How not to f*** them up - Oliver James - anyone read it?

[Smiler]

Yes, borrow it, don't go buying it and giving him cash!

[apenn]

Goodness. Have just read this thread. I've never read any parenting books other than that 0-5 NHS book you receive from your health visitor. I'm a bit overwhelmed by all of the theories out there so have decided to ignore them all! I really will F*** him up, won't I?

-A

[180176]

well said jalapeno. one of his more frequent points is also that if you can't stay at home and look after your kids, then a childminder ie one-to-one is a better option than a nursery, so i generally find parents who chose the nanny v nursery option 'like' him a bit more. that said, his comments on why he thinks nanny is better than nursery do resonate and have scared the pants off me given the fact that mine have gone to nursery since they were 10 months...like i needed more guilt!

[sb]

.

[woofmarkthedog]

I do...

..somehow wonder if this book had been written by "Olivia James" would it have been received differently

W**F

[The Nappy Lady]

Probably not, WMTD, based on how people react to Gina Ford and other parenting books.

I think parenting is such a personal thing, my view has always been to take a bit of everything - i.e. the bits I like and feel comfortable with from many different sources.

Molly

[woofmarkthedog]

True ...

* sticks pins in GF doll*

I'm reading an old book, it says...

"Children should be seen & not heard"

W**F

* sighs, wondering; who has a garden that long in london *

[littleEDfamily]

Ha - Molly - classic 'fleximum' view. Don't you know you're kidding yourself????

(I'm kidding obviously!)

One thing the book talks about a lot is the need for a mother who is 'completely attuned' to her baby, but in my view, he doesn't elaborate satisfactorily on what that is. I get visions of some neurotic person, constantly watching their baby for signs of distress with no healthy separation between self and offspring (and therefore potentially unable to get some decent perspective). That may not be what he means, but I would say that today's mums, more so than any previous generation, are 'attuned' - as another poster said, previous generations were more likely to have lots of small children, a backbreaking housekeeping routine, not to mention a much more 'matter of fact' attitude to childrearing. We may work more, but surely we are just as good at being mothers (Dads are definitely better) than previous generations - perhsps more so?

[ClaireinSE22]

littleEDfamily - IF I HAD A HUNDRED LIFETIMES AND I WAS A CHRONIC INSOMNIAC I WOULD NOT READ IT....I tried Affluenza and couldn't get beyond chapter 2.....I was interested - am interested in considering how socio-economic factors may effect mental health/well being BUT pap is the word - trashy, predictable and superficial character sketches paired with bogus, unreferenced and frankly unrelated statistics plus concept largely ripped off Status Anxiety (Alan de Botton). Gather latest offering is rip off of someone else's work too?

Meanwhile spare a thought for the James' clan; Ollie is constantly spilling his guts about his Mummy and Daddy. What a way to turn a dime. What miffs me most is he does therapy such a disservice. On the one hand his opportunistic skid-mark laundering plays into the hands of the stiff upper lip 'therapy is stuff and nonsense I was beaten soundly and it didn't do me any harm' brigade and then the slippery fish ups and scrawls something for the Daily Mail entitled something like 'The NHS wastes ?600 million on therapy' or something like that. Which was actually about CBT (liked by NHS managers coz its quick and cheap) when you read it properly but gave the Daily Fascist Housewife a peach of a headline. He has been variously styled Eminent, Popular, Controversial. I prefer verbs like Self-aggrandising, Reductive, Chris Moyles-ish.

Parenting I as experience it is not a choice....we all have to be the parents we were always going to be. Yes, we try to be more like this and try to do more of that but there isn't time to weigh every word/act. Daily we do the best we can and even if we could pull of some super-human, insect eating feat of 'being a loving, positive at all times when dealing with our children' act it would be utterly wasted as kids have great bullshit detectors, not having learnt to ignore their intuition yet. Love bombing? Sounds like Davina McCall on Ecstasy. Think I'd rather be brought up by Tilda Swinton on her period. Think this book could lead to 1000s of infants begging to be sent to boarding school.

So, not content with cashing in on his own neuroses, Mr I Can Heal the World in 10 Easy Steps now wants to get a few more terms' fees out of ours. Its been said before but Mums are such soft targets - we might deal out the guilt but by golly we know how to suck it up too. I'm not having a rant because I'm secretly guilty about going back to work; I'm openly guilty about going back to work. So don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there isn't a book to be written/many books to be written on this subject. My knee-jerk, over the top and only very slightly informed assessment of this book that I'm not going to read, is based on my complete scepticism of its author.

[new mother]

One thing I do note is that my brothers and sister and I were just told by my parents in any given scenario: this is how it is to hapopen.

ANd it did.

automatically.

It simply would not have occurred to us to disobey.

However, my nephews and nieces are asked whether they want to do X Y Z, to eat A, B, C and are invited to contribute to debate in a way that would never have occurred to my parents.

Equally, my parents then demand a far higher standard of behaviour. manners and deference from their grandhcildren and, critically, the children are perfectly happy.

I'm quite intrigued to see how I end parenting and presume it will be as per my brothers and sister.

Has anyone else observed/experiecned the same thing?

[sillywoman]

Maybe it depends a little on numbers new mother? I began as a 'let's debate the choices available' Mum. Now with 4 I'm most definitely a 'right - do this now 'cos I say so' Mum. Wouldn't touch OJ with a bargepole. I am what I am as a Mum & I'm too busy to 1) change significantly 2) Give myself any additional guilt over how crap a parent I am.

[Belle]

Started reading it yesterday and must say that based on the intro I didn't get that he was quite as anti-working mums /pro stay at home mums as people might infer. But that is based on v little read so far! I did also read something v interesting/helpful to me about preterm/low birth weight babies which totally applied to us and made me feel a bit better about some things. I'm also quite suprised to find some bits about the Organiser typology fitting me which I'd not have predicted.

[new mother]

haha SW, v funny and succinct post

[littleEDfamily]

Just got round to catching up on this thread and reading your post, new mother. Still giggling about the Love Bombing quip....brilliant rant all round. I am still persevering with the Love Bombing, having decided there is a soppy new age mum (I'm becoming very 'attuned', you see) lurking beneath my stern Victorian mother routine! Quite far beneath, it must be said....

[ClaireinSE22]

Bet your an outstanding Mum. If you didn't care so much - would be reading this stuff for fun? Would you think any of it mattered either way? No. So it's a completely pointless book; obviously 'bad' parents (god help me I'm not getting into that one - can we just let it stand?) wouldn't even know it was published let alone if they were Mugger, Ring Binder or Sexi or whatever these BS random categories are.

Perhaps I should be grateful that the absolute financial necessity of going back to work will save me from wringing my hands over this one. Maybe I'm making a virtue out of the situation I simply happen to find myself in (bit like being any other oil company apart from BP at the moment...) e.g. I do 'attachment' parenting (slings, BF, no crying etc etc)or did once I got over the shock of it all. But it's no great virtue on my part. Just the way I have to do it.

Apenn - please don't buy any parenting books; save yourself. My excellent psychotherapist (Tavistock trained don't you know) rolls her eyes in despair if I mention any of this vile new chick lit. Not sure Leach is any better/different. Heard her promoting new book on Radio 4 (guess it was Woman's Hour) on cortisol levels in brains of infants enduring controlled crying. Came across badly - whoever it was putting across the 'other view' (an neurologist working in the field) put her into a tail spin. Is anyone on this this thread a neurologist currently involved in research on the above? No? Guess we're all equally in the dark on that one then. But listen we have a local child psychologist who is one of us, on our side, not selling us anything, or promoting herself, advancing her career - I believe in expertise I really do - who has given our little coterie some excellent humane advice.

One more thing...'having it all?' Having it f****** all!!! Having to DO IT ALL more like.

C***

[Belle]

who's the local child psychologist? didn't realise we had one in our midst.

[littleEDfamily]

Poppy is her (?) name - see pg one of this thread...

[Belle]

oh yes - def nice to hear that point of view from a professional.

[kacenka76]

I have not read the book but have been interested in children development for about ten years, have been a baby massage instructor for about 7 and worked as a nanny for last two. There are many many books and studies confirming that mother love and care is so very essential for a child at the early stages of their lives because these years are formative. The amount of love and care recieved during these years have impact on the psyche of each child, on their self-esteem, etc...I just would like to point out that from my own experience by observing nannies, childminders, there is a handful of them who actually do care and find the love whithin themselves to supplement for the mother's love. It is not enough to make sure the child is safe and fed. That is not a proper childcare, I think we should really wake up and aknowledge the fact that we carry the responsibility of what is my child going to grow into, happy, self loving, confident human being or is he going to struggle, go through psychotherapy and will be trying to find that love, which was denied to him for the rest of life {Im talking out of expereince, have been in therapy for last two years}. Im just very sad and kind of bewildered at how many women and how easily abandon their precious children for whatever reason there might be. And a question arises, why to have children at all if we dont really want them. Or do we? For weekends?

[Moos]

So.. you're a nanny currently looking for work, but you disapprove of working mothers and think that they 'easily abandon' their children and don't love them? Or really want them?

Next!

[sillywoman]

kacenka76 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I think we should really wake up

> and aknowledge the fact that we carry the

> responsibility of what is my child going to grow

> into, happy, self loving, confident human being or

> is he going to struggle, go through psychotherapy

> and will be trying to find that love, which was

> denied to him for the rest of life

I rather think that I, along with most other mothers I know, carry the seriousness of that responsibility with us daily. Most of us do our best within the circumstances we have to create option 1 for our child. However sometimes, & for a myriad of reasons, our well loved children will find themselves in option 2 at some point in their adulthood. It is a cliche, but really - all we can do as parents is our best. Our kids , once grown, will be what they'll be, as long as they know we're along for the ride with them, and did our best for them at any given time - that's surely the most important information? Not did Mum work or didn't she?

[ClaireinSE22]

Kacenka76 - who on earth are all these wicked women that you know who 'easily abandon' their children? Clients of yours?

[civilservant]

I haven't read the book - and probably won't - but must admit to actually liking the Oliver James column in the Guardian. Yes, it's preachy and so on, but has some basis in proper research and his general attitude is baby-centred after all. (I speak as one of those careless mums who blithely dumped her baby in daycare at 6 months old and went off to work full-time. Well, hey for the capitalist system!)

But the baby 'guru' who made me see red, after first depressing the hell out of me because a) I clearly was a rubbish mum because I wasn't up to following her minutely calibrated routines, and b) I clearly had a rubbish baby, who just wouldn't do as she prescribed, was Gina Ford. That book went in the bin, as I didn't want to risk any other new mum picking it up in a charity shop. Still depresses me to see that there are those who will slavishly praise and force copies of her onto their innocent pregnant sisters. At least O James, although a mister, has kids of his own.

[Smiler]

Are you seriously saying, kacekna76, that women who return to work and organise childcare for their young children other than a one-to-one, "loving" nanny who somehow "supplements" the mother's (part-time and inadequate?) love, are abandoning them / only want their kids for weekends / are responsible if their kids turn out f****ed up?

If so, grrrrr!

kacenka76 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

I just would like to point out that from my

> own experience by observing nannies, childminders,

> there is a handful of them who actually do care

> and find the love whithin themselves to supplement

> for the mother's love. It is not enough to make

> sure the child is safe and fed. That is not a

> proper childcare, I think we should really wake up

> and aknowledge the fact that we carry the

> responsibility of what is my child going to grow

> into, happy, self loving, confident human being or

> is he going to struggle, go through psychotherapy

> and will be trying to find that love, which was

> denied to him for the rest of life {Im talking out

> of expereince, have been in therapy for last two

> years}. Im just very sad and kind of bewildered at

> how many women and how easily abandon their

> precious children for whatever reason there might

> be. And a question arises, why to have children at

> all if we dont really want them. Or do we? For

> weekends?

[kacenka76]

All Im saying is that it has its effect on a child and we should bare that in mind...It is not natural for the development of the child to be separated from mother in such a tender age but sadly it is becoming rather a norm in today's society. Im aware that the system does not support women in staying at home with their children but I also know that there are women who chose to go back to work to pursue their career. I do not want to fuel any feelings of guilt in anybody and I do sincerely appologise to the mothers if I hurt anybodys' feelings by my comment but that is my view on the whole problem.