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VIEWS & REVIEWS: Des Spence The baby shambles BMJ 2007; 335: 940 [Full text]

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Babyshambles - An outbreak of common sense?

Duncan H Wilson   (3 November 2007)

Thank you

Joan McClusky   (4 November 2007)

Babyshambles - An outbreak of common sense? 3 November 2007
Duncan H Wilson, G.P. Rotherham Send response to journal: Re: Babyshambles - An outbreak of common sense?	At last! A personal expression of an unfashionable truth. Parenting has become the victim of what might be called the "Cult of the child" wherein so-called experts in child care cast wide the net of uncertainty, and haul in worried shoals of confused and floundering parents. They lie gasping on the decks, exhausted by all the swimming around in an ocean of trendy psycho-babble. Just as children are not allowed to be just children, so parents must be supermums, doting new age dads, and unwittingly subscribe to every parenting creed that they believe will make little Hannah and Joshua into an acme of genetic and social perfection. When will parents be allowed to be just parents, and admit their kids are human and not gods-in-the-making? Let your offspring get dirty, fall out of trees, watch trash TV, wear out the knees of trousers, have sword fights with sticks, and to Hell with health and safety! Let them be disorganised, spontaneous, destructive, constructive, expressive, sullen, moody, bright. Set protective boundaries, not lifestyle timetables. Give them freedom to grow in their own innately special ways, and they will reward you by blossoming into beautiful, interesting rounded adults of whom you will be proud, and they will respond to your nurturing with love unlimited. Competing interests: None declared
Thank you 4 November 2007
Joan McClusky, Medical writer New York, NY 10003 Send response to journal: Re: Thank you	Regarding Des Spence's take on modern parenthood--what a wonderful, brave and perhaps even foolhardy piece of writing, especially from a physician. New York is full of people with fulltime live-in babysitters on 12 hour shifts, expert parents who don't hesitate to tell strangers with children what they're doing wrong, and children who are being groomed like prize animals to win a blue ribbon at the county fair--or admission to an ivy league college. Thomas Edison would have been diagnosed with so many DSM IV diagnoses and put on so many drugs, he'd have been lucky to get to adulthood without Parkinsonian tremors. But he would almost certainly have been turned into a "compliant team player"--which seems to be the goal for everyone these days, parent and child alike. And we might be filling out the tick lists by candle light. The fact that imagination, self-motivation, curiosity, and innovation emerge from exploration, daydreaming, experimentation, and even some risk taking is anethema to many modern parents, who see these not as gifts to be treasured but as problems to be overcome. Competing interests: None declared