the status and importance it deserves. Motherhood is a prime example of this. Firestone believed we would only have true equality if both sexes had children but surely empowerment for women comes from our difference. One of the reasons women have been so subjugated is, as Adrienne Rich points out, because everyone is born of woman and therefore the power, if it hadn't been knocked out of us, is - on a very basic level - in our hands (or bodies)! This does not mean that women do not have the same potential as men in terms of strength, etc., such things are after all socially constructed and dependant upon cultural norms. A woman who spends her life at hard physical labour for instance would be any match physically for the average British male... but I am ranting, sorry...just wanted to point out that feminisms do not exclude the possibility of difference.

Someone said to me once I can't be a feminist and have a job! If I was a real feminist apparently I would be happy just to be me and wouldn't care about achieving outside of my home! And retorted with something like, it's about equality and if a man doesn't have to have either/or when it comes to children and a job, why should I?

I wouldn't mind but the woman in question did charity work which took more time up than her old job.

Thanks Star! I have always asked why motherhood is seen as a job in itself. Motherhood is seen as physically being there but fatherhood is seen as (in fact, expected to be) something where the dad has an absent authority. Hence a woman with 3 kids who doesn't work might say "I already have a job" and dads don't get criticised for working.

I posted on UK Parents about once and never really went back because I was unemployed at the time and I got sick of the women on there asking why I wanted a job when being a parent is the only job I should have! It is bad enough when men say it, and reduce us to one thing, but now women seem to be doing it more and more. In fact, very often now it is the men who want us to work and the women are taking on the old partriarchal view that we shouldn't earn our own money.

Every parent is bringing up their child. We always take the word "bringing up" to mean doing whatever it is people do during the day. If we turn motherhood (it's rarely fatherhood, as if the 2 are different in some way!) into a job and then say "it's the most important job" then women who aren't "hands on" get depicted as selfish. And women who don't go out to work, feel bad for feeling they want to. Not to mention it cuts off dad as well.

I know it is difficult to get a balance between 2 parents (if there are two of course) but I think it should be done wherever possible. What is the point in dad doing 3 jobs or whatever, when mother could get a part time job and he could be at home for just a couple more hours a week? Everyone deserves time off!

I would also class myself as a 'feminist', but probably in the liberal field. There ARE differences between men and women, differences in the way we think, physical differences, biological differences, etc. Our behaviour is largely controlled by our hormones, as I discovered to my cost when I became pregnant.

Women are better at communicating, men are better at planning, this has been proved. Why can't we revel in our differences? I am proud to be a woman and accept that I am different from men, I don't want to be too equal to them. As far as rights go, we should have everything that they are entitled to, of course. We are not in danger of stereotyping our genders just because we accept our differences. I will teach my little girl to respect everyone, men and women, old and young, etc and not to judge anyone, to be proud of who she is and accept her differences from others. If she fits into the 'stereotype' of a woman, then fine, that's who she chooses to be.

And I agree that motherhood and fatherhood are jobs. Just because my hubby works and I choose to stay at home does not mean that he doesn't do his share of fatherhood when he gets home and at the weekends. I would expect nothing less from him.

That's my say done anyway!

I've just seen a news site with the headline '21st Century woman still chained to kitchen sink' what it should say, of course, is 'lazy arse 21st Century man still getting away with it'! Yet again someone has been paid an exhorbitant salary and/or grant to tell us something we already know. How much less wasteful to have come up with something useful and that we didn't know already. I also saw another survey whose results were that we parents pay our children so much in pocket money that they stay at home by choice! More and more 20-25 year olds live at home because Mum and Dad not only pay out for clothes etc but silly mumsy is still doing their washing and ironing and cleaning for them! Who should we blame for this sorry state of affairs - ourselves!!!

I don't see the point in leaving home if you've got nowhere to go! My friend is still in the parental house. She does most of the cooking, hoovering, dusting and cleans the bath room. Her mum does the washing and ironing.

Another survey said that 75% of woman think women shouldn't work full time, purely on the basis that it is the man's job to bring in money. I want names and addresses! LOL!

Seriously I would like to know who they asked. One thousand women at random or what?