Alma Gottlieb, PhD, anthropologist and author of A World Of Babies, and I sit down to talk how our WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic) culture can differ from many others around the world with regards to ideas and practices surrounding child rearing. We discussed:

-why the Western notion of attachment theory doesn’t hold up around the world, and how the nuclear family in the West is a historically novel situation

-how parenting ideals/values/practices differ from our own around the world, particularly with regards to infants and teenagers

-why anthropologists shy away from the word “universally”

-how cultural ideals are transmitted through child rearing, and the impact this has on the way children view themselves and their role in society

-some ideas about ethics, infant mortality, and prenatal testing

-creating a village in our modern technological world

Check out Alma’s website: www.almagottlieb.com

Different Faces of Attachment:

www.amzn.com/131661798X

Alma’s book A World Of Babies: www.amzn.com/1316502570

Alma’s Facebook page for A World of Babies:

https://www.facebook.com/WOBBook/

Barry Hewlett, PhD, professor of anthropology at Washington State University and I sit down to talk about his time spent with the Akas in Central Africa.

We discussed:

-How Barry’s career in anthropology evolved and how he came to spend time with the Akas (a nomadic foraging society he lived with off and on for over 40 years)

-Among other things, Barry talks about the high amount of touch provided for infants, who are often held by various members of their extended family throughout the day

-Egalitarian and autonomous values within the Aka society

-Ideas (or lack thereof) about “personal space” with the Akas

-The Aka fathers and their heavy involvement in child rearing - what about their lifestyles allows their fathers to be so present with their offspring?

-Lessons Barry learned from the Akas

Check out Barry’s book about the Aka fathers here: www.amzn.com/0472082035

Find out more about his work here: https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/people/hewlett/

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Check us out online: www.raisingprimates.com

Charlotte Faircloth, PhD, anthropologist and author of "Militant Lactivism? Attachment Parenting and Intensive Motherhood in the UK and France", and I sit down to talk about "parenting culture" and how attachment parenting fits into the larger ideology of intensive mothering.

We discuss:

-Charlotte’s work and how it influenced her own journey through motherhood (and vice versa)

-How developmental psychology in the 1970's played a key role in creating “parenting culture” - and what that means

-the idea of the “natural” being held up as ideal (is/ought problem), and some of the problems this may create for new parents trying to sort out their unique relationship with their child

-defining intensive motherhood and looking at attachment parenting as a subset of this dominant cultural ideology

-our very human need to belong to groups, and find support and validation around the parenting practices we employ

-the difference between criticism and critique - or, how can we analyze various behaviors of parents without necessarily attaching a moral judgment to them?

-how social media can both help and perhaps harm our perceptions of ourselves as parents

-the idea of optimizing “parenting” or “attachment”, and how neurobiological research can be appropriated to inform “best” parenting practices

More of Charlotte's work can be found here: https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=CFAIR39

The book Militant Lactivism?: www.amzn.com/0857457586

The book Parenting Culture Studies: www.amzn.com/1137304634

The Center for Parenting Culture Studies at Kent: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/parentingculturestudies/

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Visit us online: www.raisingprimates.com