What about the Kids?

Disclaimer: Still new to the jargon

Are we really going to have this social discussion over and over and over?

I've heard versions of this same thing:

Do working women have any business having kids?
Do single parents harm kids?
Should gay couples adopt?

Blah blah blah.

In my view it is the same answer. A good relationship with the child and caring adults will enrich the child. whether working, single, gay, lesbian, bi, trans, mono, poly, whatever. Kids have an exciting world to explore and what they need from adults is not details of their sex lives or work lives or sexual orientation, but someone who empowers them to chase potential, provides well, keeps them safe. Anyone can do that. Issue of effort, not sexuality.
 
I believe there are successful poly parents out there (including those on this thread).
 
I have three very well adjusted boys. Who I could not be prouder of who know very well that their mom is poly. They also hear about my job and their fathers job. I work in veterinary medicine. My youngest has watched many a surgery in his day. My boys have been exposed to the real world and prepared for it. Not a fanasty world full of unicorns and rainbow farts.
 
Again. NOT a parent ....

Getting parenting advice from a non-parent is like getting marriage counseling from a priest: Reams of shoulds, caveats and "best"s based on worst case scenarios with zero appreciation for the nuances and vast variations of the actual experience.

I disagree with much of your advice, Jane, but the only point I want to comment on is letting babies cry it out. This is approaching crime level, in my opinion. I'm a parent a few times over and I just cannot fathom how in anyone's world this can be considered "best" or even "good" for another human being. The fairly recent advice to let babies cry it out is downright bizarre and not practiced in most cultures and throughout history. Same with co-sleeping, BTW. Babies cry at night for a reason and Mother Nature knows what she's doing when she designs them that way.
 
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Getting parenting advice from a non-parent is like getting marriage counseling from a priest: Reams of shoulds, caveats and "best"s based on worst case scenarios with zero appreciation for the nuances and vast variations of the actual experience.

I disagree with much of your advice, Jane, but the only point I want to comment on is letting babies cry it out. This is approaching crime level, in my opinion. I'm a parent a few times over and I just cannot fathom how in anyone's world this can be considered "best" or even "good" for another human being. The fairly recent advice to let babies cry it out is downright bizarre and not practiced in most cultures and throughout history. Same with co-sleeping, BTW. Babies cry at night for a reason and Mother Nature knows what she's doing when she designs them that way.

Agreed. I don't understand how exposing your children to such high levels of stress hormones and feelings of abandonment can be condoned. Because babies don't KNOW that you're coming back. All they know is that you're not here and they need you (even if it's "just" for physical touch - which is "just" a basic need). I feel awful when my baby is crying and I can't comfort her, even when someone else is trying! And I mean can't, like hands covered in raw meat juice kind of can't not an I'm doing something else and don't want to take a break kind of can't.
 
I have to make a HUGE exception to the point about letting babies cry.

HUGE.

When a woman has given birth, her hormones are totally out of wonk and she's probably struggling with self-care. Not sleeping enough. Possibly not eating enough. The mother's stressors are intense, especially if she doesn't have a lot of support from others.

And a baby's crying can crank those stress levels up to a place off the charts. A horrifying and dangerous place. I've been there, and I've felt that. People wonder what kind of a monster of a mother could possibly harm her baby...I'm here to tell you, that it's not monstrosity of character, it's being quite simply OUT OF CONTROL. Out of your own control. No, I didn't harm my babies. But I damn sure felt the impulse. And it terrified me. It was the worst with my firstborn, because I didn't have much support and life was very hard and I didn't know that it was important for me to take care of myself. I was very young.

It must be emphasized to new mothers, especially first time mothers, that self care is vital. That if she feels those stress levels building to critical intensity, she has GOT to put the baby in a safe place, and walk away for a few minutes. And that is completely justifiable, it doesn't make her a bad mother or a bad person. Put the baby down, go have a snack or a few minutes somewhere alone, and come back.

I'm talking about short sanity breaks, not letting a baby cry for hours though. But it's important because people who get on their high horses and lecture women about the "right way" to parent can make such a new mom think she's got to be perfect and try so hard, and the levels of pressure just make it more stressful. You can be doing all the "right things" and freaking yourself out over it and it doesn't do you a damn bit of good if you have a mental break and either harm the child or become incapable of caring for the baby due to extreme depression or something.

EDIT: Also, to point at a relevant connection here, in an ideal situation with good people and good relationships, I would actually think polyamory would be very beneficial in this way. More adults in the family means potentially more support for the new Mom, and for the children as they grow up. When I first met some poly folks who had mingled families with children, I thought "Oh my goodness, that sounds AMAZING" for this very reason.
 
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I also believe that leaving them to cry does no good and causes unnecessary stress for mother and baby. As humans we learn to trust, to know you can rely on people and to find joy and comfort in relationships, in our first short year.
 
So, if a baby is left to cry, does s/he grow up with the mindset that people can't be trusted?
 
So, if a baby is left to cry, does s/he grow up with the mindset that people can't be trusted?

My ex was not only left to cry, he simply was not held that much. He was adopted, and his adoptive Mom was a smoker (practically everyone was back then) and she burned him a couple of times trying to hold him with a lit cigarette, so she started just leaving him in a crib and later a playpen, much of the time.

He is one of the most maladaptive human beings I've ever known. Has no faith in anyone, even those who have proven to be trustworthy in certain areas, he is constantly setting up tests where if you fail even slightly, he can scream and yell about how you can't be trusted and no one has any integrity and the world is against him. Also, requires constant attention, and if not getting constant positive attention, will do outrageously bad things to DEMAND negative attention (such as threatening his own life or others in order to make other people come sit with him.)

Now...he's an extreme case, and it's so anecdotal that I can't say if there is causation. But it's data.
 
In NYC, I see A LOT of nannies pushing strollers and the babies or toddlers are crying, sometimes long and hard, with tears, but the nannies keeping talking on their phones or gossiping with other nannies. Once in a while you see a nanny pick up a crying baby but it always stymies me when they don't even say anything to the babies to soothe them. They seem so unmoved and uncaring, and come across as totally bored, which makes me wonder how they ever got the job. I hate seeing babies cry and cry and cry. I often think I'd make a mint with some kind of nanny surveillance business - I'd just follow the nannies with a video camera. That's totally legal when out in public. The parents need to see the apathy and lack of attention they are paying for!
 
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If "not having kids" invalidates someone's right to offer reasonable input on child-rearing techniques, fine. I'd also make the case that merely having reproduced doesn't automatically grant the right to pronounce upon others' techniques, much less to declaim about the morality thereof.

The "miracle of childbirth" trope is at best tattered.
A 1995 survey in the US found that between 30,000 and 160,000 cases of prenatal exposure to cocaine occur each year. By one estimate, in the US 100,000 babies are born each year after having been exposed to crack cocaine in utero. An estimated 7.5 million PCE children are living in the US.
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I sired two kids, now late 20s. During their upbringing, there were 2-4 adults in the household, all with some degree of parental responsibility. They sometimes had to deal with their own momentary owies or insecurities without someone charging across the room to snatch them up & "comfort" them -- a really great way to throw the poor kid into a panic & set off a full-on histrionic display. They're calm, confident, bright, & affectionate, so something probably went right.
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I was visiting a friend, chatting in the livingroom. Her toddler wandered into the next room &, maybe ten minutes into our conversation we're interrupted by SQUEE! SQUEE! SQUEE! Naturally, Mommy runs wildly into the dining room, where her daughter has gotten her hand stuck in the swinging door to the pantry.

Brings the kid back, sitting on her lap, dries her tears, "calms" her, whereupon the kid scowls & struggles peevishly to be let down. Crisis averted, we return to our conversation. Not five minutes on, SQUEE! SQUEE! SQUEE! & there goes Mommy again.

This time the kid's got her upper arm stuck in the door.

Repeat "calming" sequence & struggling to be let loose.

A couple of minutes later, SQUEE! SQUEE! SQUEE!

And the kid's got her head stuck in the door.

My friend comes back, & says exasperatedly, "Why does she keep DOING that??"

I said, "Because it works every time." She had Mommy well-trained.
 
I'm not a parent, but I've nannied for all my sisters's children, for up to a year each time. There is a vaaaaast difference between letting an infant cry and cry and cry, and letting a toddler endanger themselves. I'm not even sure how that is a reasonable comparison at all.

Young infants literally do not have object permanence. When you disappear from their vision, in their minds you no longer exist. Obviously this would be upsetting for an infant who is hungry, hot, cold, tired, needing skin-to-skin contact, etc and who ultimately depends on the adults around them to provide the necessities of life. This doesn't mean that adults are obligated to go rightthisminute to provide whatever it is that the infant requires: life happens. Shit happens. That is quite different, however, than purposefully leaving an infant to cry until too exhausted to cry anymore because you think they are crying "for no reason" and because you think leaving them to cry will "teach them not to cry". Every behaviour has a reason, purpose and motivator, or the behaviour would be deemed unsuitable and either suppressed or changed and trialed again to try and achieve a more desirable result. From single-celled organisms to human beings, this is just basic behaviour theory. Leaving an infant to cry to reduce crying behaviour is a form of behavioural extinction, which has been linked to many physiological and psychological issues across dozen of species, including humans. Leaving an infant to cry may very well teach them that crying is ineffectual, and they may stop crying. However, this does not address the reason they were crying in the first place, and certainly does not teach them what they should do instead of crying to achieve the outcomes they desire. It may also result in undesireable side effects, similar to how using high levels of positive punishment results in behavioural fallout.

Toddlers, in comparison, are basically little assholes :p I found that antecedent arrangements were increasingly important: basically, just setting up their environments so that the right choices (ie, the ones I wanted them to make) were easy and the wrong choices (ie, the ones I did not want them to make) were hard or impossible. They also responded surprisingly well to positive reinforcement methods. Kind of like training dogs. Power struggles were generally to be avoided. You can't win a power struggle with a three year old. Even if you do "win", you will still lose!

Actually... I taught my nephew to blow his nose using applesauce as a reinforcer. I also taught all the kids to "target" on a large white sticker on the side of the van: they were to place their hands there and not move them until I came and took their hands. Very useful in busy parking lots when I had to deal with kids and baby bags, strollers, etc. Eventually physical reinforcers were phased out in preference for naturally occurring or lower value rewards (verbal praise, hugs, play, etc), of course.

I have zero intention of every having kids of my own, even though I generally enjoy my sisters's spawn. However, I can imagine that having multiple people to care and teach them different skills could be a very good thing, provided the people are relatively reasonable. Actually, this is basically what happened in our family, except for the romantic-relationship-part. My sisters all went back to work shockingly shortly after giving birth, and their husbands worked the whole way through. I more or less lived with one or the other of my sisters for a few years (though technically still living with my parents), to make helping with the kids easier. With three people, and occasional grandparent respite, it was fairly manageable. We did this for several years, until my work schedule changed and I wasn't able to help as much anymore. In my family, it really takes a village!
 
"Cry it out" is a very new and aberrant concept in parenting and even Dr. Ferber, who popularized the "sleep training" method, has softened his stance. Both Dr. Sears (co-sleeping advocate) and Dr. Ferber now hold views that intersect. I suspect that most parents don't align with either camp and instead do a combination of several approaches and go with whatever works that week. Anyone who has cared for a baby night after night after night knows that it's a survival situation and at 3 AM, any sane adult is going to go with whatever works to maintain Shalom Bayit (peace in the home.)
 
I have to make a HUGE exception to the point about letting babies cry.

HUGE.

When a woman has given birth, her hormones are totally out of wonk and she's probably struggling with self-care. Not sleeping enough. Possibly not eating enough. The mother's stressors are intense, especially if she doesn't have a lot of support from others.

And a baby's crying can crank those stress levels up to a place off the charts. A horrifying and dangerous place. I've been there, and I've felt that. People wonder what kind of a monster of a mother could possibly harm her baby...I'm here to tell you, that it's not monstrosity of character, it's being quite simply OUT OF CONTROL. Out of your own control. No, I didn't harm my babies. But I damn sure felt the impulse. And it terrified me. It was the worst with my firstborn, because I didn't have much support and life was very hard and I didn't know that it was important for me to take care of myself. I was very young.

It must be emphasized to new mothers, especially first time mothers, that self care is vital. That if she feels those stress levels building to critical intensity, she has GOT to put the baby in a safe place, and walk away for a few minutes. And that is completely justifiable, it doesn't make her a bad mother or a bad person. Put the baby down, go have a snack or a few minutes somewhere alone, and come back.

I'm talking about short sanity breaks, not letting a baby cry for hours though. But it's important because people who get on their high horses and lecture women about the "right way" to parent can make such a new mom think she's got to be perfect and try so hard, and the levels of pressure just make it more stressful. You can be doing all the "right things" and freaking yourself out over it and it doesn't do you a damn bit of good if you have a mental break and either harm the child or become incapable of caring for the baby due to extreme depression or something.

EDIT: Also, to point at a relevant connection here, in an ideal situation with good people and good relationships, I would actually think polyamory would be very beneficial in this way. More adults in the family means potentially more support for the new Mom, and for the children as they grow up. When I first met some poly folks who had mingled families with children, I thought "Oh my goodness, that sounds AMAZING" for this very reason.

As someone who has given birth recently, I can tell you that we heard this SO MANY TIMES during our hospital tours, our hospital stay, and all follow up appointments. Luckily, between Hubby and me (and Boy when he's here), little girl has probably only been left to seriously cry without any attempt at comfort for a total of 5 minutes in her life.

I will always vividly remember the day that she literally screamed for 14 hours straight. It started at 1am. Hubby had just gone back to work after his parental leave. We had no houseguests to help. Boy was out of town. After getting no sleep, I fed her, changed her diaper, gave her gas meds, got her all comfy on my bed and went and cried in the other room while calling Hubby. After a minute of him telling me I was in fact not a terrible mother, I put my momma panties back on and went to try to comfort her again. Eventually she fell asleep and we had a glorious, 4 hour nap and she was back to her usual happy self.

And I have an easy baby.

So, yes. Sometimes crying is necessary for caregiver sanity and safety. But, no. Doing it just so the baby will "learn" is not okay. When I've cared for toddlers I still wouldn't let them cry unless it's a specific "I'm crying because I'm overtired and it's going to take me a minute to wind down" kind of cry that is pretty much necessary in that process at times.
 
I believe there are successful poly parents out there (including those on this thread).

Yep, my awesome homeschooled 17 year old graduated his hs equivalency with nearly twice necessary for passing several months ago and he started.last month working in the hospital cafeteria. He's an amazingly well adjusted and mature young man. I'm.lucky to have such a great kid. My other 3 are also doing great
 
I'm still of the opinion that there's a HUGE difference between the "cry it out" that's so commonly presented as The Hateful Bogeyman -- 'oh, just lock the kid in his room until he learns to shut up" -- & the absence of 24/7 helicoptering. Hereabouts, it looks like anything NOT the latter is immediately typified as the former.

With our firstborn, Inanna, Anne had a month off of work available (yay, white-collar job), & she was heavily into the "attachment parenting" stuff. Me, as much as I loved learning to be a Dad, I still had to be up by 5:20 a.m. to get to work, many Saturdays too, so I'd often go sleep on the couch.

But even Anne started to burn out after a couple months of this. I'd encourage her to put Inanna in her crib for a nap break, but leave the door open so she could see Mommy; Anne could return from time to time, sorting laundry, saying some gentle words, patting Inanna's head. Anne was reluctant as she felt this was "teasing" the kid, putting Mommy out of reach & unwilling to fully respond; I said it was the opposite, making clear that Mommy didn't simply cease to exist.

Sure, the kid would sometimes "cry herself to sleep" & actually NAP, but it wasn't as though she was in a dark box.
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That's another thing. With our two, Anne was always amazed at my accuracy rate for predicting the reason for crying. My siblings are about my age, I didn't do sitting, & babies weren't common in my extended family.

Mom taught me. From an early age, she worked in retail & restaurants, & of course had her own three to deal with, & she learned.

As much as I picked up, the most important lesson was that most alleged parents have ZERO idea their baby is communicating at all -- much less as to CONTENT.

I started teaching Anne early in that first pregnancy. We were at a sit-down restaurant; there was a young family (2 + 1) a few tables away. The couple seemed happy, the baby scowled bug-eyed at the forkfuls of dessert they were eating.

I stopped talking to Anne when I heard the kid "pumping up" -- hyperventilating -- because he wasn't getting any cheesecake. This repeated, adding a few sniffles & & some grunts. Then I heard the "wooooehh..." warning trail off. I held up my hand & did a "3 - 2 - 1" countdown, pointed to the kid just as he launched into an "I've cut my hand off" shriek/wail. No tears, mind, & still that bug-eyed scowl.

As soon as his mother held up an over-generous mound of dessert, the kid was immediately silent, eyes now looking like those of any Dew-toxic gamer.

There's crying for need, there's crying for want, there's crying for control. I generally didn't take long before I could tell friends what their baby was trying to get across: wet, poopy, tired, hungry, thirsty, bored, restless, curious, angry, manipulatin, & so on. I guess I've always believed that anyone could manage this.
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And toddlers are another thing. If I heard a thump in the next room, rather than rush in & scare the bejeezus out of Inanna, I'd move more calmly, & ASK the kid if she was okay, probably speaking all the way, before I came into view.

If I slowed down but kept up the patter, she'd generally walk up to me. Sometimes with a fresh bruise, sometimes looking puzzled because some experiment had gone awry, sometimes looking exasperated because she'd stumbled & felt a bit silly.

That is, she knew that SHE could easily find ME, & get plenty of support, yet not always need to "be rescued."
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Hm. That raises an interesting question. Why do some Mommys think it's so necessary for the baby to maintain visual reference on its mother? What do you mean "visual"?
At birth, visual structures are fully present yet immature in their potentials. From the first moment of life, there are a few innate components of an infant's visual system. Newborns can detect changes in brightness, distinguish between stationary and kinetic objects, as well as follow kinetic objects in their visual fields. However, many of these areas are very poorly developed.
I encouraged Anne to not get carried away with washing, & to lay off odorants (perfume, oils, antiperspirants, even scented soap) so Inanna could improve olfactory tracking.

And there's sound as well. Firstly, I've never understood the "keep everything perfectly silent so Baby can nap!" gimmick, because it doesn't work. If Inanna fell asleep in silence, she'd startle awake when the neighbor across the stret came home & slammed his car door... but if I'd been playing (say) a Rolling Stones CD at moderate volume, she'd have slept through a SWAT raid.

But, back to Mommy. I encouraged Anne to put something on the stereo (not overly raucous) turned down low, & also whether relaxing on the sofa or being busy around the house to sing, or at least talk: telling stories & describing hopes to Inanna, even if the kid was out of earshot.

Overall, my intent was to make Anne as continuous as possible in Inanna's life, so the kid would have little reason to believe that Anne simply pouffed in/out of existence.

(Bonus points to anyone who knows where we swiped "continuous" from. ;))
 
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Respect matters

I respect my son. If he cries, I try to understand why. I am an attachment parenting person, but I don't know how this translates to constant stickiness. In my experience at least, it has varied with age and circumstances. He liked being held a lot when he was younger. Needed me in sight, or sound. As he grew, he wanted his own space. Now he is happy to be left alone for long periods as long as his needs are met. He has a world of experimenting to do and I am just clutter distracting him when he's trying to figure out how to throw something into the balcony.

As far as I know, the mental faculties needed to understand that a perspective other than ours exists - and thus manipulate the other person by doing something that creates a perception for that person - don't mature till children are quite a bit older. 7 years old, older to use them with any effect.

What most parents call manipulating is the result of their own behavior with the child that has taught the child that this is what they have to do to get their needs met. Cry, cry a lot if you need attention, because they have other priorities and won't attend unless you convince them there is a fire. Smile and act charming if you want something forbidden. Etc. The children aren't trying to manipulate you, you have taught them through interaction what you respond to. They are just communicating in the manner they have learned is the most effective.

Another myth is that being attentive to children makes them clingy and reluctant to interact with people they don't know. This is false. I don't know a single child who has been raised with attention who is clingy. You cling when you don't get enough of something, not get an excess. What we call attention may not be the kind of attention being seeked. You rock a baby with a wet diaper all day, he'll continue to howl and reach for you, because nice as the cuddling is, he needs his diaper changed. Also, like we have discussions here about how we need our space or are introverted or whatever, children have their personalities. you try to introduce a child who doesn't like meeting strangers to people, they will cling to you. Show one like mine a new face and he won't know you till it is time for lunch.

The most boring thing in the life of a child who does not lack for attention is the parent/caregiver. This is a known. It is a comfort zone to return to when tired or needing something or an occasional dose of affection, but really, it is an exciting world out there that they want to explore. Much as it is a blow to our parental egos, the kids actually have a life and agendas of their own. If all goes well, they adore us, but what they want to do is very very rarely about us. Manipulation or otherwise.
 
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Absolutely spot on, anamikanon. We don't need to "train" (AKA manipulate) our children to be independent-minded and curious about the world and we don't need to concern ourselves with "too much affection." Genuine affection and response to a baby/child is all that Mother Nature needs from parents. All of the manipulation that kids and parents get into is just a fast moving fear cycle - NOT an excess of affection.
 
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