Name: Our Babies, Ourselves
ISBN: 9780385483629

Meredith F. Small

Contrasts Western child-rearing practices to those of other cultures, discussing the advantages of non-traditional feeding, sleeping, and adult interaction customs.

How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent

Our Babies, Ourselves

Wojciech Waśniewski

I really enjoyed this book. I have a weak spot for anthropology and evolutionary "sciences" though. In any case I found it absolutely fascinating to read about different infant care practices across cultures and in history. That includes the punchline of how different (unnatural?) some of the typical modern Western parental behaviours are, like sleeping separately, feeding on schedule or allowing babies to cry.

The discussion probably lacked the wider societal perspective on how this affects some of the decisions made by parents (especially working mothers), but an interesting perspective nonetheless.

Our Babies, Ourselves How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent

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