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Evidence Based Crunch
Evidence Based Crunch
Episode 4: It Takes a (Virtual) Village
As a parent you've probably heard the phrase "it takes a village" more times than you can count. But where is our village? What if it's online? What can we learn about the virtual village to utilize it most effectively. I explore the science and the spirituality of parenting in a virtual world.
Show Notes:
“Welcome to the Mommy Wars, Ladies”: Making Sense of the Ideology of Combative Mothering in Mommy Blogs
How Useful Is It? Differences in Parents’ Perceptions of Parenting Information Sources.
Apologies for the sound this week. Per usual (with a kiddo in daycare) I had a cold while I was recording. I did the best to edit my sniffles.
The music you here at the start of this and every episode was created by the "Wonderful" Obediya Jones-Darrell. You can check out his work here.
Welcome to this episode of Evidence Based Crunch. It takes a virtual village, when parenting has gotten rough. How often have you heard the expression it takes a village? I know for me sometimes these were words of great comfort. Like when I had a very colicky six week old and a really good friend came over and just held him for an hour while I showered, and when I was so grateful, she just looked at me. It takes a village. I know these words can also be very frustrating when you don't have a village. I know for me personally, my husband and I, our family, we are abroad. We have no close family nearby, so we don't really have that traditional village, and I think this is common for more and more people, even those who don't move abroad. More people move away from home. There's more jobs in cities, even people who live nearby, their parents. Parents are working longer, they're retiring less so they can provide less help. And at the same time, people are having children older. So oftentimes grandparents are older and maybe not as able to help as they would have been. And you know, families are just more spread. But I think even if you are fortunate enough to live by and have a village with you, I think most of us, those who do and don't have that physical village, have a totally different village these days. The virtual village. And when I talk about that, I mean the internet and more specifically social media as. and I think parenting advice is both one of the best things and one of the worst things about the internet. I've met amazing mom friends and found lots of solidarity in parenting groups. I know that there are some groups where I can ask really open questions and find really nonjudgmental inform. I have also been hurt to the point of tears on parenting groups by the things people have said to me. So today we're diving into all aspects of the virtual village, the Facebook groups, the blogs, the influencers, and. When we talk about the fact that it takes a village, I wish you could see me, I'm doing air quotes, but I'm not videoing this. but when we talk about the term, we're talking about the fact that parenting wasn't really meant to be done by just one or two adults, but by a village of supporters that are providing. Both physical help and advice. We're going to talk in another episode about the physical care of children and how different societies have approached the issues of not having a physical village anymore. But today we're really thinking about the emotional support and an advice that would come from a traditional village that would traditionally come from elders and other parents in your community. This is a personal theory that we've replaced lots of aspects of the traditional village with a virtual one. Instead of turning to our own mothers and grandmothers for advice on how to feed our babies or get our babies to sleep, et cetera, et cetera, we turn to the internet. So in some ways we are so blessed. to have these infinite resources. We can break from harmful or toxic practices that may be were passed down through generations in ways that was never possible before. We can also, get away from outdated information. I will talk again about my very colicky first baby who just would not sleep unless he was held. That was just, he would not sleep. You're going hear about that a lot. My experience around this is a major driver for this podcast, but when my child wouldn't sleep, one of the first things my mom, who had been a parent to the eighties asked me was why I wasn't having him sleep on his belly. You know, you used to sleep so well, you would just snu go right in. And of course in the eighties that's how you put babies to sleep. Now we know the safety information, and we're going to talk a lot about if infant sleep, there's going to be at least one podcast about that, but that is no longer the recommendation for a variety of safety reasons. Babies sleep on their backs. So if I had just turned to my mom for that information, I would've gotten some very outdated. Unsafe information, but at the same time there's so much information and there are so many opinions. We can use the same sleep example. And when I, posted about needing help with sleep instead of, going to my mom and getting one piece of outdated advice, I got hundreds of types of advice. Like I said, the idea from this podcast came from my experience with sleep. I wanted to name this podcast originally, yes, I've tried swaddling because of how many people you would post a sleep question. It would just say, Have you tried swallowing as if it was this amazing invention or that something surely you would've done and it would work. there's lots of information out there. So researchers have long pointed this out that there's more information than ever before, and the internet is one of the leading sources of information for parents. So before that, like I said, people were always churning to their elders and maybe there would be typically one hot parenting book. There's lots of studies that are looking at where parents are getting informations. We see more and. People are getting information from the internet. Most studies I will say, look only at where moms are getting information. I found an interesting study that looked at other studies. I will post that, That's Rudy et all. I'll post that in the show notes. And I think unless you've been living under a rock for the last few, That in 2022, most people would not be surprised to find out or to hear that. There's lots of misinformation out there. That's another reason behind this podcast, and I think for many of us, we tend to think that the misinformation is mostly coming from the crunchy side, and there's certainly lots of. Crunchy misinformation out there. I would never say there's not, but I think there's also a segment of the internet that is obsessed with evidence based and often providing advice without giving any context. And because it's the internet, forgetting that these are people. So coming back again to my example of my child. Sleeping. I remember posting in one group, he won't sleep unless I'm holding him. I am so tired. I haven't slept more than an hour. In weeks and weeks. He won't be swaddled. He, you know, he won't, he won't go into any of these sws we've tried warming the bed, blah, blah. So what else can I do? And people would write back. He has to sleep in a swaddle, put him down. He'll. and I would say, Well, he's not, he's screaming. I'm, he's three weeks old and he's, he's screaming. He's screaming for 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Babies have to sleep on their backs, put them back, they'll sleep. And it was this very rote information that was being given to me without any context of I'm a mom, I'm exhausted by partners, exhausted. We're trying to navigate this new experience together. I'm an actual person and you're just copying and pasting a guideline to me. So I think that maybe that's not misinformation, but it's not useful information that I was getting. So I think that's pretty important to remember And I also think it's really interesting to note that lots of people don't consider themselves anti-science. I found a really interesting study. parents and vaccine hesitancy. It's pre covid, so it's looking at vaccines already so out of date. But it was saying that most people who choose to not vaccinate their children or vaccinate an alternate schedule don't actually consider themselves anti-science. They are doing, you've heard this term, doing their own research, thereby air quotes again, I'm not saying that that is evidence based, but I think when we talk about the term evidence based, we need to remember that we're talking about peer reviewed articles that are coming from a scientific source, but also that are relevant to the person or the situation that we're talking about. But, and one term that keeps coming up when I was looking at the virtual village is the idea. Mommy wars. I hate that term. I hate the idea of anyone besides my old children calling me Mommy. I don't like being called mommy or mama by anyone but my kids. But the term mommy wars has been around for a while, so we have to acknowledge. It first showed up as far as I could tell in a 1990 Newsweek article that was about stay at home versus working moms. That was sort of the origin of the Bobby Wars, who was a better Bob, who was working harder. And I think that argument is still there. We still see that all the time. but it's evolved to be this catchall phrase from all sorts of debates about parenting, breastfeeding, sleep, treat, vaccin. you don't ever hear about the daddy war. It's definitely always the mommy worst, I could tell you with this same sleep situation story. I remember my husband once posted on his general Facebook page looking once for sleep advice and I couldn't believe he did it. I was like, Are you crazy? Do you know what's gonna happen? And of course we were getting comments from people we knew from all over the place telling us what we were doing wrong, why our child wasn't sleeping. And somehow I was still being tagged at all these booths, but it was so amazing to me that he didn't realize. People were not necessarily going to be nice and he was posting something controversial because there's no daddy wars. This is something that typically is happening with the, the mommies, but I do also wonder how real this issue actually is and how much of it is actually being promoted by the media, cuz it sort of works to put us in these boxes. I'm a, I'm a stay-at-home mom. I'm a working mom. I'm a breastfeeding. is this, is this really, you know how we all are? That's sort of what this podcast is about. If I'm a breastfeeding mom, do I only fit in the box with the breastfeeding moms? What else is in that box? There's often a lot of, well, there's all different sorts of people in that box. I wouldn't be at all the boxes with them. Maybe with the breastfeeding bobs, there's lots of home birthing. I might be with them, but I probably wouldn't be A lot of breastfeeding. Bobs are also co leafing. Bobs, I don't really belong with them. Some of this is about the internet and social media in general. That's beyond my scope. we have these algorithms, so if I start, following. influencers that are posting a lot about extended breastfeeding. What else is coming up on my feed? Am I getting lots of posts about home births and is that leading me down a road to lots of anti-vax things? And you know, how do people sort of get tracked these ways? That's way bigger research than this podcast is about. I think it's worth sort of posting that question. Do are these mommy wars real or are we sort of being ignited into them? I also think this was one of the best pieces of parenting advice I was ever given to remember when people do get cruel on the internet, sort of get very opinionated about things, they're often just defending their own choices. This is the choice they made. They. to sleep, train their child or not sleep, train their child. And they feel really passionate about it because they need to know that they made the right choices. So if other people are making these same choices, they must be right. And if someone else is making a different choices, what does that mean about your own choices? I read some really interesting research that was looking at this idea of combative mother. This was another article from 2018, so already feels really out of date, but it was looking first at the idea of intensive parenting. So this is this idea of parents who are completely devoting themselves to their children, which is a more and more common style of parenting. But they actually, the researchers here viewed combative, mothering as a, they used the term mother. As a new mothering ideology where it's not just mothers devoting themselves completely to their children, which is intensive parenting, but also competing to be the best mothers. In a zero sum game. If what I'm doing is right, then what you're doing must be wrong. I have to be the best mom because this is what I'm doing. And this was an article, I will put it in the show notes that was about the mommy blogs. Again, I hate the term mommy, I'm sorry, really looking at how combative they've become. And this, has definitely evolved on social media as well. So I think it's just really important to remember that parenting is hard. and that just because we made certain choices, that doesn't mean that other people need to make the same choices. It's also, we can always remember with the internet easier to argue with strangers. This idea that, you're just sort of putting these words out into the world. You're not looking at this brand new, exhausted mother who's really feels like she's tried everything to get her child to. And I think, along with that, that we really tied parenting really ties into our identity. And there's two ways that, there's two reasons that really important that you know, so much of this is if you're doing something and it's not working, is it because it doesn't work for your child, or is it because you are a bad parent? And I think for many new parents, it's really easy to feel the latter. It's really easy to feel like this worked for another person, it didn't work for me. Therefore, I must be the bad parent. I know with that same sleep situation, that is totally how I felt. Everyone's telling me to swaddle and the baby, I'll sleep. I'm swaddling, my baby's not sleeping clearly. I'm doing something. As it turns out, neither of my children would swaddle, but my second child slept great, so I just have babies that don't like being contained. And by the second kid, I realized it had nothing to do with me. I think when we talk about identity, it also brings us back to that idea of the algorithm again, because we sort of start getting tracked into things that that mega computer things are similar. So I know when I was planning my home birth, I was in some home birth groups and all of a sudden, you know, lots of other quote unquote crunchy or natural parenting groups started being suggested to me. And again, you're getting a lot of the birth story of this podcast with this episode. This podcast is really a way of me asserting by own identity, asserting by identity as someone who believes in science, but also likes a lot more of the crunchier natural paring ideas. And like all things, I think we can't ignore the role that capitalism plays in all of this. Like we will probably see in again and again a very neoliberal, individualized view of parenting has grown more and more common. That is where we've lost the village, right? We are coming back to this idea that we're doing this on our own. So if you're doing. On your own, then what you're doing has to be the best. We're not supporting each other. We just have to do, I have to do what's best for my kid. And you see this for sure in parenting debates about vaccines, but I think it also extends to lots of parenting advice that this is what works best for me. This is the advice I'm giving because it worked best for me and my family. Sorry, if it doesn't help you, I'm not gonna actually listen to you and hear what you're. So these are all the negatives of this virtual village. I talked a lot about, lots of negatives here, but I think it's worth taking a step back and looking at some of the more positive side of things, and this is where we'll, Some of the spirituality back into this, and I think that this virtual village does offer a sense of communal connection. It's actually really amazing that we can get advice from all over the world as parents Now, new parents now, we're one of the first generations that's ever got of that. I read a very interesting article that was looking at the idea. taking intimate, mothering public so that often we see mothering, we only see the front stage things, and that's definitely still true. I think Instagram is a great example of how we're only seeing, you know, the kids that all look beautiful and their hairs not filled with food, and their houses are cleaned and everyone's well behaved. for all that the internet is doing to not necessarily help that side of things. There's also the backstage that we do get more and more of. We see that in para groups. I think we see that more and more when new trends on Instagram and dare I say, I'm so old, but TikTok, we're seeing more of people showing the real side of parenting. The, this article used the term back. seeing the real life. So I think that is really important because I think people have always been hesitant to show that side, and we're getting that a little bit more, and that's part of the perk of being, even if not completely anonymous, if you're posting something on a Facebook page, you're just sort of putting it out into the world. And that's the nice side of it, not feeling like a real person. along with that, you can offer advice to someone sort of more nameless, like, you know, I really struggle to, and it was really hard and I did get through it, and maybe it would be the kind of thing that you'd be not willing to say to someone in person because that struggle is still traumatizing to you. Or you feel like it wasn't a positive par experience for you, but for someone else hearing it, it can be really. It gives the person a possibility to take a step back. So sometimes when we're in these situations, we can feel so alone. As parents, we don't have that village, We don't have that just Mother we can go to and just drop our kids off and they'll fix it. But so it's someone out there that can say, You're not alone. I've gone through this too. Here's what works for. And I think also with that, it does give us this opportunity to break these intergenerational patterns. Going to someone that is different than the person who raised you. This is a brand new phenomenon and I think it deserves to be valued that we're one of the first generations that can break. These traditional styles of parenting. So if the way you are parented is not the way you want to parent your kids, having other sources of information and advice and support is really, really important. I think that it is important to take a moment to not just think about all the negatives of the internet of the virtual village, but to take a moment to have g. for all these choices we have. We have so many resources, and take a step back even more and think about how could we use this as a positive? And if you're not a brand new mom, how can you better reach new moms? How can we support them? If you're an experienced parent, how can you. Reach out to someone else, whether it's through the virtual village or in other ways, and just ask them how they're doing. Can you answer their questions without judgment? Can you share your experience without saying, This is how you have to do something and be okay if they choose something differently. I know that can be really challeng. For me as well, to check your ego to know if you give someone advice, they might not take it or they might take it and not like it and choose something else. When that comes up, notice what happens for you and notice that. What happens to your own ego with that? So the virtual village, I don't think it's all good or all bad. I think like any village, it's what we make of it. I just put out to you that maybe. You could do what you can to focus on the positives of it. I'll leave us there today. All I will link all of those resources in the show notes. As always, if you want to contact me, you can On all of the social media, evidence based crunched on Facebook and Instagram, there's that virtual village there. If you have topics you'd like to hear discussed or just any questions, always let us know. And please, if you liked this podcast, please rate it and subscribe. Thank you for listen.