Patriarchy and the 'detached mother' article

[Ineedacupofteadesperately]

Apologies if this has been posted before. As someone currently struggling with getting enough sleep with a newborn as well as what I want to teach both DDs about feminism, this feels quite relevant. I'm not sure entirely how I feel about it all & would be interested in the views of the many on Feminism chat who seem to think more clearly about these issues.

evolutionaryparenting.com/liberal-feminism-patriarchy-detached-mother/

In general I feel a lot of the 'advice' I get from the system (HV, gps etc) is often quite guilt inducing and creates even more work for me. I do feel the natural state of babies doesn't fit well in our disconnected world, nor with the situation in this country where either you outsource baby care or only one parent does the bulk of it (and is responsible for it). On the other hand some babies (although I think not all) seem to adapt quite well to how things are. I do feel the "happy mum, happy baby" advice quite often really contradicts the rest of the messages we get about not letting the baby get into "bad" sleep habits etc and the fact that the work parents (mostly women) do overnight in regard to babycare does seem to be unrecognised and devalued.

It's fairly understandable for advice to change over time due to increased knowledge though - but with anything relating to motherhood (because it's usually addressed to mothers rather than both parents), it tends to get wrapped up in all sorts of added guilt and shaming somewhere along the way. I think that's what makes the response to changes so emotionally charged.

Where I'm from, feminist friends consider breastfeeding a totally regressive and anti-woman thing. They reject it on principle in the name of equality and bottle-feed from birth. Ditto sleep-training. Interesting, as the country in general is much more pro breastfeeding and 'gentle parenting', and certainly has a very progressive take on parental leave.

I made no mention of cosleeping, which is obviously not something you can make blanket statements about as the safety of cosleeping depends entirely on the adult who is sharing with the baby.

The point I picked up on is babies being put to sleep on their backs, which has saved lives. It's frankly crass to refer to lifesaving advice as just fashion.

I think it's hard to disagree that society values economic production over all, and that it devalues childcare. Childcare being seen as low skilled is shown in the low pay - the same is true of elder care.

I see this thinking on every thread where night feeds and wake ups come up. I've never seen a thread where there hasn't been a sizeable number of posters saying that if you're on maternity leave, or are a stay at home mum, then you ought to be handling all the overnight caring. Anything to do with looking after children - including driving them around - can be done on broken/little sleep because it's easy or mindless, whereas working out of the home requires rest, either because it is more demanding, or as a reward for being the provider.

I can see that might be the best way to work it if you have a relatively easy baby who wakes once or twice for short periods, and the parent working out of the home has a very demanding job, but even in that situation, it's surely not sustainable.

The point I picked up on is babies being put to sleep on their backs, which has saved lives. It's frankly crass to refer to lifesaving advice as just fashion

That is not what was being said. In my lifetime the advice on sleeping has gone from supine, prone, lateral and back to supine. And that's not even going into whether swaddling or co-sleeping is good or bad. We do what we are told or told not to do.

I read the article with interest. It had the potential to be good but i agree with others it was let down with the critical language around sleep training etc. I'd be interesting to see how the author compares radical feminist attitudes to mothering, as i suspect it may be quite similar to what is critiqued here.

That said it may have mentioned it...currently sleep deprived due to five wakings a night...am quite befuddled...

We do what we are told or told not to do.

On this Lass, I am honestly surprised from you. When I had my kids, I read a lot, but we did what worked for us - a mixture of following and ignoring current advice, a little of what my mum did with my siblings etc. as we discovered what our kids got on with (different each time, obviously, because why would babies make life easy). Health visitors got the smile and nod at their advice and leaflets, and then they left (I didn't provide tea and biscuits).

QI had a good take on this - they had an episode when they went back and corrected the scores for all the right and wrong answers which had subsequently been discovered to be wrong or right. We learn new things, and advice changes. Just look at peanuts! (I know someone who's child was involved in the study that ended up changing the current advice for that one)

Yes of course parents follow advice given at the time - which is part of the reason the SIDs risk was higher in the past, because babies were sleeping on their fronts - but the change in advice to putting babies down on their backs is not fashion! This advice has not seesawed!

Nor is it new - the SIDS research started in the 80s FFS. Arguing against it is just ignorant.

Some parenting advice seesaws back and forth with no good evidence either way. Of course it does. But it does no one any good to pretend that all advice is just fashion and unsubstantiated. It's not. Some advice changes permanently and saves lives.

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. So you must have had an out of date HV. AFAIK, the back sleeping advice hasn't changed in 30 years. Hardly fashion.

Sorry not been back to comment but, you know, baby.....

Bustopher - yes! This is a problem and something I've struggled to express at times so thanks for doing it for me. Why is it 'ok' for Mothers to be sleep deprived all the time? Especially when driving?

Breastfeeding does confuse the issue though as obviously only the mother can do that. Also, just going by my two, I can breastfeed back to sleep in 5-15mins (usually fall asleep while feeding in about 5 mins) or DH can get her back to sleep while holding and jiggling her after 30 mins grumbling (we only do this when she's recently been fed so not really hungry and not often for obvious reasons but DH likes to try as he feels it's good for her if the boob isn't her only method of falling asleep, and I like having a break). This I suppose is just a fundamental biological difference but doesn't have to become an inequality as it so often seems to - if the father gives the mother time to sleep in the day, for example, recognising that childcare is valuable and needs to be done by someone not chronically sleep deprived.

So many threads on here indicate that not only is the sahm expected to do all night wakings but also all cooking, cleaning etc ("wifework"). If someone was working all day and then doiing a night shift too they'd get a lot more respect....and of course some Mums work on top of all this ( although I have dreamt at times of having my old job back so I could snooze at my desk in the day!).

Alittlebitofbutter only five? you have my sympathies, we are having a similar struggle! I agree about the article - it had the potential to be good but ended up disappointing and going down that all too familiar and disappointing path of not only pointing out some problems with the way things are but clearly getting a bit judgemental and asserting things "should" be a clearly defined alternative. Why oh why is it all so polarised?

So you must have had an out of date HV. AFAIK, the back sleeping advice hasn't changed in 30 years. Hardly fashion

The advice I was given from midwives in a large maternity hospital (connected to one of the UK's leading medical schools) in 1990 was to place baby on his side with a rolled up blanket behind him. Lateral- not prone.

So you are simply wrong in your assertion it has not changed in 30 years. The advice on sleeping positions has see sawed. I don't know why you are trying to deny this.

The change back to front was around 1992.

Sorry the change back to back sleeping was around 1992. All the babies in the maternity hospital I was in 1990 were placed laterally.

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/26/back-to-sleep-sudden-infant-death-syndrome-cot-death-peter-fleming

Here's a good article from The Guardian on the origins of the Back to Sleep campaign and the research that went with it. Really interesting.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thanks NannyOggs really interesting. I found this article by Peter Fleming (from googling Peter Fleming Co sleep) which I assume is the same guy www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h563

Haven't read the whole thing yet but in the comments Peter English says (www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h563/rapid-responses) that the paper can be summarised as "As long as you don't smoke, drink, or take recreational drugs, and you do it in the bed and not on the sofa, the risks of co-sleeping are so small that meta-analyses can't reliably detect them - they may be non-existent. The benefits of co-sleeping (bonding, easier breast-feeding...) do not appear to have been assessed but are likely to outweigh the minimal or non-existent risks of co-sleeping"

As someone who is breastfeeding and sometimes co-sleeping (and I can say I feel SO MUCH BETTER and more able to function in the day when I do co-sleep as I actually get some sleep) it does frustrate me how black and white these public health messages are.

Even with a co sleeper cot, I found that occassionally I would fall asleep when sitting up to feed BECAUSE SO SO TIRED OVER MONTHS (sorry about caps but, y'know, feel strongly) and surely this is more dangerous than lying down to feed with baby next to me? This is why I now sometimes co-sleep - if I'm so tired I feel I will likely fall asleep sitting up.

They also don't seem to ever look at the daytime risks associated with chronically sleep deprived parents and surely these should be weighed up against any risks from co-sleeping.

It is massively frustrating they don't separate out 'safe' cosleeping practice with 'unsafe' too (e.g. on sofas). Very stupidly designed experiments by people who haven't been parents, or perhaps men who left it to their wives. Basically, not the primary caregivers designing these experiments anyway.....

Also supposedly breastfeeding reduces SIDS risk but something like 80% of breastfed infants cosleep at some point. Has this apparent contradiction been unpacked anywhere?

Just feel at the moment generally the advice is 'Happy mum, happy baby' but then also 'don't do anything that could make you a happy mum" (e.g. get sleep from cosleeping, leave baby to sleep in pram, swing, etc) so really, you can't win.

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

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.

Yes, also, I should say that I think it's interesting to look back in history at norms and even to compare our behaviour to monkeys to inform our thinking, but only to do that. In most of history the infant death rate (and maternal, giving birth) was massive compared to now (as someone said upthread) so a lot of more modern inventions obviously are great (antibiotics, buggies, refrigerators, c-sections I could go on......)

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?

Alittlebitofbutter - wow, one night waking? Tell me your sleep training tips (you can PM me if you don't want to share publicly). I'd far rather take advice from a real life mother than the internet / books / HVs. But yes, winging it. My parenting style completely!

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.

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