What on earth is wrong with Oliver James?

[SpeedyGonzalez]

I'm reading his latest book "How Not To F--- Them Up", and I think it's rather good.

(did my thread title fool you? )

So far I've not read anything I disagree with (am about 5 chapters in) and much of what he's said has been echoed on the pages of MN. So apart from the fact that he sometimes has a cack-handed way of talking to people, I think that what he says is generally sound.

Anyone else read this book?

Do you mean 45 hours LadyBiscuit? (seems to suggest fulltime work which is rarer than part-time) I guess I say parents and not mothers because I interpreted it as suggesting that parents should share the childcare and both be flexible. I currently work 22.5 hours a week and my children are in nursery 30 (3 full days) but I'd consider doing more hours and maybe my husband doing fewer. My DS seems to have escaped being particularly aggressive or disobedient but I think that's partly because I don't indulge him out of guilt and I guess I find Oliver James' books "food for thought" as opposed to fact.

And, Scottishmummy, I've read his "They F**k you Up" book from 2002 but not his latest.

You see you are entitled yo your opinion and many share it 're: babies. But James cherry picks research to fit his agenda and it is irritating.

I actually chose a nursery setting over a child minder on purpose.

Also, the idea that a baby doesn't get enough attention when there's a 3 babies to one adult ratio is bonkers.

Fwiw, my daughter spent the first few months of her (50h/week) nursery time mostly in a baby carrier strapped to one of the nurses.

But leaving your children with grandparents or a nanny simply isn't an option for a lot of working mothers (and I say mothers because that is who he attacks - like rhadegunde says, why not use the word parent if that's what he means?).

CMs are not an adequate solution in his book because he says that children should be cared for ideally with one other child who is older than your under 3 and I don't know a single CM who can afford to only care for two children.

It does feel like an attack on me - probably because my DS has been in childcare 50 hours a week since he was 7 months old. He is nearly 4 now and not aggressive nor disobedient incidentally!

Also the 'aggression' effects are tiny!

I am at home with my three at the moment and I can say the aggression effects in DD3 (18 months) are there to be seen. Sigh.

Normantebbit, I'd forgotten about the social skills and think you're right about indifferent granny vs good nursery.

Speedy, I have used a childminder but have returned to a nursery because I'm not convinced he got any more individual attention and my CM was ill so often I seemed to rarely be in work. I did like the relationship he built with her children though and can see how it could work very well.

To come back to what I said about James' info being echoed on the pages of MN, this is definitely true. There's a thread at the moment about disorganised motherhood, which he covers in the book I'm reading. He basically discussed three broad categories of mother (organised, hugger and fleximum - I'm sure I don't need to explain those categories for you to get the gist), detailing how they approach motherhood, their beliefs about themselves, motherhood and paid work. He also goes into a bit of detail about how their backgrounds influence which category they fit into. I've read posters on MN talking in the terms he describes thousands of times. And I also see it reflected among my RL friends.

As for myself, well, as HappySeven said, it's food for thought - I'm surprised to see that lots of what he's saying seems to be true for me, and I'm giving it all consideration.

I read some of his articles and that was enough to make me want to go work outside the house and never come back... .

You see this 'categorisation' pisses me off - what evidence? Research base? Of course your upbringing influences your parenting but many, many other factors also come into play.

Considering how critical being at home seems to be for the under 3s, is it safe to assume that he did not do any paid work while his own children are small?

(I already know the answer, and think he is a cock)

There are other possible reasons why 25% of children in the study (NICHD?) in daycare >45 hours were aggressive compared to those at home, apart from a causal link between daycare and aggression. And of course 75% of the daycare children in the study weren't aggressive.

I think Oliver James would like to be seen as someone who calls a spade a spade. It's his schtick. Whereas sometimes I think he sees a bit of metal and calls it a spade...

I agree with pretty much everything he says and I don't see it as an attack at all. Of course it's better for children to be looked after by as few carers as possible.

However that's in an ideal world which we don't live in which is why he goes on to attack capitalist western society in later books.

We all make choices that sometimes aren't the most ideal for our children because we have to. We have other things to consider.

One of my favourite phrases is 'good enough parenting' , instead of beating ourselves up for what we don't do perfectly we should be pleased with good enough.

That applies to bottle versus breast, nursery or sah carer and many other issues.

One of the problems is with our own defensiveness as parents. For some reason we feel judged if we're less than perfect, if we have pnd for example.

Frankly we're all trying to do our best and sometimes that is going to be less than the ideal. And so fucking what.

"Of course it's better for children to be looked after by as few carers as possible."

Why of course?

But whatis ideal?

NormanTebbit - yes, if he does cherry pick then that's more than irritating, it's downright misleading! And re bingo granny - quite! But then I've always chosen good cms/ nurseries and not had the problems that some friends have reported with their cms/ nurseries. I wonder whether some of them might just not have trusted their instincts about the places they chose - who knows?

Widow - I have never heard of or seen nusery staff using infant carriers! That's awesome! You are very lucky...Anyone else seen this?

LadyBiscuit, re grandparents, some of us don't even have the option of our kids meeting their grandparents . I am sure that my mother would have loved to be involved in childcare, especially as she came from a culture where this kind of grandparental involvement was assumed as the norm.

Re CMs, yes I'm sure most of them couldn't afford to meet his stringent requirements! But it's a more intimate context, isn't it? And still home care, which I think is a very different experience.

Re the attack thing, I think when anyone challenges anything we do as parents and says it may be having a harmful effect, it's always going to feel like we're being attacked. I sometimes feel this way towards 'Hugger' mums who insist that you are wrong for vaccinating. Then I just think 'ah, fuck off' and the world is put to rights again .

Happy7 - that must have been SO annoying re your childminder, especially having taking care and time to select someone you trusted and then having to go through it all again.

Ideal? Let's see, least stress, enough money, nice area to live in, loving family, no family relationship breakdowns, no illness, lots of individual attention. Any 'problems' handled openly and fairly. No violence or abuse etc

In short, a fairy tale. It doesn't exist.

And I said of course about the fewest carers because that's what research shows. Good quality research.

Norman - funnily enough he (old cock face James) says 'ideal' is basically happy mum, happy baby.

Arf at Franca and Madonna! And yes! re 75% - clearly he didn't do a science-based psychology degree...

Widow - I'm not sure if you're playing devil's advocate, but young children need as few carers as possible because they thrive on consistency of care, and they need to develop a close bond with their carers. This is diluted when they have a constantly-changing number of carers. Next you're probably going to mention traditional societies - but the context there is different from our social context, and it's still family members who largely do the childcare.

Speedy It was our own carrier - they've seen it when we brought her in and asked us to leave it with them during the day so they could use it with her, worked very well for everyone involved.

If he's lauding the value of mother's over dad's then I'm all for him. Our gov values women as wage earnings cos then we pay the gov taxes. If there's a lone voice out there who thinks women have very important and specialised skills in bringing up young children then I want to hear it.

I've observed the differences between dad's caring for their kids and mum's caring for their kids - they do it differently and if the feminine contribution is the most important to pre-schoolers then this is something women should be hearing about so they can make informed choices.

Who's been in a Surestart centre recently? Everythings about how important dads are. Mum's are totally forgotten, sidelined. In our rush for 'equality' and recognition in the workplace have we accidently vacated the seat that is the most highly prized? Can you handle this sort of thought-challenge (from me)? Or will you see it as woman-bashing rather than the woman-lauding that is it's source?

Can I have some link to that research?

I don't say that continously changing carers is good, but if it's a larger number (as in mummy, daddy, and x number of nursery nurses working in the room) it's not neccessarily worse than when it's only mummy.

Children are quite capable of attaching to and loving more than one or two people,. Even if that's bad for some people's egos.

Older children are. It is better for younger children to have one or two, up to about 3 years old.

I can't link to research as on phone but his books do have a few references at the end if your interested. It's historical now but bowlbys attachment theory is googleable so you could start there. There are quite a few unis and colleges doing research, Tavistock centre may have some online.

Exactly Madonna, there might have been other reasons for those 25% of aggressive toddlers (aren't many toddlers aggressive anyway???)

I think dads do care differently - but again is that a bad thing?

But Bowlby was doing work on orphans - and yes established the principle of attachment and how that aids (or hinders) development.

But he didn't investigate daycare.

Any amount of research can be interpreted to fit certain agenda. You can leave out research that does 't fit your analysis.

He also did research on a primary carer who was hospitalised and the effect it had on the attachment between mother and son.

That research led to families being allowed in hospital and skin to skin contact while in incubators and family overnight rooms.

The research has been extrapolated for many uses.