I give you clear warning, this place is goiing to go NUTS when Channel Four airs Bringing Up Baby on the 25th Sept... Claire Verity!!!

[Aitch]

seriously. i'm watching it now for work and it is terribly upsetting. Claire Verity says 'i'm a bitch, i'm mean to them but it works', no touching, no eye contact, lots of talking about 'baby', presumably because she can't be arsed remembering the name... oh it's AWFUL.

tbh i can't see that she's coming across well, but i wonder if the proof will be in the pudding? if her babies are sleeping through at 12 weeks will that cancel out the fact that she is unutterably cruel to them for new parents? i'd hope not.

psml at Emmerdale option.
I did read obituary of whiskery barman in Torygraph last week.Remember him from being forced to watch it with my grnadmothert.

Is she making herself look like the monster she is though? That's got to be a good thing, no? Give her enough rope etc.

Having spoken to my grandma about childrearing the Truby King way, I swear her bad relationship with my uncle dates back to her leaving him in the garden to cry himself to sleep from literally days old. She's quite proud that she said to her mother who wanted to go to him that "I won't let him get the better of me". Her other babies had all been more "compliant" . On rainy days she'd put his pram in the shed .

at the risk of sounding completely ignorant, who tf is claire verity or truby wotsit? are they/ is she big in the world of n*zi baby books? (am i allowed to say that n word here if i'm not saying it to someone?)

Ah,I did High Fidelity (book) with my students when an English lecturer at interpreting dept. in Russia.They loved it.

Thought of it today when I went into Llandudno M&S to buy a picnic with the kids.
The bloke on the till was the guy who (for bloody years) ran an independent record shop with two mates.They knew bloody everything about music.

Talked to him and he said it closed last year (t'Internet to blame natch.)Struck me as so tragic that this fount of knowledge was reduced to scanning cook chill potato croquettes for the retired folk of the Costa Geriatrica.

Anyway,I digress...

bfing with the continuum concept... interesting. fairly positive i think. they're showing someone getting help with latching on (after baby bottle fed in SCBU). oh i hope this mum gets it, it would be great. (can't help but think that the CV mums won't be bfing, one is already ff by choice). i'm liking dr s woman so far, seems pretty sensible. and the continuum one too. just CV as the panto villain.

Truby King was a child rearing "expert" from the early part of the 20th century w

"The key to the Truby King method was to feed your baby by the clock every four hours and never at night. If you gave in to him he would become spoiled and spineless and, by implication, no use as a soldier when he grew up. To toughen them up, babies were to spend much of the day on their own outside in the fresh air, and should not be cuddled or comforted even when in distress. Mothers were not encouraged to play with babies, because it would excite them too much. Fathers had no role except earning money.

Middle class mothers were particularly taken by this method, in the expectation that they could produce perfect children, but it was heartbreaking"
www.childrensproject.co.uk/resilience.asp

was it Bill Oddie's mum who was forced to ignore her child's screams by her evil MiL and the child died (mum had suspected something was wrong). terrible, she never forgave herself and spent the rest of the time in mental institutions.
oh god they're ignoring their baby on day one. poor thing crying for hours. the mum is a childminder! i wouldn't employ her on the strength of this.

I am not wholly convinved that Ms Verity's method are entirely conducive to domestic happineses

D'yuo not think though that ultimately we are influenced more by those in immediate vicinity than guru?

I think I was the only one of my cohort who read loads of guides to breastfeeding/sleeping/farting/dressing.

Not that i took any of it on board. Was just for fun.

oh and tell me, by the by.
does Ms Verity have any children of her own?

god that verity woman is evil *... she is looking like a monster, though, as bookthief says.

*she'd say teh same herself, by the looks of things she rather revels in her status as the cruella de vil of childcare.

weeeeeeellllll ime
many people pay huge attention to gurus
it is part of the professionalisation of child rearing.
distance from immediate family, geographically and culturally, is also a factor

That's right Aitch, it was on his program about tracing his family roots.

Shan't watch it. Think is irresponsible of the programme makers to treat newborns as an "experiment" - sounds like that's what this is.

ms verity is childless.

actually moony, it was interesting. there are a nice middle-class couple (you know the types, lovely victorian house, done well for themselves etc) and she's explaining prior to the babies' arrival that the window has to be left open in the babies' room, that the mother cannot EVER sleep in that room (actually i think she says 'i don't ever want to catch you in here etc') and at the end they interview the couple.
so you're expecting them to say 'christ, we're backing out' and they actually say 'i thought she was brilliant, it's like having a rule book, she knows everything'. was very because they didn't look like The Stupidest People In The World.

Yes Pooka.I agree.
Highly immoral to turn such a pivotal event into entertainment.
Nothing much has improved since a good day out in Victorian times was a visit to the local lunatic asylum.

Just from a completely selfish viewpoint, you've carried the thing for nine months, squeezed it out in a most uncomfortable fashion and then you ignore it?

The baby is the prize dammit!

How a mother can ignore a newborn's cries is unfuckingbelievable, not only that but allowing a person or worse an instruction in a baby manual to stop you going to your baby - where are your brain cells?????

{sorry for swearing I don't usually but am }

bless her, the mum was crying her eyes out but verity said 'if you give her attention now you'll only suffer in the long run' or words to that effect.

I notice that people do like rules though.
In my line of work (salt) parents want stuff spelt out to them in manner of a prescription.tHEY DON'T SEEM TO TAKE WELL TO
sharing of ideas and info in a more casual way.

I think it is a back lash to the freedom of the 60s and 70s.We won it but as a result feel adrift and unloved. Having someone telling us what to do and how to do it makes us feel loved and secure.
Why else would life coaching be such a lucrative market?
Why else would we let 19 year olds called Jacquie in eau de nil tunics blether on to us about 'rehydration and exfoliation' in 'spas' while we stand there in paper knickers and nod meekly.

That's just terrible.
Posted on another thread about my mother telling me recently that her guru when she had my brother was he cat, Millie. The cat had just had kittens. When my brother was tiny, if she didn't know what to do, shed ask herself "what would millie do". Since Millie was usually lying down kipping while the kittens fed, that's basically what my mother did. And good for her.
She was prob the first of the women in her family not to have had much of an extended family group to guide her, so she trusted the cat and her own instincts.