Crass Parenting: Babies by the Book

When we were expecting our first child, my husband read several books about parenting. He was worried that he didn’t know much about babies. He did, however, know a lot about research so he put those skills to work.

After many hours of reading, he concluded that parenting books are of no help whatsoever. Here is the problem, as he described it to me:

If you want to engage in an exercise in futility, take a book by Doctor Sears, famous for his attachment parenting theories, and compare it to a book by Doctor Buckman and Gary Ezzo, famous for their Babywise method. Read a chapter on a specific topic in one book, and then read the corresponding chapter in the other. The differences in their advice will drive you insane.

I would like to hear a debate between these two self-proclaimed experts. I think it would go something like this:

Moderator: Let’s start with feeding:

Buckman: Put him on a schedule so he’ll sleep through the night

Sears: Feed him on demand because babies know when they’re hungry.

Buckham: Babies who are fed on demand become fussy and will never sleep well.

Sears: Babies who are not fed on demand become dehydrated and malnourished.

Buckman: You’re spoiling the baby

Sears: You’re trying to starve the baby

Buckman: Now you’re being melodramatic

Sears: That’s because you’re being a baby nazi

Moderator: Alright, that deteriorated fast. Let’s try a more neutral topic, like co-sleeping

Sears: I recommend a family bed. Denying the child attention will make him anxious which will screw him up for life.

Buckman: You shouldn’t let the baby into the adults’ bed. Learn to recognize the baby’s cries and let him cry we should learn to recognize his cries and let him cry himself to sleep if he doesn’t sound agitated. To give him too much attention will make him needy, which will screw him up for life.

Sears: That baby will have an anxiety disorder and feel unloved.

Buckman: Oh yeah? Well, the baby in the family bed will grow up to be a huge p….

Moderator: Alright, let’s move on. How about a parental date night?

Buckman: Parents creating a “date night,” a time to leave the kid with someone else and reconnect as a couple.

Sears:  I strongly disagree. Parents should  wear the child in a sling and take him everywhere they go for the first two years of the child’s life.

Buckman: That’s insane. Parents to spend at least 15 minutes each night talking solely to each other, ignoring the child so that they can connect as a couple. It’s important to show the child that the parents have a strong marriage so the child understands his role in the family.

Sears:  In some primitive cultures, the child doesn’t even touch the ground until he’s two-years-old, at which time they have a historic “ground breaking ceremony,” declaring the child ready to touch the ground. Systems like this make our children feel loved and safe, which will stop us from screwing them up for life.

Buckman: That’s the craziest piece of hippie nonsense I’ve ever heard. Children should not be running the family life. Parents need time alone or they’ll go insane.

Sears: Children are equal members of the family. You want to run the family like a military camp. Do you even like children?

Moderator: Okay, let’s talking about sleeping. Lots of parents worry about getting the child to sleep.

Sears: If your child has trouble sleeping, try putting him in a car seat on top of a running clothes dryer or rocking him to sleep.

Buckman: No, don’t do that. Ever. It’s dangerous to put a baby on a clothes dryer. If you rock the baby to sleep, it will become dependent on rocking to get to sleep.

Sears: So it’s wrong to rock a baby to sleep? Is that what you’re saying?

Buckman: I’m saying that babies need to learn to fall asleep on their own. You can’t rock to them to sleep every time.

Sears: Oh, I see. Just let them scream until they pass out. That’s the loving way to handle it. Why don’t you just let them stay in the crib all day and just throw them a ham bone every once in a while?

Buckman: I suppose you want to run around naked in a field with the baby in a sling singing songs about nature? That’s how you’d like to raise a baby, you crazy hippie.

Moderator: Guys, we’re just trying to help out the parents.

Buckman: I can’t talk to him. He called me a baby nazi.

Sears: You called me a hippie.

Moderator:  That’s IT! I have had enough of this! If you two doctors don’t stop fighting, I’m going send both of you to time out.

I think this is an overly optimistic view of how said debate would go.