Wow, I have to say first of all, thank you guys for sharing your viewpoints and info on Ezzo's Babywise/Raising Kids God's Way issue. I'll include at the end of this post the links that were shared with me. I also plan to check out the book from the library in order to give a more detailed account at a later date, but for right now, here are my thoughts and my concerns.
Before I dive in, though, I'd like to address the issue of posting comments anonymously. Please don't. Like I said before, they create a hostile environment, and if anyone's going to bring down the property value around here, I'd rather it be Zorak and me hanging out on our front porch, drinkin' beer and doin' the redneck thing, ok? If you have thoughts you'd like to share, that would be great, and I'd love to hear them (yep, even if you don't agree w/ me!) but if you do have something worth saying, it is worth putting your name to. Thanks!
The first, and probably my biggest issue w/ this program is that I truly believe in breastfeeding on demand. It is God's plan for mothers and their babies. We are designed to be able to communicate with our children on a genetic level and the supply and demand system is part and parcel of how we are designed. It is not manipulative. It is not a "modern" machination to keep women "in their place" or part of a "permissive parenting" approach or anything else. It is how we are made!
You can breastfeed your child exclusively for two years without your child suffering any harm at all! It's wholly acceptable. You are designed that way. Your baby is designed that way. Is it easy? No. Does the mother have to do her mongo whopping part to keep up the milk supply and be available to her child? You betcha. Have I managed to do it? Nope. We usually begin feeding our babies solids when they turn one. HOWEVER, that does not negate the fact that a woman's body is designed to respond to her child's needs and when you don't mess with that, it'll work just fine.
The impression that a six-week-old infant who "sleeps through the night" is somehow a banner of glory on the part of the parents just ticks me off no end. Namely, most people don't realize that "sleeping through the night" means FOUR HOURS! Four. Not eight, not ten, FOUR. Secondly, in Biblical times our babies were in bed with us. If they awoke and were startled, the mother was there, with her warmth and rythmic breathing, to comfort them and lull them back to sleep. I'm not even going to go into a co-sleeping debate, but it does play a role in how children traditionally developed and if we are to attempt to emulate "God's Plan" for our children, then let's not pick and choose that which is most "convenient" for us, ok? If you want to get "back to basics", then do it, but don't try to force a baby into your modern idea of basics. That's like people who don't eat pork "b/c it's not Biblical", but then also don't bother to observe the periods of uncleanness with respect to their homes and husbands, and ignore a laundry list of other point, as well. C'mon, here, don't be pickin' and choosin'- pick a path and start movin' down it, ok?
Breastmilk is digested in approximately 90 minutes. It takes an adult approximately three to four hours to digest a meal. Think about this. How often do we, as adults, need to eat to keep up our metabolism? Doctors recommend "six small meals a day" to keep up our energy, to repair tissue, and we don't even have to worry about making synaptic connections or growing and developing at an exponential rate the way infants do! Yet we eat about every four to six hours. I have a real problem with someone telling mothers that their newborn, the baby with a stomach the size of its fist (look at a newborn's fist!) is supposed to do all that work off feedings that are spaced three hours or more apart. ARGH! What is that?!? And Ezzo says if the baby doesn't eat at a scheduled feeding, you don't feed him again until the next scheduled feeding. Oooo, talk about raising my blood pressure. This is an INFANT, people, not a petulant teenager, and providing ample and regular sustenance when your child needs it is not going to turn him into a petulant teenager! Believe me, there is more out there to worry about than whether your infant starts getting haughty over when he can eat.
Attachment Parenting. This is one of those things that I believe falls within the "good parenting" category. This doesn't mean at all that non-AP parents are in the "bad parenting" category, not at all. It's easy for us to forget that parenting is just as personal as it can be, and there is a huge choice of non-deal-breakers that fall within the "acceptable" category. Some people love to sling their babies. (I do. You couldn't pay me to buy a stroller.) Some don't. (Zorak would rather carry both older children on his shoulders all day long than have to sling the baby for ten minutes.) We're both ok with that, and the boys aren't traumatized by either approach. The point against Ezzo, however, is that there is nothing manipulative or inherently sinful in keeping an infant close and responding to his only means of communication. What if you taught your toddler to "use your words" and then ignored him when he did so? What kind of a lesson will that teach him? Babies' words are their cries. Don't ignore them.
Do y'all realize that the brain of a human infant is, at birth, second only to the kangaroo's brain for being underdeveloped? Even the kangaroo can climb into its mother's pouch to work on developing. A human infant's brain has a lot of work to do on just getting all cylinders to fire in line before it can go to work on pushin' the proverbial envelope and trying to "get away" with things. Picking up a crying baby isn't spoiling him, it is responding to him. That's something I am pretty passionate about.
OK, now with all that said, I think my concern is not the mother who has a good head on her shoulders, who knows how to glean, who can make notes in her notebook along the lines of "well, this part is useless" and move on. My worry is the young, inexperienced mother, perhaps one who is new in her faith and unfamiliar with discernment, who ends up with her newborn in the pediatrician's office, suffering from malnutrition and diagnosed as "failure to thrive" because she listened to this guy. It has happened, so I'm not being paranoid. Children have been hospitalized because their parents, in trying to do "God's will" have starved these precious children! That is indicative that there is something seriously wrong: either inherently wrong with the program, or dangerously wrong with the presentation by the teachers.
I know that there are so so soooo many parenting choices available, and none of us wants to get into a cry-it-out/never cry debate, or the co-sleeping debate, etc. I don't think the issues against Ezzo's books and philosophy are divided along those lines. I think they come down somewhere between those who take responsibility for thinking for themselves vs. those who are so afraid to trust God's real plan that they will follow anyone like a mindless automaton. I've received plenty of notes from mothers who have used Ezzo's methods without harming their children- their children are now well-adjusted, happy, loved children. The key among each and every one of them, however, has been discernment: these women have known how and when to draw the line and throw out the garbage, rather than the baby, with the bathwater.
So, perhaps my suggestion is not to completely do away with these classes, but for the older women to take on their God-instituted mentoring role. Talk with the new mothers, assure them that God built them to do this, if they will just listen to Him. I don't know. It still makes me twitchy, and I'm still going to pick up my children when they need me. I'm still going to encourage every woman I come across to nurse on demand and not to try to tie her tiny infant to an adult's concept of schedules. I think that's the right thing to do. I believe that being a mother is more than just running the regiment through its paces, it's teaching and nurturing, giving them a safe space to learn to trust us and how to discern who to trust and when.
I have also learned, from those who were willing to share, that the program's presentation is dependent in large part upon the church itself and how the instructor presents it. Thank you for sharing that information. We may try the church anyway. I will still most likely discuss the program with the church leaders and ask the questions I have. It's important to review what we believe and why, and I feel that the church is no exception to that. ;-) I'll probably be a thorn in their side, but what else is new?
So, here are the links that were shared- happy browsing!
A site about Ezzo's excommunication, medical data, and other issues.
An article written for ParentsPlace.com about Ezzo (he was contacted for the article, but refused an interview. The information he did send in was included with the article.)
Also, Tulip Girl has written often on Ezzo- if you go to her blog and do some searches, she has linked extensively to news releases, tidbits, and medical information. She rocks.
And I guess that's enough blogging for the morning!
Dy
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