Response to an article on parenting

My friend Jen in Boston kindly shared this article Leave those kids alone and asked for response. I may have gone a little overboard,but here is what I thought:

Well, I tend to agree. I think that our emphasis on playing with our children takes the place of (at least) two voids existing in our culture: peer community and constant attachment. You can consider this in terms of the tribal mother: the woman whose baby and toddler rides constantly on her body, even during sleeping hours for many cultures. The child has her needs attended too, but is not played with. She instead observes her mother's role in the community much in the fashion of our "unschooling". She is learning a lot by hearing conversations her mother has and seeing her mother's actions and those of others. When she is old enough that it is safe for her to walk and play without being attended to by her mother she would join a peer group - the children who are too young for most chores attend each other under slight supervision by the mothers of the community. They play at social games, learn motor skills, do "pretend play" with each other, modeled after the role models of the community. Older children, mostly female, would tend the group of younger children as their role in the community.

Or, you can consider it in the pre-WWII era industrial-nations community (I chose this because for the most part before WWII women didn't work out of the home). The child was with his mother all the time (except at night in some cases) while she attended her household or subsistence chores, even watching from a playpen the child would benefit in the same way the tribal child was), until the child was old enough to run with older siblings or other children from the community, mostly unwatched by mothers. Of course there were exceptions, just as there are in tribal communities, or exceptions to today's play movement, but by and large I believe that this was the way of life for children. Excepting of course children of elite classes throughout many different cultures.

Flash forward to today's American middle class culture. Many women have to work outside of the home. We don't live a subsistence lifestyle, and many American's live above basic needs and both parents must work to maintain this. We also put a high value on being "productive" members of society, and raising children isn't usually considered as a fulfillment of this (of course, I disagree with this, and many do - I am just saying culturally, that is a norm for us). So even from a very young age many babies are missing out on the important "observance" role they would have had. There are nannies who go about their day as a mother would in that case, but by and large, our culture expects nannies are there to manage children. I don't know the exact numbers, but it is my rough observance that *most* children who are not in the care of their mother are in daycare/preschool situations where there are many peers of only the same age group being managed by adults whose main function in the community is to manage those children. So not only is the child missing a pure observational stage, they are missing (often, though not always) running with a band of children of varying ages and degree of skill.

And to make matters worse for this missing peer group - it is not safe for children to "run wild" anymore. My mother relates stories of her childhood: playing in the woods or running through yards with siblings and neighbors, just knowing they had to be home for supper, being occasionally scolded by an adult in the community if they happened to be discovered doing something they ought not be doing, but for the most part running free and learning through play in their peer group. Now we worry about abductions, injuries, and legal liability, among other things; and this prevents of from allowing these peer groups to form and run without adult supervision for the most part. Our children are not as expected to take on subsistence roles at a young age (be it working on the farm, doing odd jobs for neighbors, delivering papers, watching younger siblings, or in some way contributing the function and needs of the family and community); we have the luxury of education being their job for a long time, in comparison to years past or other cultures.

On top of that, technology encourages less interaction with people. I think it is a valid concern that children will start to lose out on social skills, especially in those years before formal education begins. Too much tv and too little play are a bad combination. The play doesn't have to be with parents, in fact, it's probably ideal that it isn't, but with smaller family size and fewer children who are free to just go out in the neighborhood and find a playmate, a parent will have to do.

Really, this is a natural leap. Parents must step in to fill the voids our society has left. Parents also feel guilty for not being able to spend a lot of time with their children, so they fill the time they do have should be *quality* time, and in our culture that means playing with your chilren, stimulating them to be smarter and better members of society. As the roles in cultures shift, so too shift the way children are raised. It is natural evolution of upbringing. Is it better? Well, perhaps yes, it is better for our society to parent in this way. It is important that these voids are filled. I do feel strongly that play is an important learning step for children. But I believe the way our society is has shifted the mode play takes. I am a stay at home mother, but there are not any other young children in our neighborhood, Leila could not join a pack of playing kids because there aren't any. For this reason, I also tend to agree with the proposition that Inuit parents play with their children because of isolation. I don't have as many subsistence duties as I would if I was a mother in another culture or an early time in America. Technology in part helps this. I don't have to spend hours washing my clothing - I pop them in the washer and it is taken care of. I have packaged convenience foods. I don't have to grind my own grain or even bake my own bread. I sometimes feel bored at home - something that would have been unheard of in another culture or another time. I wouldn't have had the time to make such a reply to an article, or the luxury to consider what is the "best" way to raise my children!