The Witching Hour Cometh

Six o'clock and it's all smiles. Baby plays in her gym, blissfully full on mom's life-sustaining milk, grasping at the bugs with cellophane wings, the multi-textured ball, the stuffed elephant just out of reach. A nap is coming. All day she cycles--feed, play, sleep, change, repeat. It's pleasantly predictable, a healthy routine for her and dad both. By six-thirty she is calming, enough so that dad can begin dinner. He cuts the onions, minces the garlic, chops the vegetables. From across the room he can see baby's eyes getting heavy. Her energy is waning. Her once active arms drooping. The excited kicks and squirming stop. Dad can relax. "It's break time boss." He grabs a beer, turns on the news, and begins sauteing the onion and garlic.

Every evening brings hope. Maybe tonight will be it. Maybe the curse of wretched fits and inconsolable wails of infant insolence will cease. She will graduate to a more mature form of miniature mortal. The clock strikes seven and baby's eyes are fluttering, barely open now. Dad sips his beer and lets his focus fall to dinner and Robert Seigel.

Then, turning to add the quartered zucchini to the fragrant pan of sizzling roots it happens. Baby's pacifier hits the floor and with it dad's hopes of dinner time sanity. Baby's head thrashes violently. Her mouth pouts as the lack of sucking motion rouses her from her near-slumber. Dad puts his half-full beverage on the counter and stirs the vegetables hastily, knowing time is short. He wishes he had not been so naive. Why would tonight have been different? How can he make such a rookie mistake night after night? Perhaps it is the regularity of the rest of the day. From sun-up to early evening the cycle seems too concrete to vary. But it does and dinner must stop.

Dad turns off the stove as baby becomes possessed by something from the psychological netherworld--the infant equivalent of psychosis. Her eyes still watery with fatigue, she looks up helplessly at dad wishing as badly as he does that she could maintain control. But the witching hour has cometh. There's no remedy, no amount of feeding, or soothing, or shushing that will cure it. There is no solving the problem or providing for a need, there is only endurance of spirit. Dad wrestles the wriggling bewitched babe to her car seat and the car seat to the stroller. He glances sadly at the half-cooked meal strewn across the counter top and the wounded soldier standing guard. It will be eight before he gets back. Fresh air and vibration in the outdoors are all that take the edge off the frantic flailing. If nothing else the cries for control dissipate in the cool evening air that provides some relief for dad. If only he had grabbed a snack, some sustenance to aide in maintaining his mental acuity and patience. But alas, it has begun. Deep breaths, fast walking, perseverance. It will end, eventually. And tomorrow will bring new hope. The witch will leave her and dad's smiling cooing child will return. They will play and sing and bond, tomorrow. But for now...for now...he waits.

Cultural Conundrums (or Evidence-Based Parenting)

Much to my surprise, babies do come with instructions these days. In fact, there are libraries full of manuals, tips, tricks, charts, product research, double blind longitudinal randomized studies, development aids, myth debunkers, opinion pieces, parenting techniques, activity trackers, and the like. Before we were even discharged from our healthcare co-op birthing center (how very west coast of us, I know) we were given the quick and dirty on what to expect from the coming weeks. For example, babies have been breathing through a cord for quite awhile by the time they are born and though they will occasionally start panting like a dog in the deep South for no apparent reason, it doesn't mean they are having an anxiety attack; they're simply learning to use lungs. New parents have a lot of questions and concerns and unlike my parent's generation who had to call the doctor every other day for answers (or hope it worked itself out), we are now able to type a few words into a handheld device and find the answer (or an answer) immediately. For this I am grateful.

That being said, the information out in the world on pregnancy, human development, and parenting is about three parts total bullshit to one part evidence-based reality. This is most apparent when walking through the aisles of baby brain videos at your local Babies (being marketed to irresponsibly because people are gullible and don't know any better) R Us department store. According to John Medina, a molecular biologist and research consultant at the University of Washington, there isn't a single video or television show on the market that has proven effective at helping babies' brains develop. Not one. In fact, some of the more popular ones (anyone still using Baby Einstein?) have even had negative effects. Why? Because TV turns us into zombies. No kidding. When a baby is placed in front of a television, no matter how educational the show appears to be to us as adults, her brain shuts down. Synapses literally start dying and neuropathways close up shop under the impression that they will no longer be needed. It's passive. She has no way to interact with the information being spewed at her, and even in the cases where the show encourages interaction, it's rarely useful interaction that engages critical thinking, problem solving, or creativity. As cute as call and response with a big purple dinosaur may be it isn't likely to help your child, say, solve the global climate crisis you will be leaving her (or fit a square peg in a square hole for that matter). The best book I've seen on child development so far: Brain Rules for Baby by the aforementioned John Medina. For those who love the nuts and bolts science of what will and won't work for your baby's development, check it out. No woowoo nonsense, no ideological child rearing techniques, no "I've been a mom six times over and let me tell you something" opinions--just the facts ma'am. 

I'll have you know I didn't take a break from cleaning vomit off my everything just to point out that there are a lot of BS things parents do (and buy) while completely ignoring the evidence backing whether it works. Rather, I am writing to ask the question, "So what?" So by the time my kid is twenty she's a brilliant straight A student, who's emotionally stable, physically fit, socially aware, and happier than a hipster at a Buffalo Exchange. How many people fitting this description do we all know currently sitting in a cubicle making spreadsheets for a hard ass frat boy with obsessive compulsive disorder and a sociopathic drive to get rich because his dad never said, "I love you"? How does one raise a happy, healthy, intelligent woman knowing full well that the world doesn't give a fornicating flamingo about being happy, healthy, or intelligent? If we did we would have teachers making six-figure salaries, a health care system that keeps everyone in tiptop condition, and fields of windmills and solar panels all functioning on a smart grid that would put your iPad to shame. But we don't, because these are not our values. So, what's a dad to do when these are his values? Do I raise a daughter who can compete with all the shit-for-brains bullies out there running the world, or do I raise her to be someone who fights tooth and claw to solve the problems being passed on to her (even if what she has to say is contrary to what most want to hear)?

Robert Burns says, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft agley (often go awry)." That is to say, that the fact that I plan to raise my daughter to be the kind of person I wish everyone would be, using suggestions from academics rather than folksy grandmas and grandpas who raised kids forty years ago, really has little bearing on whether it will work out in her favor down the road. And can one really be happy and healthy when unemployable and stigmatized for having values more suited to, say, Norway than the United States?

Thus begins twenty years of compromise--setting aside the evidence so my daughter isn't shunned from birthdays with TV character themes of shows I've not allowed her to watch. Setting aside the evidence so she can eat crap at other people's houses without being called "weird" for being fed healthy food at home. Setting aside evidence so she can have some cultural literacy of what people in her country do and believe instead of raising her to oppose interests that lead to stagnation, obesity, superstition, paranoia, fear, and hate. Compromising, not so the world is a better place, but so she can survive. This is my cultural conundrum.