At the time my first son was born I was busy writing my Honours dissertation on coming-of-age in the Western Desert, but I’d done some psychology as well and very interested in childhood development.

So, we had a LOT of body contact, ‘co-sleeping’ if you want to call it that, a lot of talking and spending time together, deliberately reversing the standard Western Spock model supposing that children should be left alone in their own bed, not disturbed, blah blah blah . . . .

Ultimately the marriage itself failed, for a number of reasons, so traveling back and forth between two households from age 6-7 made the boys further resilient and independent, dealing with their parents more as peers than authority figures. By puberty it was made clear to them that there was no such thing either as a teenager; yet another unfortunate invention, so from 13 or so they were treated as young men.

The result was two young achievers. The eldest is now achieving High Distinctions in Geology while the second is a boilermaker at age 19 already purchased his own house. Their Dad is still today considered radical, eccentric, irreverent, but all the boy’s friends love to sit and chat, and wonder that society treats children so badly, so oppressively.

But then, the child itself was a peculiarly Victorian invention in itself.

Recent case-control studies (comparing reported SIDS cases with randomly-selected controls) have reported a link between bed-sharing and higher SIDS rates for babies under 20 weeks old.

But these were studies of European populations who bed share in ways that introduce other risk factors. It’s not clear to me that the researchers were able to control for all these other risk factors. We didn’t evolve sleeping on soft mattresses, for instance. And when I checked with the lead author on one of the most influential case-control studies, he confirmed that the study didn’t control for how many people shared the bed with the infant, or illegal drug use by the adults sharing the bed.

In some places where bed-sharing is traditional, SIDS rates are low.

I’ve reviewed the latest stuff about SIDS here:

http://www.parentingscience.com/what-is-SIDS.html

And bed-sharing (which isn’t necessarily the same thing as co-sleeping) here:

http://www.parentingscience.com/bed-sharing.html

Mosko S, Richard C, McKenna J. 1997. Infant arousals during mother-infant bed sharing: implications for infant sleep and sudden infant death syndrome research. Pediatrics. 100(5):841-9.

I’ve never had a kid, but one co-sleeping mother I know–who is a large lady, making me wonder about her crushing the infant–told me that when she co-sleeps, she sleeps differently and there is some sort of perpetual awareness that there is someone else in the bed beside her.

Rick

I was so disgusted by the state of parenting advice–and the total lack of anthropological perspective–that I started publishing my own reviews of the literature on the web.

So, if you’re interested, check out http://www.parentingscience.com/.

I’ve poured thousands of hours into it, and would love to hear from more anthropologists. My articles include full references, so if nothing else, you’ll find guides to the key research.

In addition to Hrdy, I HIGHLY recommend David Lancy’s _Anthropology of Childhood_ (Cambridge Press). I’d go so far as to say this should be required reading for anthro undergraduates. 🙂
He’s extremely insightful and slays many dragons, including romantic myths cherished by academics and laypeople alike.

I also love Melvin Konner’s chapter in _Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods_. And Barry Hewlett has produced lots of fascinating research about hunter-gatherer family life.

Konner’s just published a huge tome, _Evolution of Childhood_, which is the kind of thing I might assign in an upper division undergraduate or graduate course. It’s a major synthesis of everything… with an evolutionary perspective. It’s more encyclopedic and biological than Lancy’s book (e.g., whereas Lancy focuses on the cultural ecology of behavior, Konner covers topics like history theory, nonhuman primates, growth, and brains).

For developmental psychology, Charles Fernyhough’s book is a pleasure to read.

Alison Gopnik’s latest–the Philosophical Baby–is a good overview of research on the minds of kids through age 5. _

_How babies talk_ is a bit old, but still an excellent, practical overview of language development.

Congratulations to you, Mom, and the boys. And hello, John (if you read this).

Instead of adding to your list of recommended readings, I’d like to add a few comments that may be of help, and, as a mother of three awesome young adults–two of whom are twins–my words may even prove useful.

First, the best learning comes with the doing (i.e., experientially), so always be open to learning from (e.g., listening to) your children–even in the most trying of times, and teamwork matters (children know this, too, and they learn it at a very early age).

Second, remember that nobody can read your children better than you two, so, whatever advice you receive (whether from doctors, friends, anthropologists, or other generators of “wise”dom), hold fast to the first rule.

Third, appreciate that humor abounds (although you may not recognize it at first), so be sure to document your experiences, and then write, or co-author, your own book on the anthropology of child-rearing in the future.

EnJOY, and be sure to give my best to the new mom!

On a gentler note, “And Baby Makes Three” by the Gottman crew is also helpful.

As I recall, according to Achebe’s Things Fall Apart they should already have been thrown into the spooky forest.

But are the twins chucked into the Forest because it is Evil or is it Evil because the twins have been chucked into it for ages? As Mintz and Price point out, the fact that twins are abominations to the Igbo and a cause for rejoicing among the Yoruba is a perfect example not of two opposing logics but a single logic with an inversion.

My South Asian friends can’t figure out why toilet training is such a fuss for SuburbaEuros. They have it done by age one. Something to look into; time’s a-wastin’.

I don’t think it would be very workable within the ecology of professional academic life. My understanding is that it needs all day every day attentive face-to-face with the trainees for a while.

My South Asian friends can’t figure out why toilet training is such a fuss for SuburbaEuros. They have it done by age one. Something to look into; time’s a-wastin’.

As for the helpy lit, I quite like How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, which is also illuminating for teaching and committee meetings.

You must be dictatorial about sleep and feeding — right now they sleep all the time, but by 2 months they will suck up every waking and non-waking moment if they are not on the same schedule.

So… yeah, and umm… I am personally all kinds of against the little indigo free range children that are always trying to crawl into the booth with me at the local coop but I am a little taken aback at the notion that one can be dictatorial to a two-month-old. You can drug them or thrash them into submission but an eight-week-old can’t really take orders. Am I missing something?

You must be dictatorial about sleep and feeding — right now they sleep all the time, but by 2 months they will suck up every waking and non-waking moment if they are not on the same schedule. Fortunately, it is (usually) possible to sync them by controlling the feedings.

Twins, wow. You will have your hands full.

A high school classmate of mine had twins shortly after we graduated. I remember running into her three or four years later at the laundromat as she was trying to fold clothes and keep track of her very high energy little boys. I asked her if having twins was that much harder than having one at a time. Every time I see a parent with twins I remember her reply and the look on her face as she gave it – “I wouldn’t know. I guess that’s actually a good thing.”

On the plus side, I have observed that eventually twins tend to start helping out with childcare in the way that a slightly older sibling does.