We and our kids. What parents do Nature and culture make us

Do I need to teach a newborn sleep alone? Why is breastfeeding better artificial? Do I need to give a child cry before taking it to your arms? Is it really important for the healthy development of a child to talk with him and sing him songs? Is education styles really form a personality and character from the moment of birth? And how do we care for babies who can not say about their needs? The author of this book, an anthropologist, carefully studied parental behavior in different cultures, is asked by these important issues, and its answers sometimes are not just unexpected, but also able to completely change our approaches to care for babies. Finally, the famous book Meredith Small "We and our kids" printed, in which the author studies the methods of care of babies from different peoples of the world, comparing them with methods common in our Western society, and comes to the conclusion that in every culture parents and society in Overall, they produce such eye care styles and their upbringing, which correspond to certain social goals, however, as an anthropologist and an expertise of natural human biology, the author encourages parents to think that the methods of achieving these goals have contradicted the natural needs of the child: "parental practices that We use in the West, no more than cultural structures that have little to do with the fact that "naturally" for newborns. In fact, our cultural rules are designed to form a certain type of citizen. So, living in Botswana, a woman from the kung tribe all the time wears a baby with me. She feeds the child with breasts not by the clock, but, as we speak, "on demand" in the West. In the tribe kung baby never leave one. But American babies, on the contrary, are often planted for a long time in plastic chairs or put in a stroller, they feed them strictly on schedule, and the presence of a child"s own bed or even a separate room. In general, these two style care styles reflect the place that a person takes place in each of the societies. By how the child eats, sleeps and spends the day, you can quickly understand what the expected result should be. Children of the Kung tribe live in a small closely cohesive community, where social integration is very important. In America, social independence is valued, therefore children are involved in independence. Based on all this, it can be concluded that the cultural medium is powerful, but at the same time the streamlined strength of the force forming our approach to raising children. With all that, representatives of each culture are confident that the inherent styles and the goals of education are the most correct, and do not approve those that exist from other peoples. When the Mothers of the Kenyan tribe of Gusia showed a video film with the participation of American mothers, they were amazed at how slowly the Americans react to the signals fed by their children about what they experience pain or discomfort. American tourists, in turn, often experience obvious awkwardness when they see how a five-year-old African girl carries her youngest sister on his back. However, it is more important that in the case when these prescribed cultural methods of education enter into a conflict with the child"s biology, he may be caused real harm. With regard to needs, human children in the biological plan are very similar, they all need food, sleep and emotional attachment. However, parents and cultures may involuntarily turn these needs to achieve their own goals. There is nothing wrongful or selfish - all parents want their children better - but it is obvious that there are different ideas about what this best is