Baby Steps
Has a century of child-rearing advice taught us anything?
No proof. Despite the great claims made for it, however, little of the advice could be proved effective. Some was based on shoddy science: Although Watson said his conclusions on the infinite malleability of infant personalities were based on experiments with thousands of babies, he only ever reported on his work with two, and that in scientifically sketchy detail. By midcentury, an anthropologist reviewing claims for the softer approach found much of the research "meager, indeterminate, conflicting, uncontrolled, [and] misrepresented." And Spock, who urged parents to ignore the experts, admitted that "it really all came out of my head." Yet the experts weren't exactly frauds, either. "Each of the experts do have something to say that is clearly wise and right," says Hulbert. "What doesn't generally hold together is the totality of . . . their vision."
So has modern science made parenting advice any better at the beginning of a new century? Not necessarily. "Children resist easy analysis," writes Hulbert, and questions about nature vs. nurture still aren't resolved. Certainly more is known now about how children develop, but just because scientists understand, say, the growth of baby brain synapses does not automatically mean that playing Mozart for your toddler is going to boost brain power.
So the advice ends up sounding surprisingly similar to that of, well, 1899. The books may be flashier, the titles more apocalyptic, but experts still debate how structured children's lives should be, how much of women's lives should be devoted to them (yup, it's still up to the mothers), and what the best methods are for getting a baby to sleep through the night. Ezzo has brought back the infant feeding schedules that Holt was so fond of, while Stanley Greenspan has "functional developmental growth charts" that would make Gesell proud. And a wave of conservative experts are turning their backs on science and embracing what turn-of-the-last-century mothers rejected: the Bible and common sense from Grandma.
Maybe Dr. Spock was right after all. "Trust yourself," he wrote. "You know more than you think you do." Just cross your fingers that your child's resilient nature compensates for the blows to his nurture inflicted by too many parental hours at the office and not enough baby brain games at home. "Certainly all a mother and father can claim credit for," said Margaret Mead, whose hard Holtian childhood inspired her to turn to the softer Spock when she had a daughter of her own, "is that they have not marred a child in any recognizable way."
What they said
G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924): Up to 7, a child can be a "healthy little savage"; from 8 to 12 should be "the age of drill . . . sacred to habituation, to discipline, training, [and] obedience"; and adolescence is the "new birth, when higher and more completely human traits are now born."
L. Emmett Holt (1855-1924): Toilet training is "easily [done] by the third month," crying is "necessary for health," and as for playing: "never until 4 months, and better not until 6 months."
John Broadus Watson (1878-1958): "Never hug and kiss [children]. Never let them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night."
Arnold Gesell (1880-1961): Mothers should make "the baby (with all his inborn wisdom) a working partner" by examining "the total behavior day of the baby as it records itself on the daily chart."
Benjamin Spock (1903-1998): "Leave bowel training almost entirely up to your baby. A child will completely train himself sooner or later if no struggle has taken place."
Bruno Bettelheim (1903-1990): "The good family isn't one in which problems don't occur, but one in which the members work together to solve problems as they happen." -R.H.S. -Rachel Hartigan Shea
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