PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 20, No. 5, Sept. 7, 2000

Scholars, students explore child-rearing methods around world -- then collaborate on inventive set of 'manuals'

Andrea Lynn, News Bureau Staff Writer
(217) 333-2177; a-lynn@illinois.edu

A new volume of child-rearing manuals not only dispels the notion that there is one right way to bring up baby, but also challenges the idea that parents need such advice. Above all, the book -- which packages heavily researched information about seven of the world's societies into a semi-fictionalized format of imagined parenting guides -- seeks to impart the message that there are many models for successful parenting. In fact, it demonstrates there are as many models as there are societies -- and that all societies' practices are based on their standards of common sense.

Photo by Bill Wiegand Baby book Judy DeLoache, left, a UI professor of psychology, and Alma Gottlieb, a UI professor of anthropology, are co-authors/editors of "A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies" (Cambridge University Press). The book grew out of a course they taught in 1995.

"Seeing that there are all these different ways that people raise healthy, productive children should be reassuring to many parents," said Judy DeLoache, a UI professor of psychology and co-author/editor of "A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies" (Cambridge University Press). The book grew out of a course DeLoache and her co-author/editor, Alma Gottlieb, a UI professor of anthropology, taught in 1995. DeLoache's research focuses on the cognitive development of infants and toddlers, particularly on how they first learn about symbols. Gottlieb has been studying the daily life of the Beng people of Ivory Coast for many years.

In the book's seven invented child-rearing guides, the author of each chapter assumes the persona of a respected child-care authority -- a mother or grandmother, diviner, healer, teacher or midwife -- in one of the featured societies: Balinese (Indonesia), Beng and Fulani (West Africa), Ifaluk (Micronesia), Muslim villagers (Turkey), Puritans (Colonial New England) and Warlpiri (aboriginal Australia).

Readers will learn from these manuals, for example, that Beng and Fulani babies are given enemas twice a day until they can walk; that many Balinese babies are not allowed to touch the ground until they're 8 months old; and that Puritans treated their colicky babies with a broth made of the boiled entrails and skin of a wolf, and their teething babies with a mix of hare brains, honey and butter. While to some readers some of the practices may at first seem exotic, even shocking, the book shows how most parenting practices are deeply rooted in the belief systems of the people who follow them.

To be sure, Americans no longer rely on wolf broth or hare salve, yet many "still practice Puritan-style parenting without realizing it," Gottlieb said. For example, one of our forebears' practices -- making their infants sleep alone from the age of 6 months -- "is still followed by many Americans, who even expand this practice to begin right after birth," Gottlieb said. "At the same time, a small but growing number of Americans do sleep with their babies, contributing to what has recently become part of a national debate." In fact, most babies throughout most of human history have slept with their parents for at least a year or two, Gottlieb said, "and this should be reassuring to parents today who are struggling with the issue."

Despite or perhaps because of the many differences in child-care practices, readers are embracing the new book. "A World of Babies," published in May, is now in its second cloth and third paperback printings. It has been adopted as a course text on university campuses this summer and fall.

Course turns into book, students become authors

When UI professors Judy DeLoache and Alma Gottlieb embarked on their new team-taught course in the fall of 1995, they had no idea how successful it would be -- that it not only would offer a wonderful teaching experience for them and their students, but also spawn a book. more …