Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Erica Jong says modern motherhood is a trap
A really fascinating article on child-rearing with a lot to comment on. Are parents being asked to sacrifice too much for their little darlings these days? Is the emphasis on being a good parent sapping their ability to see the larger picture and become politically active? Is attachment parenting just one of a long line of different theories about parenting, or does it show a marked improvement on the past? Jong obviously has an ax to grind here. Where does she make some interesting/important points and where does she exaggerate? A look at the comments may also be enlightening…
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There are many factors that influence people’s characters and parents can control only few of them. Because of this, it is usually really hard to say which parenting method is right and wrong. There are no two identical human beings, since there no two people that have exactly the same experience and memories that make the character. Different babies might react to the same parenting methods differently and turn up to be completely dissimilar. Because of this, I believe that it is impossible to write a book on parenting methods that applies to all parents and their children. I think that it is more natural for parents to form their own opinion and bring up their child based on it rather than to anxiously hold on to an existing method made up by someone else in fear that their opinion might be wrong.
ReplyDeleteOne of these made-up methods is described and criticized in the article. I agree with Erica Jong on all arguments against the attachment method that she wrote about. I find the basic idea of the method totally ridiculous. Of course, it is essential, to adapt one’s way of life when having a baby, but why in this way? It might happen that children that were brought up in this manner get spoilt or suffer from little self-confidence. It is stated in the citations beside the article that children like being helpful and feeling useful and capable of handling various tasks even in low age. And I can relate to that, I believe that a child that gets used to independence soon is has more trust in his abilities than a child whose parents did everything they could for him. Even the things he would have been capable of doing by himself.
There comes a time when the child grows up and moves out of the parents’ house. And what happens then? People that approve of the attachment method should realize that the day comes, sooner or later. They should prepare the child for it and for the many days to follow. But I personally think that this cannot be achieved by the attachment method, because it means caring too much and not letting the child take care of him by himself at all. Moreover, I cannot think of any advantage of this parenting method and I find it altogether completely useless.