Corporate America Doesn’t Give a Shit About Your Revolution
(but it will sell you the T-shirt.)
The other night I read an article about the “Ezzo Method” and this thing that has been bothering me about the ways Americans often treat babies finally clicked in a way that I can express competently and articulately to other human beings, rather than just being some vague feelings of unease and displeasure.
This post will not deal directly with the Ezzo Method itself, but with the more general concept of baby “scheduling” — the Ezzo Method is just one school of scheduling thought. Scheduling is one of the more detrimental parts of an overall movement away from natural, healthy, instinctive parenting methods towards ‘expert-approved’ methods which occurred during the mid-20th century. This is not to say, of course, that our ancestors had it all perfect. There have been a great many improvements over the last century as well. But things were taken too far, and with negative effects all around.
Even a quick perusal of the ‘natural’ childbirth literature tells the unfortunate story of how basically good advances in medical technology which have saved the lives of millions of women in childbirth have been taken to extremes where they begin to hinder, not help. Women no longer delivered babies, doctors delivered babies. Pregnancy has been transformed from a natural process to a disease to be treated and managed by doctors. Birth has become an event acted upon mothers, who are immobilized, sedated, and anesthetized for the benefit of their doctors. And as a result, the rates of unnecessary caesareans, inductions, episiotomies, and other interventions soared as one intervention led to another and because they benefited the doctors. (Of course, having had a natural birth, I am all for pain killers the next time around. Birth HURTS.)
After birth, babies were immediately taken away from their mothers to be weighed and measured and scored; boys were clipped and snipped to make them more ‘hygienic’; babies were stuffed with formula and shoved in a nursery — all ostensibly for the ‘benefit’ of their mothers, who were supposed to now ‘recover’ from the trauma and ordeal of childbirth. The mothers’ breasts were bound up and they were instructed on the importance of these new, ‘better’, more ’scientific’ formulae to feed their babies, and their milk never came in.
And then the babies were taken home and put on a schedule — to be fed at their parents’ convenience, not when hungry. To sleep at their parents’ convenience, not when tired. And if baby should cry with hunger, or loneliness, or pain, or sleepiness? No comfort should be given. Comforting a crying baby would only encourage the ‘bad’ behavior of crying. Instead, crying babies were locked away in their rooms and ignored until they gave up and became ‘good’.
My grandmother still tells the story of how my biological father used to cry and scream all night long. When she took him to the doctor, the doctor gave her tranquilizer pills so she could sleep through his cries. And lo and behold, the baby, given no comfort in response to his cries for help, stopped asking for help. As it turns out, though, my dad had pyloric stenosis (as did I), a condition in which food cannot pass from the stomach to the intestines. If left untreated, the baby will literally begin to starve/dehydrate, and death is very common. My dad was quite lucky to survive.
But never mind that. With baby sleeping through the night and eating on schedule from the bottle, mom and dad were free to return to their corporate lives as quickly as possible, and since baby had no attachments to his caregivers, he could be popped from daycare to daycare, cared for at the cheapest price possible.
Who benefited from this new, modern way of doing things? Certainly not the babies, for whom the combination of cribs and formula led to a much higher risk of SIDS; who died of malnutrition and dehydration because their feedings were scheduled too far apart; who cried alone in their cages cribs at night with no one to comfort or hold them; whose IQs suffered because formula lacked vital brain-building nutrients.
Certainly not the mothers, who suffered increased complications during labor and childbirth; whose postpartum healing was negatively affected by the lack of breastfeeding; who suffered far more breast cancer; who were denied critical bonding time with their children; who were pushed back into jobs before they’d finished healing because, after all, they didn’t need to be taking care of their own children. Anyone could give the baby a bottle of formula.
Certainly not husbands, whose lives haven’t really been affected by most of these changes.
And not your average families, whose net incomes have barely risen since the 1960s, despite women going into the workforce in tremendous numbers. If anything, the average American family is slipping, as new parents must juggle college loan debt, outrageous medical expenses and insurance fees, high housing costs, pay for two cars and the gas to power them, daycare fees, etc. (But don’t worry. The rich make it up for us so we can look good in comparison to other countries.)
So who has benefited? Corporations/capitalists/the wealthy.
Babies have to be on schedules so their parents can be on schedules. Thus we have created the “new woman”, freed from the tyranny of breastfeeding, freed from the shackles of caring for her children, allowed to sleep through the night and kept on a schedule, is free to return as quickly as possible to her corporate masters lovely job.
Babies are put on schedules for the same reason that the public school system was founded, to turn them into obedient little workers who will do what authorities tell them, when they tell them, without question. They go from feeding schedules to daycare schedules to school schedules to factory schedules. Any trace of independence, of individual human spirit, of unique needs or individuality must be quashed. The fact that one baby may simply need more attention than another baby — that different babies do, in fact, have different personalities — is merely an inconvenience. Scheduling eliminates these inconveniences, forces all babies into the same rigid mold, and prepares them for a lifetime of service to their corporate masters, while pushing their parents back into the workforce as quickly as possible. (Corporations have never had any issue with hiring women, only with paying them living wages.) And the more people in the workforce, the lower the wages are for everyone. It’s a game the owners win and everyone else loses.
There are additional benefits to corporate America from the industrialization of babies, of course. With rare exceptions, they can’t sell you breastmilk — but they can sell you formula. They can sell you cribs. They can sell you daycare. They can sell you medicine to help soothe your baby’s stomach after the formula makes her ill. They will sell you all manner of unnecessary things, all the while telling you that this is how you show your love. Or at least, that these things will make your life better, and don’t we all want that?
Let me reiterate that this is not to say that all of these things are bad. Hospitals have saved the lives of many women in labor. For parents who cannot make milk, formula is a godsend. Some babies sleep better in cribs. And the right to a good job is extremely important. It is the systematic promotion of these things *together* in a way that hurts babies for the sole purpose of getting women back into the workforce more quickly that is bad. (While some of us may like our jobs and return to them eagerly, for many of us, work itself is fairly unpleasant — we would much rather be hanging out with friends, reading a good book, or even just watching TV. We work because we need to.)
Scheduling hasn’t been promoted because it allows us this glorious world where women are freed from the shackles of the patriarchy; it’s been promoted because it benefits corporations. Birth and babies have become industrialized. You are part of the corporate machine, and if you aren’t, you’re doing something wrong.
On the Discovery Channel, I recently saw an episode of “How It’s Made” in which they showed the industrial production of baby chickens. It was, to be honest, quite horrifying, even though there was no obvious cruelty of the PETA-Propaganda sort. The newly-laid eggs were immediately removed from their mother chickens, collected, and put into big egg cartons which were stacked in a giant oven. Every so often the cartons would automatically tilt from one side to the other, to simulate the mother chicken’s care. A machine then drilled a needle into the eggs to vaccinate them (I wonder how many chicks died from a needle accidentally going into their brains?) and then the eggs hatched on a moving conveyor belt. The newborn chicks were dropped between spinning rollers to sort them from the eggshells — not even worth the effort of a human hand, just cold mechanical steel rollers, then tumbled down chutes to be sorted (sexed) and tossed (by hand) down more chutes, where they were packed in with hundreds of other baby chicks to be shipped and sold.
The horrifying part of this all was the total lack of creature comforts; they never saw their mothers, never had a protective wing to nestle under, nor felt the warmth of her belly. They were incubated in an oven and born on a conveyor belt. They were not living creatures, they were ITS, they were industrial products being produced. They were just things.
But they weren’t things. They were babies. They were lost and confused and their mommies had been taken away from them.
My grandmother’s ranch was the sort of place you read about in children’s books. The goat kept climbing on top of the house; the geese chased me around; and the chickens (and rooster) had their run of the yard. For many years we didn’t even have a chicken coop — the chickens just nested in the shed. My grandmother showed me how to hunt for nests, look for eggs, and trick the chickens into laying eggs by putting golf balls in their nests to make them think they’d already laid one. (Chickens aren’t too bright.)
The baby chicks we gathered into a baby swimming pool (better to keep an eye on them and keep them out from underfoot.) And my grandmother showed me how to comfort the chicks, by holding them under my chin. This way, they felt like they were nestled against their mother chicken, safe and warm.
The point of this trip down memory lane is that baby chicks want their mothers. They draw comfort from their mothers and their mothers take care of them and those babies had been separated from their mothers and were all alone.
Of course, we may easily brush aside the feelings of baby chickens — they’re not, after all, human. They’re food, and if we want cheap, abundant chicken meat and eggs, this is how it’s got to be done. But how different is this from how we were taught to treat our own babies? Whisked away at birth to be weighed and measured and washed and snipped; swaddled and fed formula rather than their mother’s own abundant and more nutritious milk; put into nurseries and denied love and comfort until they finally give up on asking.
The only thing we’re lacking is the conveyor belt.
People in ‘primitive’ societies do not practice scheduling, nor was it ever practiced before the modern age — people without watches do not concern themselves with whether it’s been two hours yet since baby last fed. People who do not have to be at a factory job at 9 AM every morning do no care if baby keeps them up a few extra hours.
When people hear of my baby’s night-owl sleeping habits (he used to regularly keep me up past 5 AM, though he did thankfully scale back to 3 AM fairly quickly,) they often respond with, “Oh, you’d better get him on a schedule,” and perhaps some nonsense about babies waking up early early in the morning. Why on earth would I want to put him on a schedule like that? I don’t wake up early in the morning — why should he? Then I’d just have to get up early!
Except, oh right, I’m supposed to be heading off to work at 9 AM. So of course he needs to be getting up at 7 AM so I can get us ready and drop him off at daycare before heading into the office. Right. And if I don’t drag my sorry butt out of bed at obscene hours of the morning, I’m spoiling my baby and not realizing my full potential as a woman.
Sorry, folks, but corporate America doesn’t give a shit about feminism. It employs women because we’re useful and having us in the workforce keeps down wages, not because it wants to help us fulfill our potential. And corporate America does not care if your baby suffers in daycare, because babies are not useful to it unless they can sell us something for them. Formula companies don’t care that their products and sales tactics result in the deaths of thousands of African babies. Corporations only care about your money and your ability to make them more money.
In our industrial capitalist society, even the creation and care of babies has become industrialized.
I am reminded here of Karl Marx’s theory of alienation. Now, I am no Marxist (if anything, I lean towards the opposite,) but this doesn’t meant that all of Marx’s theories are trash. Klarfax (whose knowledge of Marxism is limited to the first few pages of the Communist Manifesto read back in highschool) has often come home from work and begun ranting about how the “owners exploit labor” and how alienated he feels from the products of his labor, and I pat him on the back and say, “Congratulations! You’ve just re-invented Marxism!” (Klarfax, it should be noted, is also decidedly not a Marxist.) But he observes these things happening at work.
Marx describes four types of alienation:
* alienation of the worker from his or her ‘species essence’ as a human being rather than a machine;
* alienation between workers, since capitalism reduces labour to a commodity to be traded on the market, rather than a social relationship;
* alienation of the worker from the product, since this is appropriated by the capitalist class, and so escapes the worker’s control;
* alienation from the act of production itself, such that work comes to be a meaningless activity, offering little or no intrinsic satisfactions. (As I write this, my husband is complaining about this one, though he’s never read the theory.)
Marx further expounds, “Let us suppose that we had carried out production as human beings. Each of us would have in two ways affirmed himself and the other person. 1) In my production I would have objectified my individuality, its specific character, and therefore enjoyed not only an individual manifestation of my life during the activity, but also when looking at the object I would have the individual pleasure of knowing my personality to be objective, visible to the senses and hence a power beyond all doubt…”
To translate into ENGLISH (damn turgid Germans, damn you, too, Hegel and Weber), “when you get to do your own thing, work is more fun and the things you make reflect your personality.” When you work for the owners, work is boring and dull and you can’t even say at the end, “I made that.”
The mother, in our modern society, has been alienated from the product of her labor, that is, her child. We do not labor (give birth) as people, individuals; we do not breastfeed like other mammals, but feed our children machine-made products, like calves separated from their mothers and raised in industrial feedlots. Mothers are encouraged to do nothing that would allow them to bond with their babies — no breastfeeding, no cuddling when they cry, none of that — so that they can be as unattached as possible. So that the mother becomes interchangeable with all other potential caretakers. The care and keeping of babies is no longer regarded as special, but just a job hired out to the cheapest workers available.
And the babies themselves are denied their essential humanity. It is easy to see why people might be tempted by these theories — I myself did not recognize the humanity of babies until I had one of my own. I didn’t think of babies as people with their own personalities. I thought of them as screaming little pee and poop machines, with the personalities emerging over time as they grew older. But babies do have personalities. I saw the signs of Link’s personality even back when he was a wiggly little fetus in the womb, doing backflips for the ultrasound machine. Babies are people, but through scheduling they are forced to conform to a rigid mold, preparing them for their lives as workers in a world which does not care about their needs or wants or souls, but only their ability to perform as a cog in the corporate machine.
If you haven’t seen Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” yet, well, you should! It’s an excellent, funny movie. The beginning is the best/most important part.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9.
The crux of the movie is the story of the exploitation of labor by the owners, the alienation of the worker, and how factory life damages men and drives them mad.
We are all part of the system, and even our babies must be made to conform to the factory schedule.
Thankfully, thankfully, the excesses of the twentieth century have been recognized and the pendulum has begun to swing back to a more sensible path. We now know that breast milk is better than formula, and in most hospitals, mothers are encouraged to breastfeed. The rate of unnecessary cesareans is going down. Doctors now recognize that scheduling is bad for babies, as is being left alone to ‘cry it out’. And circumcision rates are falling. People have begun to recognize that babies need to be nurtured, not disciplined into ‘good’ behavior.
Unfortunately, many of these advances are still unavailable to poor babies. I have the luxury of avoiding the corporate machine (and it is truly a luxury,) but most mothers (and their babies) do not. Poor mothers forced back to work too early and too long are going to be naturally attracted to the idea of baby sleeping through the night. People are not willfully ignorant–information is expensive. For poor, hard-working people who may not even be literate (or speak English,) the time and expense of gathering information on modern parenting theories is often more than they can afford. So they do what they’ve heard is best, generally relying on information made publicly available by large corporations. Unfortunately, there’s no money in advertising breast milk. So the poor are mislead into wasting thousands of dollars on formula, put their babies on schedules, carry them around in car seats, etc., all the while trying to do their best for their children.
Our society does not value infant nutrition (no child left behind my ass!) enough to provide women with the necessary resources to care for their children. Pumping and working is *hard*, and many women are ignorant that it is even possible. If we, as a society, truly gave a shit about “women’s issues”, we’d stop whining about how porn ‘exploits’ and ‘objectifies’ women and instead work towards real gains in the quality of women’s lives and the lives of their children. And we would stop promoting a system which only benefits our corporate masters, and work instead towards a more balanced system based on the needs of humans.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Damn fuckin’ straight. If there’s one thing I’m not going to do to my future kids, it’s regiment them, for my convenience or anyone else’s.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I’m going to type a proper response later, when I have time. However, I do have one thing to ask:
Many Governments have considered banning the smacking of children – would this initiative come under your description of ‘expert’ approved methods (often appointed by an interfering Nanny State or ivory-tower “scientific research group”) that are really disadvantageous towards parenting?
Obviously, this depends on your stance towards smacking in the first place. Personally, I feel that children should be given a little physical discipline for naughtier things (emphasis on the word “little”) but that’s just my opinion.
It does rile me to see that many European Governments have actually outlawed even slight physical discipline, and the public are just forced to accept it unquestioningly – no actual scientific validation that smacking is harmful, no tests, no nothing. It’s even worse, because those who DO raise honest doubts are sometimes branded “child abusers”.
So, would that come under your description, little-e?
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:29 am
The problem strikes me as a little exaggerated – but then, I don’t live in the US. Things may be different over there.
On a side-note, you named your child Link? That’s either terrible or awesome or both.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:29 am
It was actually a real name before The Legend of Zelda came along, you know.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
This is actually one of the best essays I’ve ever read on any subject. You touch on so much, it’s hard to know where to begin, so let me start by saying well done.
Corporate America has indeed done away with the American spirit. It’s strange, tho – I am both a democratic socialist and a staunch capitalist – I feel that anything other than a market economy is doomed to failure in practical terms. But I feel that it’s possible to have a market economy that still respects the rights and dignity of the consumer/worker. It would probably have to be done on a rather small scale, however, with each community enforcing the rules and regulations that work best for that community.
As for the child-rearing content of the post, I found it fascinating. I think that if more parents had the attitude towards their children that you do, this country would be a much better place. Children are ignored and commoditized, kept to a strict schedule that goes much further than an infant sleep schedule. You must go to school from the ages of 5 until 18, maybe an additional four years if you’re lucky. You have to learn for nine months out of the year. You may start driving at 16. You may start drinking at 21. Lock-step! Lock-step! MARCH!
If more parents would actually take an active role in raising and nurturing their children, as you have – which is only possible if this country undergoes a complete culture shock, as you’ve pointed out – we would be a quantum leap closer to a utopia.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:56 pm
As if you needed more evidence that corporations are becoming extremely powerful.
If I may…
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I can agree with a number of things, but I have to say that I would not stay home with my children. (Yes, I am a woman.) I’m twenty-nine and spent my youth struggling to get my degree in animation, and if I had to give that up to spend the rest of my life nurturing a kid I would come to depsise, or at least resent, the little maggot. That is not fair to the kid, and it’s not fair to me.
My father suggested spending “y’know, five years having some fun in your job, then quit and start having kids and stay home with them because that’s what a woman ’should’ do”. I nearly bit his face off, and I don’t think he’s been more shocked in his life! I gave up my first youth in order to “have a little fun” in a “job” for only FIVE YEARS–or some extremely limited amount of time at this point! Then I “should” give it all up in order to procreate? I don’t think so. For every person telling a girl she “should” have a career, there are just as many telling girls they “should” give up all of that to devote every waking moment to raising children. There’s always someone who has some great advice on what people “should” do.
I never attack a woman who wants to stay at home with her kids, and I’ve never seen anybody do so. I’ve heard lots of affirmation that it’s an individual choice from that camp, though I’ve heard preference for a career. But I’ve gotten plenty of abuse, directly and indirectly, because I refuse to sacrifice my identity to raise kids. You ever watch the behind-the-scenes deleted scenes from The Incredibles? Someone has issues they need to deal with. Perhaps I wouldn’t choose to be close friends with a stay-st-home mom, but that’s because I wouldn’t have a lot in common with her in most cases. She’d be about diapers and juice, and I’d be all about scripts and timing charts and character construction. Unless she’s one of those moms with an idea for a kids’ cartoon and no resources, there wouldn’t be much to talk about.
But you know? I’d breast-feed (I knew all that,and I agree with you), avoid excessive sedation and drugs, and I’d prefer the kid sleep at day-care so I can bond with him/her when I get home, and also NO DAMN CIRCUMCISION!!!! My whole family is quite strong on that point. Just some time in BIO 101 and two college PSYCH classes taught me those things. And not leaving a crying child–well, that’s just common sense. You can’t assume what’s wrong and let it slide. And I heard a recording of baby boy being circumcized when I was a little girl and, having a baby brother, I knew this was no ordinary crying and that something terrible was being done to the baby, though I didn’t know what. Bullshit they don’t feel it–they just don’t remember it…consciously.
It would probably be a bigger effort than just dropping the kid fully into mass-production land, but kids are a huge responsibility and a lot of work. I realize that, and that’s why I don’t have sex.
It’s not that I wouldn’t sacrifice–that’s part of being a parent–I just don’t think I need to sacrifice the career that I feel is my ultimate meaning in life. It’s the same way I feel about my current family–okay, they live in Ohio and all the animation jobs are in California. That’s a long way off but I have to do it. If I let them hold me here, I’d come to hate them, the same way I’d come to hate my own kid–or at least resent him–if I felt he was standing in the way of my career.
My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and I tell you I would have rather she worked. She was always breathing down my neck at all hours of the day, being a procrastinor with nothing better to do than overprotect. And did she ever overprotect. I was twelve and still holding her apron strings because I wasn’t allowed to let go. You can imagine what that did to me in regard to the kids at school–by the time I was ten I had become every other kid’s emotional beating-boy. Protection–that was her purpose, and she took it to such extremes as to make me (the oldest) a complete wreck about leaving the nest–then she was amazed that none of her kids left at eighteen. How could we? We had no idea of the outside world. Then there are the careless things she said to me (you’re such an ugly person inside…no wonder you have no friends…I’d hate you too) that continue to screw with my head after all these years, no matter how hard I try to forget or ignore them.
And if Mom had worked and saved after we each had at least gotten to kindergarden, they might have had more than two-thou to give each kid for school and I wouldn’t be almost thirty and getting my degree. So there is something to be said for Mom working and giving her growing kids some space to develop as individuals and make their own mistakes.
Bottom line though–I do not want kids. Ever. If I had kids, it would be because he wants them, and if he wants them then he’ll have to decide whether he wants to be a stay-at-home dad if he really believed kids need 24/7 obsessive care. I think that’s fair–I don’t want kids, but if I love you enough to go through childbirth to give you kids….well, you see what I mean!
I have to wonder how many guys would want kids if it meant they’d have to scrap an identity and a larger purpose for them.
I am not under the impression that the corporate world cares about feminism. But I care, my career is my purose in life, and just because that can be exploited by someone is no reason to junk it to be a hausfrau again. Anything and anybody can be exploited, especially by the corporate world, and usually is.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
On the circumcision point, though, speaking as a guy, smegma build-up is uncomfy enough without that crap-trap. As a natural block to keep debris out of the urethra in a feral environment, sure, it’s great, but today it’s just a damn inconvenience.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:38 pm
As far as circumcision goes, I think hygiene was the main concern for me with getting my son circumcised. Honestly, I have enough trouble taking care of my -own- hygiene, let alone anyone else’s.
I seem to remember hearing something, somewhere too, about how it could be weird or something if the child is not circumcised and daddy is (or vice versa), so that might have factored into it too, I don’t know – that was 8.5+ years ago
Maybe I’m just afraid of uncircumcised penises
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:52 am
tl;dr
But the start of it sounded like a whole lot of tree-hugging hippy crap.
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:47 am
Little_e-: Whaaa…?
I didn’t name my child Link. Where’d you get that from?
Actually, I don’t have children yet, but you can consider my last post as “When I do have children”, which hopefully won’t be too far off?
So, where’d this Link reference come from, again, Zelda?
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:28 am
… Link?
Anyway, there are things and there are things. Onboard for anedocte train, shoo shoo shoo…
My mother worked. She worked +30 years (she’s 60, currently). She worked damn well. She had an excellent career, but she wanted children – now, she comes from a very poor family, and she wanted some stability before she bred.
She had my sister, who is ten years older than me. She did not stop working because of that, oh no. She took her license, she breastfed for as long as possible. She’d take bottles of breastmilk and leave with the nanny, someone she trusted. She’d come from work and lavish all the love and affection, they’d bond.
Was my sister on a schedule? Yes, but not one so rigid she couldn’t breathe. She had sleeping and waking times, but none of this nonsense of denying affection, formulas, letting her cry herself out, no. Heck, my mother is viciously protective of us both (thankfully she’s got some balance, too); she wouldn’t do that.
Then I was born, and the cycle repeated itself, until I was diagnosed with arthritis. Having an eight-month-old infant crying in pain and burning in fever isn’t all that nice, throughout day and night. Still she managed to balance her work with us – being a single mother, she needed to work to feed us – and all went well. When I was seven, she retired. I hate that she did, but it was her choice.
Conclusion: based on our experience, I think it’s possible to balance things. Neither too much, neither too little.
My main concern is with girls who have children because it’s somehow expected that they have children, but that’s something else entirely…
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:28 pm
I think you are a bit late jumping onto the parenting revolution train. Read Dr. Sears- breastfeeding, natural childbirth, co-sleeping..etc. SAHM and WOHM have been duking it out for years. Ezzo (who wrote Growing Kids God’s Way) has been discredited years ago by leading authorities on child rearing. His schtick is mostly eaten up by- wait for it- stay at home christian moms who are obsessed with growing their into obedient little christians and think this can be accomplished via a very strict authoritarian model.
I agree with your ending sentiment, I think most of the problem is that women are not valued. If women were valued, there wouldn’t be an issue of them making less in the workplace. Their needs (staying home for a more extended period with a new infant to bond and recover) would be met- not just in theory (family medical leave act) but in practice, actually making companies PAY for this leave. As for now, women and men can take off so much time but companies are not required to pay even a portion of their salaries. Making it more difficult for poor, working class and single mothers to utilize this time.
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:55 pm
little_e-’s own child was named Link, as stated in the original article:
The comment about the child being named Link was from Tenebrais, not little_e-; it was addressed to little_e. Pay attention next time.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Crossed wires, LM; crossed wires. Also, I was very tired from a particularly long shift when I posted. My apologies (are they even needed, really?) to Litle_e-.
LM, it isn’t that big a deal, you know.
August 24th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Felis: There are many things I would prefer that people not do, such as smacking their kids, but I do not consider such things to be severe enough problems that I think the government needs to outlaw them. The law is a heavy, blunt instrument–a sledgehammer, really–and it is difficult to do anything gentle and delicate with it. I have known bad parents who don’t spank and good parents who do, and I don’t think that’s sufficient evidence to pass judgment on someone’s parenting abilities.
That said, every animal training book I’ve come across is pretty clear that physical discipline is ineffective at convincing an animal to be good. As one author put it, if they can train a 3 ton killer whale to jump through hoops without punishing it (after all, anyone who tried to punish a killer whale would regret it!) then why do people feel the need to use choke collars on 30 pound shelties? Or smack 30 pound toddlers, for that matter?
Tenebrais: Link is an awesome name.
DrUnscrupulous: I hope that I did not come across as suggesting that all women *should* stay home with their babies, (or should have babies, period.) I think every person should have the right to pursue the path which makes them happiest, and not be pushed one way or the other. For people who don’t want children, or who like working more than they like children, I think they *definitely* shouldn’t be pushed to have children. It’s not like the world is lacking in children.
I have been on both sides of the fence, as it were–pursuing my education/career and not wanting kids, and then having kids and abandoning my career. Women get flack no matter *what* they do. I like to think that in a more balanced society, we’d all get less flack.
commodorejohn: Speaking as a female, sex is better with a foreskin. Every circumcised penis I see is a sexual travesty.
Auracle: Would you have *your* genitals mutilated (without any painkillers) to make them faster to wash?
I wouldn’t. I can’t imagine that 5 extra seconds of washing is so hard that anyone would feel the need to be mutilated for that reason. (Not to mention that the foreskin plays an important role in keeping crap *out* of the urethra.)
In all things, I endeavor to treat others as I would want to be treated. I would not want to be strapped to a board and have my labia cut off without any pain killers. And I could never, ever do that to an infant whom I had promised to love and protect.
Wallsy: You’re interacting in a written environment. If you’re too lazy or stupid to read, go watch TV.
Madame M: I have read Dr. Sears. Yes, there are other humans out there saying the same things I am. However, there are still a great many people out there advocating schedules, formula, etc., to the detriment of babies and parents everywhere.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Okay, I know it’s a tiny tangent to a big (and enjoyable) article, but…circumcision.
I’m a UK-er, so being uncircumcised is the norm here. I’m also gay, so I’ve seen a few of each in my time. And gotta say, it amuses me how it often seems to be such a big issue for guys over in the US.
It’s not, really. My foreskin does not cause a “build up of smegma”. I wash. It’s easy — I think even Little-e’s “5 seconds” is an overestimate of how long it takes, to be honest. =) As for sex, some things are slightly more fun with guys with a foreskin, some things slightly less. But either way, emphasis on the ’slightly’.
There are occasional cases where an extra-tight foreskin causes problems in later life, but that’s easily fixed (and doesn’t even require full circumcision). I don’t know what you get told exactly over there, but over here I know of no rigorous medical reason why circumcision is preferable.
Overall, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being circumcised, but it should be a choice — so putting it on babies/kids for purely cultural grounds doesn’t sit well with me.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
How am I not surprised that Felis is a proponent of beating children? He needs something to help work out the stress of not seeing enough red squirrels around.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Djur, that was hilarious.
I’d love to be one of your children — the response to anything naughty would be a sympathetic cry of “Aww, naughty boy!” I wonder if you’re actually unable to discipline your children correctly, Djur. Why could that be? Meh, probably too stoned on hippy grass.
Either that, or you’re too busy to discipline your kids; after all,attempting to troll websites takes up a lot of one’s time, does it not, Djur?.
August 28th, 2008 at 2:18 am
I’m pretty sure Djur doesn’t plan on having kids, what with being a VHEMT member and all.
August 29th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Back in internet range after a week.
I think little_e- answered things roughly the same as I would have, particularly the bit about how I’m pretty sure she wasn’t advocating that EVERY woman MUST stay home and raise their children — the point was more that the schedules and ideals of the business world are for the most part stacked against mothers who actually want to raise their children on their own, or who would at least like to bond with them instead of just being baby factories who have enough time to shit out their kid between shifts and get back to pulling the lever.
Felis: Failure to beat your children is not negligence, and punishment and behavioral training doesn’t need to include let alone rely on physical pain. I mean, if you’re going for children who are blindly obedient to authority out of fear of ouchies, then go right ahead, but if you want children who are genuinely moral, you might want to try a different approach. As easy as it is to think otherwise, obedience is not the same thing as morality.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Because discipline teaches children a variety of lessons, including how to treat others. Hurting a child is a good way to teach them that powerful people should hurt those who disagree with them.
Of course, if your moral code doesn’t support using abuse or torture to get one’s way, then you need to use better forms of discipline to teach children responsible behavior instead of demonstrating sadism and rejecting empathy.
August 31st, 2008 at 4:02 am
This post is in two parts: Jabberwock, you only need read the first post; Randy, you only need read the second.
“Failure to beat your children is not negligence, and punishment and behavioral training doesn’t need to include let alone rely on physical pain.”
Absolutely — there are other means of punishment for naughty children, and often you have to be ready to consider your alternative options. You also need to provide an incentive to be good, as well as the incentive to not be naughty, and sometimes this involves a mixture of various methods.
Oh, and I think it’s also obvious that failing to give physical discipline isn’t negligent — I hope you aren’t so ignorant as to assume I live by the “Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child” philosophy.
“I mean, if you’re going for children who are blindly obedient to authority out of fear of ouchies, then go right ahead, but if you want children who are genuinely moral, you might want to try a different approach. As easy as it is to think otherwise, obedience is not the same thing as morality.”
Well, that should be blindingly obvious to anyone — other methods need to be considered as well if physical discipline doesn’t work. The fact is though, slight smacking (read: slight) provides this incentive to not be naughty, and is needed for various circumstances. If you then tell them why you smacked them (because their action was naughty or wrong), and talk to them about it, they’ll soon learn. Giving them slight physical discipline teaches them that wrong actions have bad consequences.
Oh, and I love your choice of verbs in your last post — “beat” is not the word I was looking for. YOo see, when I say “beat” I mean “using a cane or paddle on a child”. You seem to take the term “beat” as a blanket term appropriate to use for any physical punishment, no matter how slight.
When I say slight, I mean slight. An example would be giving a child a tap on the backside — with a hand, not a paddle — for drawing all over the wall. A small tap, that’s all. I am emphasising this for the sake of Randy, as well.
—
Randy: You need to learn several things.
First, there is a difference between “beating”, which involves using savage, brutal tactics such as a stick, paddle, or (in the case of one Australian family I know), a stick of bamboo. Smacking, commonly referred to as “a tap on the backside”, is — coincidentally — just a tap on the backside. I don’t condone beatings such as using canes, etc., I don’t condone striking the children round the body with fists or hands, and definitely not round the head or face. If I ever saw anyone doing that, I’d have Child Protection paying the fucker a visit. And to assume that I do condone that sort of reprehensible behaviour is very ignorant.
The other thing you need to realise is that practically everyone I know would only use physical discipline (and, again, it would be slight) for particularly naughty things, such as a five-year-old swearing after repeated warnings.
The third thing regards your statement directly. Let’s take a look at that.
“Hurting a child is a good way to teach them that powerful people should hurt those who disagree with them.”
There is a vast difference between using a little (yet again, I mean slight) physical punishment for a child being naughty and hurting someone for no reason. Referring to what I said to Jabberwock just above, that physical punishment teaches them about the negative consequences of negative actions — and again, it’s only (and should be) reserved for particularly naughty things. No child is suddenly going to think “Hmm, this gives me an idea — hurting people gets me my own way!” and then grow up into an asshole. The only way that will happen is if the punishment is severe enough to cause trauma, like beating, etc.
Also, this notion of “ineffectiveness” is often rubbish; again from what I said to Jabberwock, provding you tell them why you did it, and talk to them about it afterwards, they will learn their lesson. Now of course this doesn’t work for every child, but it does for some. And, again, it’s only reserved for particularly bad actions – lesser things involve taking a toy away, and other usual methods. This should be obvious to you by now, surely.
I’ll await your response.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:22 am
If a “tap on the backside” doesn’t cause any meaningful pain or discomfort, what advantage does it hold over a verbal chastening? If I had to choose between a little smack on the ass and a chewing-out, I know which I’d choose.
Parents who know what they’re doing don’t have to strike their children, because their approval and disapproval are far more powerful. Striking is ineffective up to the point it becomes a devastatingly effective tool to create more violent people.
And yes, I’m VHEMT. No kids here, now and forever.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:57 am
What’s VHEMT?
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Djur:
My point was that:
1. some children are not affected by smacking and as such it won’t work on them (so alternative methods do need to be considered), but it works for many;
2. and, as such, you need a mixture of smacking and non-violent procedures, which would be a slight smack (to provide an incentive to not be naughty) and a discussion with the child afterwards, telling them that their action was wrong and that was why you smacked them (to provide an incentive to be good) — this fulfills both needs;
3. and, thirdly, that physical discipline can indeed be reserved for the naughtier actions, whereas for minor ones a verbal chastening will do.
My previous comment wasn’t, to be honest, directed at you (I have a policy of only giving serious responses to serious comments, such as Jabberwock’s), but I’m responding to you anyway, since you decided to discuss.
The reason I approve of light smacking (when it’s appropriate) is because it provides that incentive to not do the action again. Verbal discussion is to give them an incentive to be good as a result of knowing right and wrong, and is only useful when bolstered by a little physical discipline.
Of course, this is only the case dealing with the more serious things that some kids do; for minor things, verbal chastisement will suffice, and smacking would actually be inappropriate in those circumstances.
In more serious circumstances, a verbal punishment won’t be sufficient — slight physical discipline will be needed as well, to reinforce the message that what the child did was wrong.
Verbal punishment without physical punishment is too ineffective, and physical punishment on its own would only confuse the child, since they weren’t told why they were disciplined, which can affect their mental health. Both are needed (again, this only applies for serious circumstances, and a verbal punishment suffices for little things), and if you can’t find that middle ground, I dread to think what sort of environment you were raised in.
Later.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Nevermind on my question about what VHEMT is, I just looked it up.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:42 pm
This is entirely brilliant — I know it’s been up a while, but if you’re still watching this thread, do you know of any theorists you could point me to who link up Marx and childbirth/childraising like you do here?
September 8th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
It seems no-one is responding yet. While I am waiting, and this thread is relatively silent, I would just like to say one important thing:
Cock.
October 19th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
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