Toxic World Babies Must Love Tangents

Strollerderby Finishline: Boobs, mmmm That's Good Eatin'

Strollerderby — Sat, 12 May 2007 17:53:38 GMT

Puritans unite! Maggie Gyllenhaal has boobs . And you're not going to believe this -- are you ready? She uses them to feed. her. children. Next she'll want to push a kid out of her lady business, or perform some other wholly unnatural act. Crazy Hollywood

re: Toxic World Babies Must Love Tangents

whysofma — Wed, 09 May 2007 12:01:34 GMT

MG (+Lorraine),

Can you characterize my tone? I suspect there's a disconnect between how I believe I'm stating my case and how you (and others) are receiving it. I don't mind being challenged, but don't make comments like:

"Do you have any idea how you sound????"

"Your tone just makes it all seem ridiculous."

without explaining how my post rubbed you the wrong way.

re: Toxic World Babies Must Love Tangents

gogobetty — Wed, 09 May 2007 05:54:38 GMT

Wow. I had no idea I was so dumb. I always thought I could be pro-environment by just caring about the (you know) environment. I had no idea I had to subscribe to a whole philosophy about the organic evolution of behaviors and a mother-baby attention/care system (I had no idea there even was a system).

So who gets to decide what the "organic" behaviors are (clearly it's the people who instantly digress into throwing insults)? What makes one behavior more natural than another? Isn't that what the post was saying, that you can't pick and choose what is natural just because it is convenient. And doesn't evolution imply change over time? Clearly I am confused and apparently anti-environment.

I have to go, my mother-child attention/care system is going off again. I have to get that thing fixed.

re: Toxic World Babies Must Love Tangents

MG — Wed, 09 May 2007 05:10:06 GMT

Whysofma, Please don't explain further. Your tone just makes it all seem ridiculous.

re: Toxic World Babies Must Love Tangents

whysofma — Tue, 08 May 2007 19:33:30 GMT

Lorraine,

How do I sound? It makes sense to me, but do you want me to explain it further?

re: Toxic World Babies Must Love Tangents

Lorraine — Tue, 08 May 2007 19:00:45 GMT

"Because the baby's action of crying and the mother's response of attending to the cry evolved organically, AP parents maintain that "environmental" respect for the mother-baby attention/care system."

Give me a freakin break. Do you have any idea how you sound????

re: Toxic World Babies Must Love Tangents

Maujer — Tue, 08 May 2007 18:17:29 GMT

I agree, although I do co-sleep and breastfeed on demand.

I do those things because they are the easiest ways to take care of my kid. That's the only reason. I am not saving the planet by doing them. I am not even (only) doing them because I think they are "best." I think they are easiest. I think parenting is most fun when it is easy.

Perhaps I am just lazy?

I think people that try to make this into a "philosophy" are deluding themselves. One thing that is constant throughout all cultures about childrearing is that very little IS constant: there are a myriad of parenting practices and, somehow, most children still do end up being raised.

Environmentalism... that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish... and, frankly, the urbanites I've met who are newly conscious and overly enthusiastic are...

... worse than the babywearing crowd.

re: Toxic World Babies Must Love Tangents

AmyinMotown — Tue, 08 May 2007 18:01:14 GMT

I just KNEW some APer was going to have to hurl insults, I KNEW it.

I hear ya on the whole thing, but especially on the reverence for "traditional cultures." I know someone who really drank the AP Koolaid, and she's always spouting on how traditional cultures do this or that. It's like "Yes,and some practicie female gential mutilation, and dying in childbirth is common, as is babies dying before they reach age 5, just for openers." I do believe we need to get back to a simpler way of life in this society, but let's stop romanticizing the lives of people who contend with disease, poverty and misery on a scale we could not comprehend.

tangents are boring

whysofma — Tue, 08 May 2007 17:41:30 GMT

Hi Kelly,

While I can relate to being put-off by the hippy rhetoric of so many natural living proponents, I think that either you're playing dumb for the sake of a blog entry, or you're just not too bright.

A pro-environmental dogma suggests that we should live with minimal disruption to the earth and we should not disrupt the cycles and processes of the ecosystem which have coalesced over time. I'm sure if you search, you can find a more precisely written encapsulation of environmentalism.

That same respect for these evolutionary processes, applies directly to attending to a baby's cry for help. Because the baby's action of crying and the mother's response of attending to the cry evolved organically, AP parents maintain that "environmental" respect for the mother-baby attention/care system.

re: Toxic World Babies Must Love Tangents

NYC Mommy — Tue, 08 May 2007 16:49:26 GMT

I'm feeling ya on that one. I co-sleep with my daughter sort of out by accident (i think i kept passing out with her next to me) and now we're up against the do-we-or-don't-we train her to sleep in her crib.

But i also stopped nursing 5 months ago, mostly because it was messing up her sleep schedule, and you're right - something had to change at that point. i chose to change her food because i was spending hundreds of dollars on supplements and pumping every 2 hours just to make a fraction of enough milk for her, but if that had been working i can tell you right now that this kid would be sleeping somewhere else. it's like being a beer tap and marrying a drunk sometimes!

meanwhile, back to your point. parenting is a balance. many of these parents who are diving head first into parenting methods are forgetting the only real rule in parenting: each case is individual.

Everyone i've ever seen who did it really really really wrong got there by trying to do it really really really right and then you get to this psychotic point of "You're going to have fun - RIGHT NOW!!!!" or even worse.

um.......hello?

I don't like being with my kid 24/7. I just don't. I was spending a LOT of time worrying that i was going to be my mom (who wasn't exactly maternal, let's say), and then i figured out that if i spent 24/7 with my kid resenting it, that's far less valuable than spending 16 hours with her and i'm thrilled to see her.

Plus the nanny has better toys than we do.

so yah - if you're kid is doing fine, then ignore the billions of people who think it's fun to mess with us new parents and it's possible those people have some good advice on how to toddler-proof the recycling bin.

cheers!