« Death of the American Dream | Main | The one handed milk feeder »
December 06, 2005
Grumpy and spirited
Sarah was reading the Secrets of the Baby Whisperer. I am not a fan of the book because it reads like Men are From Mars and Women are from Venus and tries to suggest that there is a right way to parent a child such that the child goes to sleep when you want them to. The right way is a solution involving rigid scheduling in order to build a "routine". This also includes anal retentive tracking through forms or spread sheets of information like when the baby was taking a bottle, pooping, peeing (as if you can really tell), and sleeping. It gives you a test to see how rigid you are and then tells you how big of an adjustment it will be if you are someone like me who is very lackadaisical about things like forming rigid schedules and locations for my baby to sleep in. Didn't we evolve from nomadic tribes? These sorts of problem solving books only occur in a modern society where problems like obesity, anorexia, and dating strategies are major problems that don't make people lose much sleep in less affluent countries where survival is a more central focus over optimizing comfort.
Sarah isn't pushing the book but is reading it. She took some quiz that tries to give your baby a personality test and determined that Madeline falls into the categories of "Spirited" and "Grumpy". From what I can gather that is a tough combination where a "Lazy" and "Happy" baby would be very easy to care for. But given our own personalities it is only fitting to have a spirited and grumpy baby.
I also scanned through the book that Scuz and Erin got us that has quotes at the bottom of each page. I liked the following quote from Mother Theresa. She was very smart.
"The hunger for love is harder to remove than the hunger for bread."
Posted by dhousman at December 6, 2005 04:50 AM