Salon.com > Katie Allison Granju

Navel-gazing their way through parenthood

Tue, 21 Oct 2003 17:13:00 +0000

Back in 1994, before I actually got a chance to see the movie "Reality Bites," I read reviews proclaiming that the film managed to perfectly capture the essence of my generation -- Generation X -- on celluloid.

"Generation X" had been unintentionally christened a few years earlier by 20-ish writer Douglas Coupland, and the label was quickly adopted by cultural pundits and marketing trend spotters. Although there has been some debate since as to what age group actually makes up Gen X, most sociologists now agree that Americans born between 1961 and 1981 qualify, with extra bonus points going to anyone who remembers the names of the human characters on "Land of the Lost" (Sleestaks don't count) and who can rattle off all of Ted McGinley's sitcom credits.

Born in 1967, I definitely fall within X's generational sweet spot, and although I was skeptical (a classic Gen X trait, along with forced irony and overuse of parentheticals) of the hype around "Reality Bites," I was also curious. So by the time the film began its second pass through town at the cheap theater, I decided to check it out.

Did “America’s pediatrician” sell out?

Thu, 25 Jan 2001 20:09:00 +0000

Over the last five or six years, the concept of attachment parenting has come in from the radical periphery of American parenting philosophy to dwell in the mainstream. The family bed, once the exception, is closer than ever to a rule; the baby-wearing parent is ubiquitous. Much has been written about the move to attachment, and much credit for its high profile and wide acceptance must be assigned to one man: Dr. William Sears.

Author of the bestselling baby care bible "The Baby Book" as well as a half-dozen other top-selling pregnancy and childcare manuals, Sears is known as the attachment parenting guru, a California pediatrician who appears most likely to succeed Dr. Spock as the parental go-to guy.

At least Sears appeared to be heading for anointment -- even giving himself the title "America's pediatrician" on his recently launched, full-service parenting Web site -- until recently. These days Sears is under attack by some of his previously worshipful fans, as well as members of the international lactation science and pediatric communities.

“All the Wrong Men and One Perfect Boy”

Wed, 11 Aug 1999 16:00:00 +0000

At 35, my friend Spike (nee Jacqueline) Gillespie is only a couple of
years older than I. We met more than a decade ago while we were both
waitressing in Knoxville, Tenn., at a nightclub called Ella Gurus. For two years, we lived in the same dilapidated neighborhood, ran around with overlapping circles of
slacker friends and passed a boyfriend or two back and forth. We both
went on to become mothers who write, we share an agent and we even both
have sons named Henry -- born within a year of one another. But that's where
the similarity ends. Reading her just-released memoir -- "All the Wrong Men
and One Perfect Boy" -- I found myself offering up a silent prayer of thanks
for the relatively dull soccer-mom existence that I have lived since
Spike and I last resided in the same city. Her first-person account of her
own adult life is a harrowing chronicle that includes too much alcohol, a vast array of relationships gone horribly wrong, miscarriage, cancer, intermittent periods of poverty and spells of near-suicidal depression. Yet, as alien as most of her actual experiences
are to me, I -- and every other mother I know who has read this book -- found
myself identifying very strongly with the tale she has to tell.

Formula for disaster

Tue, 20 Jul 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Parents may reasonably ask why, with research demonstrating the many and serious potential health hazards of routine bottle-feeding, do so many otherwise competent doctors continue to take a neutral or even pro-formula stance with their patients? As pediatrician and author Dr. Jay Gordon noted in the book "So That's What They're For: Breastfeeding Basics," by Janet Tamaro-Natt: "This [infant feeding] seems to be the one area where you can practice medicine in the 1990s -- with 1960s know-how -- and not get sued."

The failure of many medical professionals to fully inform their patients of the impact of infant feeding choices is due in large part to their own ignorance of the facts. Most obstetricians, pediatricians and nurses graduate from their professional training having had little or no exposure to the most up-to-date literature or clinical practice in this area. In fact, a recent AAP survey revealed that 45 percent of pediatrician respondents stated that they see formula-feeding and breast-feeding as equally acceptable methods for feeding an infant. The survey further noted that "nearly equal proportions of pediatricians agree and disagree as to whether formula-fed babies are just as healthy in the long run as breast-fed babies (34 percent vs. 38 percent); 27 percent are undecided." These statistics reveal a shocking unfamiliarity with the large and growing body of current research on this topic.

Formula for disaster

Mon, 19 Jul 1999 16:00:00 +0000

When Tabitha Walrond's 7-week-old infant died of starvation last year, the fact that this young New York mother had attempted to breast-feed her baby -- albeit with obvious lack of success -- was widely blamed for the complex and haunting tragedy. The national headlines regarding the Walrond case were ongoing and sensational. "Nursed to Death" read one. "Breast-feeding can kill?" inquired another.

During the same period, the similar death of the 6-week-old breast-fed baby of another New York mother, Tatiana Cheeks, raised further breast-feeding concerns in the press and with the public. This time one headline read "Nursing Death?" In 1995, a widely-circulated Wall Street Journal article detailing dehydration in several middle-class breast-fed babies whose mothers had experienced breast-feeding difficulties led to a surge in phone calls to pediatricians and hospital hotlines across the country from new parents worried that breast-feeding itself could somehow harm their infants. Given this environment, many conscientious new parents may conclude that formula-feeding represents a safer alternative to the potential "dangers" of breast-feeding. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Tales of a reluctant parenting pundit

Wed, 09 Jun 1999 16:00:00 +0000

I was having one of those infamous Very Hard Mommy Days, the kind that entail crabby kids, messy arts-and-crafts projects and rainy weather. Elbow deep in roll-on glue and glitter, my young children created refrigerator-door masterpieces with abandon, if not aptitude. But it was "one of those days," and inevitably their good humor would without warning give way to tantrums and tears. Because my husband had forgotten to do the grocery shopping the night before, we'd been forced to consume the only food left in the house: ramen noodles and Planter's mixed nuts. By mid-afternoon, everything in my small house was covered in a sticky film of glue, glitter and wet noodles.

Just as I was feeling most defeated by my sorry excuse for a day, the phone rang. It was my literary agent, calling from New York to give me the good news: A major publisher had just acquired my second parenting book -- on the joys of raising a larger family. It was 3 p.m. and things were looking up.

Soon after, a friend unexpectedly dropped by. I answered the door still dressed in my tattered flannel bathrobe. I invited her in and excitedly related the details of the new book deal to her. She immediately began to giggle uncontrollably.

The midwife of modern midwifery

Tue, 01 Jun 1999 16:00:00 +0000

With her long, graying hair, often in braids, and her flashback
'60s clothes, Ina May Gaskin isn't as glamorous as many other pregnancy and
childbirth "experts" seen frequently on television and in the glossy
parenting magazines. Instead, Gaskin looks like what she is: a
hard-working, grandmotherly ex-hippie who still lives on the Farm, the
legendary Tennessee commune that she and several hundred others founded in
1971. Yet despite her relative personal anonymity, Gaskin's influence on
U.S. birthing culture has been profound. She's widely credited with
having created the modern home-birth
movement, as well as with
almost single-handedly inspiring the renaissance of midwifery
in
the United States. And her 1976 book, "Spiritual Midwifery," a smallish trade
paperback with a psychedelic cover design reminiscent of the Indian-print
curtains on a '73 VW bus, is in its third printing, with more than a
half-million copies sold.

In defense of parenthood

Thu, 17 Sep 1998 16:07:00 +0000

In a recent New Yorker article, Judith Rich Harris, author of "The Nurture Assumption," the most widely publicized book on issues of human development since "The Bell Curve," is quoted as saying that one of her primary reasons for writing the book was to alleviate parental guilt.

"A lot of people who should be contributing children to our society, who could be contributing very useful and fine children, are reluctant to do it or are waiting very long to have children because they feel it requires such a huge commitment," explains Harris. "If they knew that it was OK to have a child and let it be reared by a nanny or put it in a day-care center or even to send it to a boarding school, maybe they would believe that it would be OK to have a kid."

"Great," remarked a friend and fellow mother of three after reading Harris' comments. "Just what we need: more parents with less commitment."

Getting wise to 'Babywise'

Thu, 06 Aug 1998 16:47:00 +0000

Lori Rivas finds it painful to think back to the first few months after
her 2-year-old son Daniel's birth. Rivas, a 29-year-old stay-at-home
mother from Santa Clarita, Calif., remembers days and nights of
struggling to ignore her baby's crying, of feeling guilty when she
longed to rock him to sleep in her arms but believed that she should
not. Worst of all, Rivas recalls the day of Daniel's two week checkup,
when the previously healthy infant was discovered to be more than one
pound below his birth weight and so dehydrated that he was unable to
produce tears.

"I felt that I was failing as a parent," says Rivas.

Rivas and her 38-year-old husband, Theo, a customer service
representative, were not only worried about their son -- they were
confused. After all, they were conscientiously following the highly
detailed dictates of one of today's most popular child-care guides, a
book that glowingly described itself in its own introduction as "an
infant management program" that has "worked for thousands of parents
and, when faithfully applied, will work wonderfully for you!" In a
soothing, authoritative tone, the guide further assured Lori and Theo
that, if they adhered to the book's recommendations, their baby would
sleep through the night by approximately 8 weeks of age, cry less
than other babies and even have a reduced risk of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and learning
disabilities down the road.