made me want to bring up before I reached for the gripe water
I've always thought that parents were the best experts
that they would know what to do and that's what they oughter ...
There's 926 books available of parenting and child care
and that doesn't include the DVDs and magazines
compared with diet (79) and weight loss (33) in print
there's a lack of confidence in Aussie women it seems ...
Are modern women, used to controlling their working lives
incapable of following their instincts when having a baby
for instead of it being a normal, natural part of life
it's something to fear perhaps or an upheaval maybe?
Instead of listening to our own and others mothers
we go into 'information overload' mode from the junk media
focus-groups, mothercare, pre-natal consultations and the like
"No breast-feeding for you, babe, the formula's gonna feedya" ...
Truby King of Spock, problem is today's parents are paralysed by fear
they can't read the cues or know whether to respond to baby or not
because they themselves can't differ between their own wants and needs
they can't tell if their child needs the bot or a pat on the bot
Many women today have smothered their instincts in long careers
years childless, 'investing in themselves', absorbed in their own patters
only to find out when they do have children much later on ..
it's not what they do but who they are that really matters
And, the increasing number of social ills that tempt us while 'careering'
crass consumerism, credit-fuelled hedonism, alcohol and drugs
make us neglect our family and lose the strong links of their support
makes it difficult to ask Grandma for a break from bubs ...
With children coming late in life, grandmothers are almost too old
to advise and help and do the grandmotherly things we used to know
in the future it may be a distinct possibility .....
there just won't be grandies alive to see them grow
Once upon a time we didn't have gender-neutral parents you know
we had mothers and fathers, not infant management techniques
but kids today are subject to bizarre social experiments ...
same-sex, serial step-parents, father-figures and other tragiques
Men and women complement each other in the parenting stakes
but it's the guiding instinct of the mother who does the mothering
having children earlier with a loving man willing to adjust and learn
makes for infinitely much better mothering and satisfying fathering
3 comments:
How true Bernie.
I saw this program once, and that was enough. However, from that one viewing, I was at least curiously entertained from a purely clinical/statistical and informative point of view. What I learned was fascinating. Fascinating in the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of techniques and opinions world wide. Fractured opinions and debatable ideas, that ultimately only prove the point that no one can claim legitimacy to what really works. If their are so many divided opinions on that subject, logic dictates that one can only follow ones own instincts.
Instincts . . . you're right Bernie - that's the key. I don't think we've lost our intrinsic instinct or our intuition, as you say, we've just got lazy with information overload. I Agree with the basic thrust of your argument.
And Bernie, may I say, in the spirit of Devil's advocate, you confirmed all of this accumulated infantile bias by adding your own subjective, but legitimate to you, "instinctive" opinions to the list.
Hey, Mr Devil's Advocate,
If, as you say, I added my subjective but legitimate (to me) 'instinctive opinions' would that not be a contradiction in terms? Is instinct subjective only? Cannot instinct be objective as well?
Opinion, by definition, is the expression of one's considered analysis of a particular matter or issue. If one chooses to use commonsense when arguing a matter and that commonsense is accepted as such by others other than the proponent of the argument, how can it be bias? For example, many agree with me about the uncertainty in mothers today. I see it in my daughter and my daughter-in-law. How does that approximate to bias?
It's the friggin' nanny state of mind the younger gens find themselves in and of course they love it.
My rant about the 'Oil-spill' and Facebook will be on the blogsite soon .....
Bernie, you're right. Opinions and instincts can be both objective and subjective. My fault!
On this point, which I now see as badly worded, I was merely trying to explain how we all throw our tuppence into the argument adding to the list of confusion.
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