Are you overthinking parenting? An economist explains why this might be a waste of time.
As you may have noticed, I’ve cut down on my posts to roughly two a week. I was contemplating just doing away with the Newsroom category altogether, but then I remembered that while my production has decreased my internet consumption has not. I’m crediting my insatiable appetite for knowledge and not my poor parenting skills for this constancy (but to be fair, I am at my parents’ house and have someone else to amuse Amelia, so it’s not like I’m neglecting her. Do you hear that Dad? I’m not neglecting her. This is my vacation). Anyway, enough inappropriate insights into my family dynamics and on to the cool stuff I’ve found online.
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Potty training. Yuck. My brain is about to explode. I literally just read a 50 page evidence report called “The Effectiveness of Different Methods of Toilet Training for Bowel and Bladder Control” done by The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. It was about as exciting as it sounds.
Why was I reading an evidence report, the kind of literature that includes lots of abstracts and objectives and executive summaries? I’m starting to not trust anything about toilet training and it’s driving me crazy. Some people claim we Americans are waiting too long (white Americans I should say) by pushing toilet training to 2.5, 3, or even beyond years. Others suggest we make like our forebears and Europeans and force the issue before 18 months. Still others are all about elimination communication, the practice of toilet training from birth. Some say do it all in a day. Others say wait for the kid to decide. The American Academy of Pediatrics and Mayo Clinic support the child readiness approach, as does the Canadian version of the AAP, but Google toilet training and you will find a plethora of opinions, most of which have very little actual research to back them up, which means like with so many other parenting topics, no one really knows what is best.
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I have a problem, but not one I’m willing to solve any time soon. I read too many parenting books, hardly a surprise (the blog is called overthinking mom after all). I read a ton before Amelia was born and then revolted against these books by doing a podcast on the history of mothering manuals, revealing the changing and contradictory advice peddled to make moms feel guilty throughout the centuries (information I got from reading a book about this history). I stopped reading for a while (maybe a couple months), but then Amelia had colic, so I read about that. Now, at 15 months, my precious non-colicky new toddler is super spirited, which I actually love about her, but I’m exhausted. What do I do when exhausted? I read.
The first time around I was overwhelmed by the contradictory advice. Now I’m a bit more confident in my parenting choices and have learned what to toss aside and what to take to heart, not that the advice I’m tossing aside is garbage, but at some point you have to decide if you are a crib mom or a co-sleeper, a cry it out or an attachment parent, a time outer or a connector, etc…
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A few weeks ago I heard Lea Goldman on NPR’s Talk of the Nation discussing moms who voluntarily give up custody of their kids, sometimes moving across the country or to a different country entirely to pursue dreams, other relationships, or education. Goldman discusses her Marie Claire article called “What Kind of Mother Leaves Her Kids” and defends the three moms she profiles (the article itself is kinda bland, but her interview highlights what she believes is the moral of these stories).
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This Newsroom post is for all you pregnant and future pregnant women out there. I pushed for almost three hours when giving birth. It sucked. The doctors gave me oxygen because I was so exhausted by the process, and the physical repercussions weren’t pretty. I learned two things from this experience: the body has an amazing ability to heal, and I don’t want to test out those particular healing powers again. I can’t change the past, but maybe I can help other women change their futures.
I recently came across a post “When Push Comes to Shove” on the blog Katy Says. Since I took three months of Bradley classes, I thought I knew a lot about natural birth (even with not having one). But I didn’t.
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You’ve probably heard about the arrest of 18 men and boys for (gang) raping an 11 year old girl in Cleveland, Texas. More men are thought to have been involved than the initial 18 arrested. The suspects range in age from middle schoolers to 27 years old. At a town hall meeting in Cleveland, 
