Around the World in 27 Term Papers

I am currently in the middle of grading 27 term papers for my course "The Anthropology of Parenting." The assignment was to describe a culture and then write about a particular parenting topic.

Any teacher knows that reading and grading term papers can be a slog (and a discouraging confirmation that many college kids, even those at Ivy League schools, can't seem to write a simple sentence).

But this task is saved, at least in this assignment, by the amazing things I learned about parenting in other cultures.

Here are some examples:

Khmer mothers let boys breastfeed as along at they want but girls must stop by age 2 to prevent "inappropriate passionate behavior later in life." Who knew breastfeeding lead to an lascivious sex life?

Yoruba mothers often force feed their infants maize pablum. They hold the infant's nose closed and shovel it in. Mothers believe that force feeding promotes intimacy between mother and infant, and it's a quick way for busy mothers to make sure the baby is fed.

Mandinka children are expected to work and contribute to the household. By the age of 4 they do small chores around the house. Quickly, kids learn that working without complaining is a sign of maturity and adulthood. Oh, and by the way, Mandinka kids never receive a reward for their help. Contributing to the household is expected and valued and apparently they require no reward other than making their parents happy. (There's an idea I'd like to import.)

Nepali parents often put small bells on the ankles of toddlers to encourage them to walk. And while babies breastfeed, they are considered "pure." Children become more "polluted" like all adults as they start to eat solid food.

Aka pygmy fathers, noted for the hours they spend with their children, also hug and kiss their babies and kids more than mothers do. Mothers are more occupied in practical things like feeding kids and carrying them around.

Navajo babies were traditionally swaddled and placed in cradle board not just as an easy way to haul them about. The cradle board also functioned as a diaper stuffed with absorbent bark or cloth. A baby in a cradle board  strapped to mother's back or leaning upright against a tree also got a good view of the world. And the Navajo believed that babies felt endlessly secure in a cradle board, which was, of course, only temporary anyway.



That's only 6 papers out of 27, so you can imagine what else I learned.

There's a world of parenting out there and the Western way is certainly not the only, or the best, way.

Free To Be Diaper Free

It's been a busy month for diaper-free babies.

They've been vetted in The New York Times, maligned in Slate, written about and discussed on NPR blogs, and unearthed from my past with an op-ed I wrote for The New York Times in 2005.

And yet, with all that exposure, so to speak, they still aren't wearing diapers.

I first heard about Western babies going diaper-free from a neighbor who had "trained" her new baby to poop and pee over the toilet. In reality, the mother held baby over the toilet first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and whenever she felt a certain indicative wiggle while holding the baby.

I was stunned, and only sorry my kid was already heading into the bathroom on her own and slamming the door. I had carried my daughter all the time and I knew that wiggle, but I just ignored it and then changed her diapers.


I was also stunned that I hadn't even thought about the contrast between the West and other cultures in how kids learn where to "go."

Some anthropologist.

Some cross-cultural parenting expert.

My only excuse is that like anyone, I carry a lot of my culture with me and apparently I had carried it into the bathroom.

I, too, figured I would need to "train" my child and understood that it might patience and endless repetition, and that the process might take months, maybe years.

But all I had to do was think of all the kids I had seen across the globe, most of them without diapers, let alone pants. Sure, mothers were sometimes stuffing cloth under the babies' bums, but the walking ones weren't exactly doing their business all over the place. What were they doing?

Later, people told me that toddlers were sometimes held over holes where adults go (like my friend) and once they walked, even tiny kids headed that way by themselves. And in every culture it was private business.



I wish I had done this with my child, put her over the toilet so she wouldn't have to be "trained" to find it two years later. That would have made for a much neater childhood for both of us.

I also wish someone would potty train all those adult men in Western culture who seem to be arrested as young toddlers unable to make it to the toilet and seemingly unaware that it's impolite to pee in public.

Perhaps those shocked about a little baby pee could get diapers on those guys as well.

My Kid is Sooo Great

Parents consistently overestimate children's optimism, and have no real idea of how much their kids worry. So say researchers at the University of California, Davis .

Parents are also notorious for thinking their kids are smarter and more accomplished than they really are.

Researchers are kind enough to call this a "positive bias" but really, they are suggesting that we parents are delusional about our own kids.

Maybe some are, but not me.

I know for sure that my kid is really smart.

I also know she does well in school and barely has to work at it.

That she takes her future seriously and has no time for fooling around.

I also think she can fly. I have no idea where I got that notion, but I believe it. So sue me.

Using Children

A  recent The New York Times cover story told the shocking tale of an Afghan father who had offered his 6-year -old daughter as collateral for a $2,500 loan. Because the father will never be able to repay that loan, his daughter will  leave her family and marry the money lender's 17 year-old son.

 

Of course, Westerners are shocked by the very idea of "selling off" a child, but the loan was made to pay for medical care for the man's wife and the other children, he had no other collateral, and now he is stuck. 

It's shocking, dreadful, and morally reprehensible at every level. But humans also have a long history of making these sorts of decisions.

I was reading this article just as I was lecturing my students about the possible reasons for the evolution of the long human childhood. Contrary to the intuitive idea that childhood is about learning, anthropologist Barry Bogin has suggested that childhood is actually about parents exploiting children. When the older kids take over the younger kids, Bogin says, parents are free to reproduce again thus passing on more genes. 

This idea is just theory, but it makes some sense. No one yet has been able to show that kids need all that time to learn how to be social or economically successful. And around the world, most childcare is done by other children, not adults.

In other words, there might be a very long history of parental exploitation of children. 

I was also thinking about Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's book Mother Nature in which Hrdy explains that throughout human history parents have had to make difficult and abhorrent decisions about which children to nurture and which to let go. 

Infanticide is the worst of sins, but it seems that sometimes parents have made that choice because it was necessary for the survival of other children. 

Our ancient and recent history has been splattered with innocent blood by moments of Sophie's Choice. It isn't pretty at all, but it happens.

And yet our children are the most vulnerable of our kind and I believe that the any parent should die for their children, and kill for them as well. 

But then I am not living in extreme poverty in a refugee camp, and I don't have eight other kids to care for. So maybe I know nothing.

Babies and Money

We often hear that the rate of Cesarean birth is high in the the United States. Sure, it can save the lives of baby and mothers, but there is always the suspicion that the procedure is often done when it's not really necessary.


And why is that? To control the birth process? For money? To stave of malpractice claims? Because the procedure is there?

A recent article points our that Cesarean Section is the "most commonly performed operating room procedure in the US. Given pour low birth rate in this country this seems decidedly odd.

So researches from the University of Minnesota gathered information on 800,000 births at 593 hospitals, and the result is telling.

Amazingly, the range of rates goes from 7% of deliveries to 70% of deliveries.

The article also point out that there has been a major increase in Cesareans from 21% of all births in 1996 to 33% of all births in 2011. And there is no hint that there has been such an increase in high risk birth situations.

The researchers suspects it has to do with money, how the doctors and hospitals are paid for their work.

Now we have cultural Western culture has already medicalized birth, and now we have made it a financial event.

The Bacteria of Babies

I just delivered the lecture of the evolution of breast feeding to my class, The Anthropology of Parenting.


Coincidentally, there were two articles  in The New York Times about breast feeding, gut bacteria, and the health of babies.

One  focuses on the growing number of children and adults who seem to be gluten intolerant or have celiac disease. Researchers now see a connection between what we are fed as babies and an inability to tolerate gluten. It seems that bifidobacteria come with breastfeeding are these bacteria are implicated in the ability to eat wheat without intestinal damage. No breast milk results in less of a "good" bifidobacterial load that will  guard against potential harm from gluten.


The other article showcases the results of a Canadian study that connects Cesarean section and lack of breast feeding to absent but critical bacterial in the guts of babies. These essential bacteria make for a decent immune system that potentially guards against asthma, allergies, and cancer. And so bottle fed babies more at risk for these ailments later in life.


These implications make perfect sense when we accept that breast milk is a baby's perfect food and it evolved to keep our babies healthy and happy.

As I told my students, I stand before you with a face rash, eczema on my hands, and a background of asthma, probably because I was not breast fed. But here I am.

The Culture of Safer Births

In modern Western culture we often applaud home births. As a culture that long ago medicalized the birth process, many women are now rejecting what hospitals and doctors offer and turning to midwives  and doulas.    

Home birth is a reasonable option in our culture because most pregnancies are complication free, midwives are usually trained nurses, and our homes are close enough to hospitals in case of an emergency. 

That's why home birth feels like a choice that women in  any culture "ought" to have.

But that's also why we have step out of our cultural bias when hearing about a move in the opposite direction in some other culture.

Joyce Banda, the president of Malawi, is hoping to make home birth with traditional attendants a thing of the past. Instead, Banda wants to medicalize the birth process by giving all Malawian women prenatal care and bringing them to health facilities for delivery.

Banda is moved to change her culture because 1 in 36 women die during childbirth in Malawi (in contrast 1 in 2,400 are at risk in the US). They die because pregnancy is considered a secret only to be shared with one's mother, which means no prenatal care. Labor and delivery are usually guided by birth attendants who have no training nor the equipment to deal with complications.

Legislators tried to ban home births in Malawi, but that didn't work. And so President Banda has begun to work within the system she knows so well.

Engaging tribal chiefs to endorse birth in safe facilities is one part of her plan.

The other is offering every women a trained "secret mother" who will guide the pregnancy within the health care system while leaving the social traditions of pregnancy and birth intact.

Once again, an underdeveloped country is working within their own traditions, trainings locals to liaison with doctors and nurses, and making health care a grassroots effort.

Once again, we have to wonder about our own bloated, complicated, expensive, and ineffective health care system based on the Western traditions of independence, choice, and money.

I wonder what Joyce Banda  could do with that.