"Humans can only *get away with* not parenting according to the primate
biological norms when they ...are willing to culturally accept as normal the
consequences of not breastfeeding under such circumstances, including
greater levels of many diseases, lower cognitive development, more
violence."
Well, I think that bit right in there about being willing to "accept as
normal the consequences of not breastfeeding" strikes a very relevant chord
right now. As we all now are struggling and scrambling around to make sense
or find explanations for the kind of violence that leads kids to massacre
their classmates, the thing that really strikes me is that "we" (American
culture, at least - can't speak as well to other industrialized countries)
seem to have lost our grip on the concept of "accepting the consequences" or
taking responsibility for the things we do, have done, and seem to be
continuing to do. We're happy to point the finger at easy access to deadly
weapons, at violent video games and movies and TV shows, at the decline of
the American family, even at the "brain chemistry of teen violence". But the
very fact of our national hysteria about this, probably to be replaced next
week or next month with the next shocking story, seems to speak to me about
exactly how far we have come from claiming responsibility and ownership of
our own children, our culture, our lives.
So am I saying that breastfeeding in the way we were "designed" for it to be
done, what we now call "attachment parenting", etc. would have prevented the
Columbine shooting? NO, I AM NOT!! I'm not that wise - thank god! But I am
saying that the concept of truly accepting, as a nation, the consequences of
acting in ways contrary to our own biological set-up, seems to have slipped
away from us. Sometimes it seems to me like we're all off on some strange
carnival ride that has jumped its tracks and just run away with us. And
we'll blame anything and everyone, as long as it doesn't mean that we
ourselves have to change our lives or anything radical like that. But it's
become always "they" who have to change, who have to supervise their kids
more or be less controlling parents or eat less meat or take more vitamins
or police the Internet or ....
It isn't enough anymore to say "Stop the world, I want to get off"; somehow
we have to figure out how to work the mechanism that can slow us down and
get back on track. I'm not expressing this well, and I won't go on & on
anymore because it's not really about breastfeeding. But I know that it is
somehow about biological/cultural norms & parenting, among other things.
Does anyone else know what I mean?
Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY
-----Original Message-----
From: Kathy Dettwyler [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 1999 11:39 AM
Subject: Biological norms of human parenting
>While most women in the world may *practice* what we refer to as
>"attachment" parenting, I am not convinced that this is sufficient
>evidence that this is the *biological* "norm". Baby carrying, frequent
>nursing, etc. may as easily be attributed to the fact that most women in
>the world are very poor, and likely do not have any other choice.
This is totally incorrect, inaccurate, and just plain wrong. I don't know
any other (diplomatic) way to say it. Humans are MAMMALS and humans are
PRIMATES and humans, specifically, are MOST CLOSELY RELATED TO THE GREAT
APES (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans). And from *many decades of
field research on primates*, we know that the biological norms for primate
child rearing are:
1) for the offspring to be physically in contact with the MOTHER'S BODY
24/7 FOR MANY MONTHS OR YEARS -- the larger the primate, the more
intelligent, the more socially complex, the longer this period is. And
humans are among the largest, supposedly the most intelligent, and
definitely the most socially complex.
2) for the offspring to be nursed several times an hour around the clock
for many months, only gradually spacing out the nursing frequency for some
(but not all) individuals. This is corroborated by field studies of
primates, cross-cultural studies of humans, and especially by the
composition of human milk, as among all mammals, milk composition and
breastfeeding frequency are closely related. Human milk is clearly of the
kind that is supposed to be ingested in small doses, several times an hour.
To say that many infants do fine on a 2-3-4 hour schedule from birth shows
how wonderfully adaptive some children (not all) can be when forced to, but
does nothing to negate the clear evidence of what the biological norm for
humans is supposed to be.
Women in "traditional cultures" (non-industrial) parent as they do because
of cultural and individual beliefs, economic constraints, ecological
constraints, etc. No modern humans anywhere parent without cultural
overlays on the biological norms. But the vast majority of women in the
world *do* parent in a style that is much more in tune with our primate
heritage, and that primate heritage is very clearly defined and well
understood -- by anthropologists, if not by the general public.
People will often use that argument of "they have no other choice" to
explain why women in traditional cultures nurse as long as they do -- the
old "they have to keep nursing them because they have no appropriate foods
for infants and young children" -- and to justify their opinion that a
woman who wanted to nurse her child beyond one year in an industrial
context must be perverted or crazy.
On the contrary, my research on the natural age of weaning shows that 2.5
years to 7.0 years is the normal duration of nursing for modern human
children, with most of the indicators at the 4-5-6-7 year end of that
range. Only beyond 7 years do we need to look for specific explanations of
why nursing is continuing. In most cultures where children nurse for
3-4-5-6 years, those children are eating plenty of other foods from 6
months on, or even earlier. One study in the Philippines found children
eating more than 70 different foods in the first year of life, while
continuing to breastfeed vry frequently. Humans can only *get away with*
not parenting according to the primate biological norms when they (1) have
breast milk substitutes that don't immediately cause infant death, (2) when
they have access to immunizations and antibiotics to deal with the
increased illnesses from not breastfeeding (3) when they have modern
sanitation to provide clean water and dispose of waste to reduce disease
transmission and (4) when they are willing to culturally accept as normal
the consequences of not breastfeeding under such circumstances, including
greater levels of many diseases, lower cognitive development, more violence.
It is quite clear that the biological norms for modern humans include
baby-wearing, co-sleeping, breastfeeding very frequently, and breastfeeding
for many years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D. email:
[log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX 77843-4352
http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/dettwyler.html
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