I was doing some reading this evening during E’s nap seeking factual non-biased information ob where “Cry It Out” with infants came from, the men who published this as well as other behaviorist and American societal advise.
What is behaviorism? “a school of psychology that takes the objective evidence of behavior (such as measured responses to stimuli) as the only concern of its research and the only basis of its theory without reference to conscious experience.” Manipulation to create a desired outcome.
The Father of Behaviorism, Dr Emmett Holt (late 1800’s), and John Watson (1920’s) were prominent for their pediatric work during a time when infant mortality was high in America, as well as the average life span being only 50 years. The pediatrician’s role was to help with the sick, treat health issues, keep our children alive and healthy. Dr Holt leveraged his popularity as a pediatrician and made a publication for nurses and mothers which largely focused on how to make sanitary formula from cows during a time when sanitation was not always easy to come by or understood, causing diarreah and death to infants. I am sure his efforts saved lives during a time where conditions were wildly different.
In this same major publication Dr Holt provided opinion, treated as fact due to his title and popularity, on infant’s well-being and mother’s parenting. So he explained the frigid techniques on how to control children and predict their future behavior that meets American societal expectations. I can see how manipulation can be fascinating; creating your own conditions to see a specific result. However the conditions they were creating were never proven. It was just a narcissistic way of parenting. Dr Holt stated playing with babies was a bad idea: “Never until four months, and better not until six months.” Dr Watson’s advice in his later publication was no better. Watson advised parents “never” to “hug and kiss” their children. Spoiling a baby was an immoral act that could forever curdle a child’s character.
Since Dr Holt’s publication was against all forms of nurturing to include no touching, rocking, bouncing, patting, or playing with infants - so not to raise a mamas boy, the below quotes did not surprise me:
His 1913 presidential address: “We must eliminate the unfit by birth not by death. The race is to be most effectively improved by preventing marriage and reproduction by the unfit, among whom we would class the diseased, the degenerate, the defective, and the criminal.”
Holt’s assistant and another pediatrician “He seemed to us ‘austere and unapproachable.’ He is not known to have said ‘good morning’ to his secretary…nor ever to have praised anyone or anything.”
During the time of Dr Holt and Dr Watson, mothers were often devalued and criticized publicly. One example is Scottish physician William Buchan’s 1804 book Advice to Mothers informed them that “in all cases of dwarfishness or deformity, ninety-nine out of a hundred are owing to the folly, misconduct or neglect of mothers.” mothers were repeatedly criticized for being “anxious, well-meaning, but ignorant,” as one 1916 book put it. Holding children was considered a sure way to produce what a 1911 text termed a “little tyrant.” A U.S. Department of Labor stated in an “Infant Care” pamphlet in 1929, “a baby should learn that such habitual crying will only cause his parents to ignore him.”
By 1946 Dr Spock went against the strict parenting approach and published a book urging the opposite advice based on instinctual, anthropological, developmental science and urged parents to nurture. Since then scientific research and neuroscience has flourished in support of nurturing being critical and the physical and subsequent emotional consequences to cry-it-out and other behaviorist methods. However, those behaviorist ideals remained offered.
If you are given any parenting advice that goes against your instincts or your gut especially as a mother - don’t do it. You are inherently more powerful and instinctual than you realize. The answer is inside of you, its you. Experts are clinically trained in a specific area for which you are taking your child to them for. Unless they’ve been involved in child developmental research, anthropology or psychology for 30+ years- any opinion on sleep and parenting is their personal opinion so take it with a grain of salt and not as fact.
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