WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.240 --> 00:00:03.560 There are a million questions to answer before the baby 2 00:00:03.560 --> 00:00:04.360 ever gets here. 3 00:00:04.559 --> 00:00:06.400 Do you have a birthing plan? Do you know what 4 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:08.240 kind of a mother you want to be? Yes? 5 00:00:08.360 --> 00:00:09.160 I plan to be. 6 00:00:09.080 --> 00:00:16.360 A good mother, but a marsupial mom or a stroller mom? 7 00:00:16.560 --> 00:00:20.400 Will you be breastfeeding or bottle feeding? And what about babyproofing? 8 00:00:20.720 --> 00:00:23.560 Because with all the sharp edges around here, I mean, 9 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:29.840 this place is a death trap. I'm Emily ost. This 10 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:32.200 is parent data and today. 11 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:38.160 Multiply this scene by thousands and you have a daily 12 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:41.320 picture of young mister and Missus America on their way 13 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:46.960 home after mother's exciting days at the hospital. The one 14 00:00:47.080 --> 00:00:51.080 thought of this typical bear is what do we do next? 15 00:00:53.560 --> 00:00:57.640 If I had to summarize the modern instagram and TikTok 16 00:00:57.800 --> 00:01:02.680 inflected parenting feel, it would be with the question am 17 00:01:02.680 --> 00:01:05.680 I doing it wrong? And then the answer yes, definitely, 18 00:01:05.720 --> 00:01:07.360 because it's not the way that I'm doing it. 19 00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:11.000 Get ready with me, moll I tell you how exclusively 20 00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:13.280 pumping is not breastbeaning. 21 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:16.559 Keeno sleep training without crideout is to teach your baby 22 00:01:16.600 --> 00:01:17.959 how to put themselves to sleep. 23 00:01:18.040 --> 00:01:20.679 So I'm going to show you my ten steps to cripside. 24 00:01:20.240 --> 00:01:23.080 Comfort three reasons you continue co sleeping or but sharing. 25 00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:26.319 I'm a speech pathologist, feeding therapist mom up too, and 26 00:01:26.360 --> 00:01:29.880 I know how overwhelming it can be starting sons with baby, 27 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:33.600 especially when choosing should you do baby led weaning or purese. 28 00:01:35.680 --> 00:01:39.679 Parenting is hard, and we all parents slightly differently, and 29 00:01:40.120 --> 00:01:43.680 it is very easy in the current moment to get 30 00:01:44.040 --> 00:01:47.440 absorbed in the idea that there is exactly one correct 31 00:01:47.440 --> 00:01:48.040 way to do it. 32 00:01:48.080 --> 00:01:49.919 And if you mess up, if you get. 33 00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:53.120 The wrong toy, or you use the wrong swaddle, or 34 00:01:53.160 --> 00:01:55.200 you sleep in the wrong way, or you give your 35 00:01:55.240 --> 00:01:58.560 kid the wrong food, you start with pairs instead of peas, 36 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:02.120 that somehow that that's the end, and you've messed up, 37 00:02:02.160 --> 00:02:03.720 and you might as well just go back to the 38 00:02:03.800 --> 00:02:05.960 drawing board and try with a different baby, because you 39 00:02:06.040 --> 00:02:08.440 completely ruined this one. 40 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:12.040 Much of your babies health depends on he's getting enough 41 00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:15.519 of the right kind of food. That means a formula. 42 00:02:16.040 --> 00:02:20.320 The American Academy Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for all moms and babies. 43 00:02:20.760 --> 00:02:25.040 Every parent should be educated to know that breastmolk is 44 00:02:25.080 --> 00:02:27.960 so much different than formula and it's so much better. 45 00:02:28.440 --> 00:02:31.120 The formula is more than just milk. 46 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:35.920 We need a little bit of perspective, and that is 47 00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:38.960 why I have Jennifer Trake here on the podcast to 48 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:42.840 talk about her book Act Natural, which is a history 49 00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:43.560 of all. 50 00:02:43.440 --> 00:02:45.920 Of the ways people have parented in the past. 51 00:02:46.840 --> 00:02:49.480 What's so valuable for me about looking to the past 52 00:02:49.639 --> 00:02:51.520 is that it helps us to take a wider lens 53 00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:54.600 on the question of parenting trends and how they fall 54 00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:59.160 in and out of fashion. Colostrum, which now the Internet 55 00:02:59.240 --> 00:03:02.239 will tell you you must collect in a hakka cup 56 00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:05.720 because otherwise, if you don't give your child every drop 57 00:03:05.760 --> 00:03:08.560 of it, they will never ever. 58 00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:09.240 Get into college. 59 00:03:09.720 --> 00:03:12.760 People used to throw that away because it was too 60 00:03:12.880 --> 00:03:17.560 thick for babies and should be completely discarded. Can you 61 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:21.799 imagine if the trend of baby salting had been around 62 00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:25.080 in the age of Instagram. What I'm saying is that 63 00:03:25.160 --> 00:03:28.080 you should listen to this conversation so you can understand 64 00:03:28.639 --> 00:03:32.520 that this current moment is just one of many moments, 65 00:03:32.600 --> 00:03:36.800 and there are many many ways to parent, and many 66 00:03:36.880 --> 00:03:41.040 things that have happened that still resulted in people somehow 67 00:03:41.080 --> 00:03:45.440 continuing to exist, even if they ate peas first rather 68 00:03:45.480 --> 00:03:49.200 than pears or vice versa. 69 00:03:49.440 --> 00:03:49.800 Listen. 70 00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:52.240 The message for today is that we have been doing 71 00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:54.440 this for a long time, and we will be okay, 72 00:03:54.600 --> 00:03:57.080 and you will be okay, and your kids will be okay, 73 00:03:57.120 --> 00:03:59.560 and they'll be okay when they parent their own kids too. 74 00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:03.080 You'll begin to realize how much you are going to 75 00:04:03.200 --> 00:04:08.320 enjoy your baby. He's all yours, every inch, every ounceev. 76 00:04:07.880 --> 00:04:12.200 Him after the break Jennifer Trigg. 77 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:34.120 Jennifer Trigg, I am absolutely delighted to get to talk 78 00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:34.360 to you. 79 00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:36.320 Thank you for being here on parent Data. 80 00:04:36.880 --> 00:04:38.120 Likewise, was thrilled to be here. 81 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:41.799 So I'd love to start by having you introduce yourself. 82 00:04:42.880 --> 00:04:47.080 So, yeah, as you said, I'm Jennifer Trigg, I'm a writer, 83 00:04:47.480 --> 00:04:51.280 a teacher, and editor. And turned out none of those 84 00:04:51.320 --> 00:04:54.120 skills are particularly transferable to parenting. 85 00:04:55.640 --> 00:04:58.159 But you do have a book about parenting, and the 86 00:04:58.200 --> 00:05:02.760 book is called Act Natural, A Cultural History of Misadventures 87 00:05:02.800 --> 00:05:07.839 in Parenting. And this is an incredibly entertaining book about 88 00:05:07.839 --> 00:05:10.920 all of the insane ways we have parented over time. 89 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:13.159 I mean, it has many other features, but that was 90 00:05:13.320 --> 00:05:16.760 part of how it came across to me. And the 91 00:05:16.839 --> 00:05:20.560 reason I'm excited to talk about this is because there 92 00:05:20.600 --> 00:05:23.760 is so much emphasis in this moment on the idea 93 00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:26.360 of doing it right. And I spend so much of 94 00:05:26.360 --> 00:05:28.839 my time explaining to people, hey, there are many different 95 00:05:29.480 --> 00:05:34.080 ways that parenting happens, and it's difficult sometimes they think 96 00:05:34.120 --> 00:05:38.800 from our narrow parenting space to have a conception of 97 00:05:38.960 --> 00:05:42.719 even the ways people are parenting or the things that 98 00:05:42.760 --> 00:05:46.560 they believe like three houses down or you know, two 99 00:05:46.600 --> 00:05:49.680 towns over, and your book is about like what was 100 00:05:49.720 --> 00:05:53.960 the parenting advice the Romans had, And what we learned 101 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:57.360 is it was pretty different. So that's why I would 102 00:05:57.480 --> 00:05:57.920 like to talk. 103 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:00.360 Yeah. 104 00:06:00.400 --> 00:06:03.640 So I started working on this book just because as 105 00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:07.880 the parent of small children, I really felt at sea 106 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:13.320 and I just I could not believe that humanity had 107 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:17.599 survived as a species given how hard it was. And 108 00:06:17.720 --> 00:06:20.520 so I started looking into what did people actually do? 109 00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:24.600 And I found out that we're making it so much 110 00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:28.520 harder than it has to be, that it's actually really 111 00:06:28.640 --> 00:06:33.160 hard to mess up your children, and that despite millennia 112 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:35.960 of really bad advice, we're still here and we're still 113 00:06:35.960 --> 00:06:37.400 doing fine. 114 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:41.039 Yeah, I mean, it's it's there's just there's something about 115 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:43.080 reading some of the ways in which people are parenting 116 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:46.880 in these historical context and then thinking about the okay, 117 00:06:46.880 --> 00:06:48.560 I'm going to tell you there was a fight that 118 00:06:48.600 --> 00:06:52.080 somebody had on my Instagram feed, which you will really appreciate. 119 00:06:52.560 --> 00:06:56.040 Like last week I posted something like totally milk toast 120 00:06:56.040 --> 00:06:59.600 that was like you know, your own right way to 121 00:06:59.680 --> 00:07:03.040 parent or something in that kind of uplifting space, and 122 00:07:03.040 --> 00:07:05.080 that I asked people to share, like are there things 123 00:07:05.080 --> 00:07:07.520 you did that you know, you think worked for you 124 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:09.600 that maybe didn't work for other people or something like that, 125 00:07:09.880 --> 00:07:12.320 And somebody was like, I use pureise instead of baby 126 00:07:12.360 --> 00:07:14.640 lead weening, so the first food she gave her kids 127 00:07:14.640 --> 00:07:18.600 were pureis rather than giving them pieces of apple or whatever. 128 00:07:19.200 --> 00:07:20.280 And someone else. 129 00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:24.040 Is in the comments and says something like, well, if 130 00:07:24.080 --> 00:07:26.200 you don't use baby lead weaning, your kid's ever going 131 00:07:26.280 --> 00:07:29.120 to learn to chew. And there's an epidemic of people 132 00:07:29.200 --> 00:07:31.760 not learning to chew because of pureise. 133 00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:35.640 And it just felt like what, Like what do you 134 00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:37.560 mean your kid's ever going to learn to chew? Like 135 00:07:37.720 --> 00:07:39.080 what what is that? 136 00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:41.440 And it was felt so bizarre, but of course this 137 00:07:41.440 --> 00:07:44.320 person felt incredibly strongly, and then people started fighting. 138 00:07:44.640 --> 00:07:47.560 Because it's Instagram, there's a long tradition of this. I 139 00:07:47.560 --> 00:07:50.080 think it's important to remember that the original meaning of 140 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:55.360 advice was judgment, and that's exactly what the early parenting 141 00:07:55.560 --> 00:08:00.080 manuals are. They pretty much always say, well, you know, 142 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:04.680 here in Greece we're doing fine, but in Rome they're 143 00:08:04.720 --> 00:08:08.880 all incredibly xenophobic and usually frame their advice by pointing 144 00:08:08.920 --> 00:08:11.680 out what other pointing out what other cultures or other 145 00:08:11.720 --> 00:08:14.720 people are doing wrong. We very much still do that today, 146 00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:18.640 especially in internet comments, and I think there's a few 147 00:08:18.680 --> 00:08:23.080 reasons why. I think one it can make us feel 148 00:08:23.080 --> 00:08:26.360 a little better. And two, you know, the people that 149 00:08:26.400 --> 00:08:30.360 are in the trenches are pretty exhausted, pretty miserable, have 150 00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:34.679 invested so much time into doing these incredibly difficult things, 151 00:08:34.840 --> 00:08:37.440 and if somebody comes along and says, actually, I did 152 00:08:37.440 --> 00:08:39.720 it this way and it was much easier, you kind 153 00:08:39.720 --> 00:08:43.199 of have to attack them to not feel like you've 154 00:08:43.200 --> 00:08:45.000 wasted the last two years of your life. Yeah. 155 00:08:45.040 --> 00:08:47.840 Another way to say it is like, if you the 156 00:08:47.840 --> 00:08:50.000 things I do that are hard, I think they're right, 157 00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:51.520 and I kind of want them to be so right 158 00:08:51.559 --> 00:08:54.080 that they must be right for everybody, because otherwise. 159 00:08:53.679 --> 00:08:55.480 Like, why did I, you know, why did. 160 00:08:55.360 --> 00:08:57.320 I spend all this time giving my kid chicken legs 161 00:08:57.559 --> 00:08:59.120 if I could have just been giving them a bowl 162 00:08:59.120 --> 00:09:01.600 of you know, pure peaches, and it would have been fine. 163 00:09:02.200 --> 00:09:03.559 That's just like, that's hard to accept. 164 00:09:03.960 --> 00:09:04.800 It's hard to accept. 165 00:09:05.760 --> 00:09:07.640 So let's go all the way back. 166 00:09:07.760 --> 00:09:11.559 Tell me about like the first piece of parenting advice 167 00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:12.640 in the world. 168 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:16.720 The first that we kind of know of, And I 169 00:09:16.760 --> 00:09:20.920 have to say, there's not a lot. And I wasted 170 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:26.240 several weeks trying to find early parenting materials only to 171 00:09:26.280 --> 00:09:28.680 realize that the parenting is not the word at all. 172 00:09:28.760 --> 00:09:33.400 That parenting doesn't come into usage into the nineteen seventies. 173 00:09:33.440 --> 00:09:36.640 It's very recent, because the idea before then really was 174 00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:40.360 not that parents did much or any of it. A 175 00:09:40.400 --> 00:09:44.040 lot of it was outsourced. Child rearing tended to be 176 00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:46.880 the term. And the very earliest piece of it that 177 00:09:47.040 --> 00:09:51.240 I know of is actually an ancient Greek medical book 178 00:09:51.280 --> 00:09:54.760 by Saranus. It's not terrible, I have to say it. 179 00:09:55.280 --> 00:09:58.600 A lot of it holds up, perhaps because he got 180 00:09:58.600 --> 00:10:01.959 a lot of his information from practicing midwives. Some of 181 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:09.520 it's a little weird. He really warns mothers away from 182 00:10:09.760 --> 00:10:12.880 the colostrum, is very insistent that you hand the baby 183 00:10:12.920 --> 00:10:15.360 off to someone else right after the baby is born, 184 00:10:15.400 --> 00:10:20.040 because the closstroom is much too rich and cheesy for newborns, 185 00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:23.679 and was also very insistent, as most were in the 186 00:10:23.720 --> 00:10:27.040 ancient world, about salting your baby, which was a widespread 187 00:10:27.080 --> 00:10:28.560 practice that we no longer do. 188 00:10:28.920 --> 00:10:32.240 Could you please tell me how to salt my baby? 189 00:10:33.080 --> 00:10:36.720 I believe it's really just kind of before you swaddle them, 190 00:10:36.920 --> 00:10:39.840 you pat them down with fine salt. It's even mentioned 191 00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:43.160 in the Bible as an example of bad parenting. 192 00:10:44.200 --> 00:10:46.400 I said, the Bible does not support salting your baby. 193 00:10:46.480 --> 00:10:49.600 You don't know the Bible does that? Yes, that this 194 00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:50.280 is not. 195 00:10:50.280 --> 00:10:51.880 Salting your baby would be a problem. 196 00:10:52.080 --> 00:10:55.439 Compare someone to an unsalted baby as an example of 197 00:10:55.520 --> 00:10:57.960 like this, Well, this child was raised by wolves. 198 00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:00.520 I mean that is how I feel about like chicken. 199 00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:02.440 You know, if you don't salt it before you cook it, 200 00:11:02.440 --> 00:11:05.920 it's very difficult to get the salt in later. But 201 00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:10.160 this is a question, which is what on earth would 202 00:11:10.240 --> 00:11:13.600 lead someone to think that you should salt your baby. 203 00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:18.400 Well, salting and swaddling were part of an idea that 204 00:11:18.559 --> 00:11:22.000 helpsway for quite a while that a baby would not 205 00:11:22.160 --> 00:11:26.079 acquire human form unless it was imposed on that baby, 206 00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:29.360 and the swaddling and the salting were part of that process. 207 00:11:29.360 --> 00:11:31.200 That if you didn't do that, you might end up 208 00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:33.800 with like a throw pillow or you know, a pudding, 209 00:11:33.880 --> 00:11:37.360 but not a human baby. And so this was widely done. 210 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:41.440 And the salt piece, I'm not exactly sure why that 211 00:11:41.679 --> 00:11:45.640 and not you know, some other compound, but widely used. 212 00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:48.160 But it's I mean, it is interesting when I think 213 00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:51.800 about what's the feedback that you would get that would 214 00:11:51.800 --> 00:11:54.120 suggest something works or not right. So much of what 215 00:11:54.240 --> 00:11:56.880 happens in parenting, and partly because like a lot of 216 00:11:56.880 --> 00:11:59.160 different things work is most of the time, when you 217 00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:02.000 salt your baby, it's okay, you know, it's not really 218 00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:03.719 a problem. And so then you're like, well, I guess 219 00:12:03.760 --> 00:12:06.080 this must be a good idea, because I mean, the 220 00:12:06.120 --> 00:12:08.520 mortality rates were very high, but probably not higher for 221 00:12:08.600 --> 00:12:09.640 salting not. 222 00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:12.760 Salting right right, And also in the swaddling piece of it, 223 00:12:12.800 --> 00:12:15.160 actually there was a payoff in an error with high 224 00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:19.600 mortality rates. Those infants might live longer just because they 225 00:12:19.679 --> 00:12:23.240 could not move. So at a time when there was 226 00:12:23.280 --> 00:12:26.360 not a whole lot of supervision of small children and 227 00:12:26.440 --> 00:12:28.560 parents had to work and we're busy doing other things, 228 00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:33.400 a swaddled child could and sometimes was hung from the wall. 229 00:12:33.880 --> 00:12:36.320 There were hooks to hang your baby. It could not 230 00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:38.520 get out of its cradle, It could not run around, 231 00:12:39.040 --> 00:12:42.400 it could not move at all. The one problem was 232 00:12:42.400 --> 00:12:46.280 that it could not escape if it were eaten by livestock, 233 00:12:46.360 --> 00:12:50.320 which did happen. Animals tended to roam in and out 234 00:12:50.360 --> 00:12:53.040 of medieval homes much more than they do now, and 235 00:12:53.440 --> 00:12:57.480 children were sometimes eaten and also sometimes nosed by family 236 00:12:57.520 --> 00:12:59.640 animals a little too close to the heart and would 237 00:12:59.679 --> 00:13:01.960 sometimes times be killed that way. 238 00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:08.920 Okay, so when we so, swaddling is something which we 239 00:13:09.040 --> 00:13:12.040 still do, although albeit in a somewhat different way than 240 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:16.280 we did back then. Yes, and does have some scientific basis. 241 00:13:16.280 --> 00:13:19.679 So there's like pieces of this where there are things 242 00:13:19.720 --> 00:13:21.360 you get out of the swattle, not just that you 243 00:13:21.360 --> 00:13:23.240 can store it on the wall, but you know, kids, 244 00:13:23.800 --> 00:13:26.600 there's something there about they sleep better. So presumably some 245 00:13:26.640 --> 00:13:31.480 of the initial impetus for that was good feedback around 246 00:13:31.679 --> 00:13:34.920 how kids would react, and then it got codified into 247 00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:38.160 something else and had these other benefits, and then it continues. 248 00:13:38.200 --> 00:13:39.920 But of course there are presumably other pieces of this 249 00:13:40.120 --> 00:13:42.160 did we let go? I mean, I'm curious if there's 250 00:13:42.360 --> 00:13:44.880 if you have a sense of how things would fall 251 00:13:45.440 --> 00:13:46.360 out of fashion. 252 00:13:47.920 --> 00:13:50.440 Yeah, that's a good question. You know, oftentimes when poor 253 00:13:50.480 --> 00:13:55.840 people start doing something, that's when fashions change. Yeah, and 254 00:13:55.880 --> 00:13:58.720 that will switch, right. We see that a lot with breastfeeding. 255 00:13:59.240 --> 00:14:02.600 You know, there's that say, when rich people eat brown bread, 256 00:14:02.600 --> 00:14:05.240 they best breastfeed their own babies, and when rich people 257 00:14:05.280 --> 00:14:07.800 eat white bread, other people do, and this, you know, 258 00:14:07.880 --> 00:14:10.120 switches back and forth, and we're back in the brown 259 00:14:10.160 --> 00:14:17.680 bread breastfeeding stage now. Yeah, and high mortality rates I think, 260 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:23.640 you know, when it becomes clear that something is actually 261 00:14:23.840 --> 00:14:26.160 dangerous and we have the science to figure out why 262 00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:29.640 that is, a lot of times we don't. For instance, 263 00:14:29.720 --> 00:14:34.800 teething was considered one of the deadly last stages of 264 00:14:35.080 --> 00:14:38.760 babyhood for a long, long, long time, and there are 265 00:14:38.800 --> 00:14:43.920 a lot of deaths in medieval and slightly later British 266 00:14:44.120 --> 00:14:47.440 records a death due to teething. It was not due 267 00:14:47.480 --> 00:14:51.480 to teething, but other things that tended to happen around 268 00:14:51.480 --> 00:14:56.400 that age. It kicked in and people made that connection. 269 00:14:57.160 --> 00:15:00.000 I mean, we're always seeking causality in our exactly. 270 00:15:00.440 --> 00:15:00.760 Yeah. 271 00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:03.200 Yeah, So I want to talk about feeding, feeding your 272 00:15:03.280 --> 00:15:05.680 kid and about breastfeeding and breast milk because this is 273 00:15:05.720 --> 00:15:09.920 a thing which has changed in some ways so frequently 274 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:12.840 over time. You know, how we feed our kids. Can 275 00:15:12.880 --> 00:15:15.040 you please tell me about the goats? Can we just 276 00:15:15.080 --> 00:15:16.000 start with the goats? 277 00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:20.360 Yeah? So I really struggled with breastfeeding. And there's an, 278 00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:24.960 you know, an enormous guilt that is placed on your 279 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:27.480 shoulders if you do not breastfeed your own children. Is 280 00:15:27.520 --> 00:15:29.360 it turns out I could not, my children would have 281 00:15:29.720 --> 00:15:32.280 would have died. But at no point in history was 282 00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:35.240 that true mother. There were always others who could not 283 00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:37.560 or chose not to breastfeed their children, and their children 284 00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:40.840 lived because early on we came up with a lot 285 00:15:40.880 --> 00:15:44.040 of other ways to keep that child fed and alive. 286 00:15:44.200 --> 00:15:48.800 The most obvious wet nursing, which dates back to you know, 287 00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:53.920 earliest humanity, and then bottles came along much much, much 288 00:15:54.040 --> 00:15:58.080 much later. The early bottles were made of clay, intended 289 00:15:58.120 --> 00:16:00.880 to be pretty breakable and also not very very sanitary. 290 00:16:01.400 --> 00:16:04.080 They were not great to you know, sticking a terra 291 00:16:04.120 --> 00:16:06.640 cotta tube and a toothless baby's mouth was not the 292 00:16:06.680 --> 00:16:11.040 best thing. But one thing that people did tune to 293 00:16:12.160 --> 00:16:15.040 when wet nurses weren't available, or even when they were, 294 00:16:15.080 --> 00:16:18.280 but tended to carry syphilis was goats. And this was 295 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:20.960 for a few reasons. One was because for a long 296 00:16:20.960 --> 00:16:25.360 time it was believed that mother's milk carried not antibodies, 297 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:28.880 but moral qualities. It was very important if you chose 298 00:16:28.880 --> 00:16:31.120 a wet nurse for your child that that wet nurse 299 00:16:31.200 --> 00:16:34.680 have be a good moral person, because the child would 300 00:16:34.760 --> 00:16:39.320 absorb their morality. And when moral were and wet nurses 301 00:16:39.360 --> 00:16:43.760 couldn't be found, some people, including foundling homes, would turn 302 00:16:43.880 --> 00:16:48.240 to goats. There's a book on this called I Think 303 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:52.520 like the Goat as the best and most nourishing wet nurse, 304 00:16:53.040 --> 00:16:56.120 and goats could be placed right in the crib, and 305 00:16:56.200 --> 00:17:00.240 at some foundling homes they were and so well were 306 00:17:00.280 --> 00:17:01.400 considered the most. 307 00:17:01.160 --> 00:17:03.240 Moral, as it's the most moral animal, right, it's the 308 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:05.879 most moral, even though it eats garbage. This is always 309 00:17:05.880 --> 00:17:07.359 what I wonder about, Like, what is it about the 310 00:17:07.400 --> 00:17:10.240 behavior of the goat that makes one think it's moral? 311 00:17:10.720 --> 00:17:11.080 I don't know. 312 00:17:11.160 --> 00:17:12.680 I think they're decent parents. 313 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:16.920 I'm sure you're looking at the own animal's own parenting 314 00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:17.800 and choosing. 315 00:17:17.880 --> 00:17:18.600 I also think it. 316 00:17:18.640 --> 00:17:20.960 I mean, some of the other milk producing animals would 317 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:23.560 not fit well in the crib, like a cow. 318 00:17:23.840 --> 00:17:27.200 Yeah, right, right right, and pigs maybe, but pigs, you know, 319 00:17:27.400 --> 00:17:29.960 really bad reputation. So yeah, the goat. 320 00:17:30.560 --> 00:17:33.840 But so over time, you know, we have the sort 321 00:17:33.840 --> 00:17:37.280 of wet nurse, we have the goats. Eventually we have 322 00:17:37.400 --> 00:17:43.560 better formula, you know, non human milk alternatives. I feel 323 00:17:43.640 --> 00:17:47.679 like the moment we are in around breastfeeding takes on. 324 00:17:48.080 --> 00:17:53.080 It is like the moral obligation feels much greater than 325 00:17:53.160 --> 00:17:55.320 at any of these all these other things. Seem like 326 00:17:55.320 --> 00:17:57.240 we're looking for a good solution in the face of 327 00:17:57.800 --> 00:17:58.800 complicated environment. 328 00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:00.960 There's no milk. You know, some has syphilis. 329 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:03.000 We need to go things that are just about like, 330 00:18:03.080 --> 00:18:05.400 let's try to get this done. And it has now 331 00:18:05.440 --> 00:18:10.120 taken on. This Yeah, this moral obligation in parenting, which 332 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:12.359 feels new although maybe that's not new. 333 00:18:13.680 --> 00:18:16.879 Moral and really also at a time when you know 334 00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:20.720 it is it's harder to get into college then when 335 00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:25.040 certainly when I applied, and I defer to you on 336 00:18:25.119 --> 00:18:29.240 the data here, but there were some widely quoted studies 337 00:18:29.320 --> 00:18:34.080 that you know, showed you got a bonus IQ if 338 00:18:34.080 --> 00:18:35.960 a bonus of a few IQ points if you were 339 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:38.120 where breastless studies are not good data. 340 00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:40.159 But yeah, yes, yes, I was just get it in 341 00:18:40.160 --> 00:18:40.680 there for people. 342 00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:44.840 Okay, that in my marriage only one of us was breastfed. 343 00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:47.240 That would be me, and it's not the one who 344 00:18:47.240 --> 00:18:49.720 went to Harvard. So I don't put a lot of 345 00:18:49.760 --> 00:18:50.399 stock into that. 346 00:18:52.119 --> 00:18:55.480 Yeah, I do think there's a moment of wanting to 347 00:18:55.480 --> 00:18:58.640 do everything to get every possible advantage for our kids, 348 00:18:58.680 --> 00:19:01.399 which is perhaps a bit differ then a time. 349 00:19:01.240 --> 00:19:02.640 Period in which half of them would die. 350 00:19:02.680 --> 00:19:04.840 And I realized that, you know, there's a big gap 351 00:19:04.880 --> 00:19:06.480 between where we are now and where we are then. 352 00:19:06.520 --> 00:19:11.119 But there's something in there about the investment in your kids. Okay, 353 00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:15.160 I want to talk about science, parenting science, because there 354 00:19:15.240 --> 00:19:18.840 was some point, maybe early in the twentieth century, when 355 00:19:18.840 --> 00:19:21.880 you start talking in the book about people coming at 356 00:19:21.960 --> 00:19:25.400 parenting and the choice of child bearing, parenting whatever we're 357 00:19:25.400 --> 00:19:27.440 calling it, with the idea that we are going to 358 00:19:27.560 --> 00:19:30.680 use science to like win this or do it right. 359 00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:32.879 When is the beginning of that idea? 360 00:19:33.520 --> 00:19:36.479 So around the turn of the century, the turn of 361 00:19:36.520 --> 00:19:39.320 the twentieth century, it was named the Century of the 362 00:19:39.400 --> 00:19:42.280 Child and the Idea, which was the name of a 363 00:19:42.320 --> 00:19:44.879 book by Ellen Key, and the idea was that you know, 364 00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.159 we've undergone this huge sea change in how much we 365 00:19:49.280 --> 00:19:52.919 know about how the world actually works. Scientific principles are 366 00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:56.600 being applied to everything, and they start getting applied to 367 00:19:57.080 --> 00:20:01.840 child wearing with more and less success. So some of 368 00:20:02.560 --> 00:20:05.960 the early proponents of this were Luther emmett Holt, who 369 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:09.160 wrote a very popular child wearing book, but it was extremely, 370 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:13.280 extremely extremely rigid, with these very very very strict timetables. 371 00:20:13.320 --> 00:20:15.840 Even his daughter in law couldn't follow them. They were 372 00:20:15.880 --> 00:20:19.440 pretty unforgiving, and also not all the science was great. 373 00:20:20.119 --> 00:20:24.600 He had an absolute horror of bananas, I don't know why, 374 00:20:25.040 --> 00:20:28.879 but really pushed them as in a very dangerous food 375 00:20:28.920 --> 00:20:33.440 for children, and pretty much any uncooked fresh fruit or vegetable. 376 00:20:33.880 --> 00:20:38.840 The menus in his book are just something called beef juice, 377 00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:43.480 which I guess is maybe bowl yon, but it's just 378 00:20:43.960 --> 00:20:48.480 really the most bland, flavorless, boiled to death foods and 379 00:20:48.520 --> 00:20:50.360 it was hard for parents to carry out. I mean, 380 00:20:50.359 --> 00:20:55.520 it takes a long time to a mash pure and 381 00:20:55.600 --> 00:20:58.879 to stick to these very very strict schedules. And not 382 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:02.359 too long later he's followed by the behaviorists, but he. 383 00:21:02.560 --> 00:21:04.879 With this just to go to touch on this for me. 384 00:21:05.080 --> 00:21:08.160 So what what is your sense of what's the science 385 00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:11.680 this guy is is using. Is this I'm an expert 386 00:21:11.720 --> 00:21:12.760 and this I think this. 387 00:21:12.680 --> 00:21:14.399 Is what worked for me? Or is it? You know, 388 00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:17.120 I studied people like where where is the science in here? 389 00:21:17.240 --> 00:21:19.119 Right? Well, I mean it's not like they spent a 390 00:21:19.160 --> 00:21:23.160 lot of time with their own children, So it's it's 391 00:21:23.359 --> 00:21:26.000 it's definitely from the lab and not from the home, 392 00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:30.879 you know, given that, you know, even sometimes the science 393 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:35.000 is pretty bad. So when the behaviors come a long 394 00:21:35.080 --> 00:21:40.320 short time later and really urge parents to avoid giving 395 00:21:40.359 --> 00:21:44.879 their children affection, it's John Bradis W. Watson, who was 396 00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:49.120 this sort of womanizing, alcoholic, kind of a real Don 397 00:21:49.160 --> 00:21:52.680 Draper figure. In fact, he had spent some time as 398 00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:55.119 an advertising executive and came up with the concept of 399 00:21:55.160 --> 00:21:57.960 the coffee break, which I will thank him for. But 400 00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:03.800 he became not just a prominent psychologist but the president 401 00:22:03.800 --> 00:22:07.320