3 reasons not to read parenting books

Wander into your local bookstore, when you next have a spare minute, and get yourself to the ‘Parenting’ section.  It may even be a whole stand- believe me there are enough parenting books out there to fill a whole store.  Take a look. Take it all in. All the Expertise. All the Good Practice. All the Right Ways to parent your child.

As a mother to be,  you want to devour them all. After all, these parenting books are telling you how to do it right so you won’t mess them up and have to work until you’re 70 in order to pay for their therapy from your shoddy and haphazard parenting.  There is even one parenting book explicitly titled “How Not to F*** Them Up” by Oliver James.

Any new parent, and you’ll be able to spot them (crawling along the aisles, eyes propped open with match-sticks), will also want to devour them all: you want answers. You want to know how to stop the crying. You want to know how to get them to sleep.  You want someone to tell you what to do!!  You want the Answers.

So surely if there are so many parenting books out there with the Truth, and the Research and the Answers, then it is a good thing to read them and as many as you can?

Yes. And no.

Yes because it is good to be in this world as an informed individual.  There is not much reason to justify ‘ignorance is bliss’ especially in parenting. After all, there is just so much to know! Babies are an unknown quantity, they don’t come with a manual and as a new parent, being informed and aware is valuable.

Yes because some of them offer valuable and valid information.  Basic care for instance. Many new parents are living in isolation from extended families or grew up very nuclear and haven’t had the opportunity to experience the day to day ‘care’ of a new born.  Developmental stages also are handy to know and some books have great information on the stages of development a baby goes through and what that means for you and them.

Yes because they make great door-stops, arsenal for deterring the neighbours cat from your garden or an effective foot-stool.

Why then do we need to be wary of the parenting book?

Because as this article so rightly exposes, there is a dirty little secret within the parenting advice industry- “their chief marketing tool is guilt and insecurity”.  New parents are incredibly vulnerable, and more so if their experience of effective parenting is limited, with limited support.  Media knows this and targets that vulnerability and a parent’s innate desire to be a ‘good parent’ quite unashamedly.  It is a well-used marketing tool. And now parents are quite ‘hard-wired’ into the expectation of having to feel guilt and needing others to tell them how to parent.

When we lived in more extended communities, there were babies everywhere as well as different parenting styles (but to a less degree of extremes as community ensures survival with the encouragement of similar values), but mostly there was support, reassurance and the opportunity to observe and ‘be with your baby’.

Communities naturally gather round a new family, providing periphery care of food and housework done and other ‘bearing of the load’, while the new parents and baby get down to the real and true business needed in the early days: resting, recovering and developing a connected and loving relationship with each other.

Without this type of support of extended family and community, it makes sense that new families feel untethered, unsupported and overwhelmed. It makes sense to turn to any offering of available source of the Answers.

New parents need support, reassurance and time together. They need time to work out what feels right for them as a family; they need time to be with each other to better respond to their newborns needs. They need time to better understand what this baby is all about! They need time and space to listen to their in-built knowledge of their baby and themselves.

Show me the Parenting Book On How to Do it Right that gives you that.

So here are 3 reasons why you needn’t read parenting books

1. Because they mess with your own in-built expertise. That of being a mother, a parent.

Along with the opinions and ‘well-meaning advice’ from those around you and the propaganda fed through the media machine, parenting books can serve to shout-down your own intuition about what is right for your baby and for you.  

When you are vulnerable and overwhelmed it is easy to be swayed by the latest ‘fad’ or the thing ‘that everyone else is doing’- whether that be good for you and your baby, or not.

When there is so much outside noise clambering for your attention when you are at one of your most vulnerable times, that inner voice can get easily ignored.

2. Because you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Look at any parenting theory or practice and there will be an equal number of books supporting it or disproving it.  As with anything, it comes down to personal opinion and personal values.  Go back to point no.1: listen to your own intuition and what feels right. And if you can’t feel it, stop the noise!  Give yourselves time and space to connect with your baby, and with your partner.

3. Because you’re connected with a form of ‘surrogate family or community’

When you’re struggling, look for those who are of your ‘community’; those with similar values and share similar views. Even if it isn’t the most popular view, or the most trendy view or the view of Aunt Maude- if it feels right for you and your baby, it is right for you and your baby.

Connect with organisations who can offer you the support and reassurance you may feel is missing. It is valuable to go into having a new baby thinking about where your support or community may be lacking and plan to ‘fill the gap’ where you can.

Sarah, from Birth Baby Balance, supporting a new family in the early days

Finally, you shouldn’t read parenting books because you already have a door-stop, a water pistol or a lovely foot-stool as at the end of the day, when your littlie moves on from the latest phase, that will be what they end up being…