Just when you think that the “experts” (yes those are ironic quotes) have tapped into every last facet of mommy guilt, along comes a study like this one. Apparently having your child face away from you in the stroller is very VERY bad for their long term development.
My reaction… are you KIDDING me?
According to researchers:
“Our data suggests that for many babies today, life in a buggy is emotionally impoverished and possibly stressful,” Zeedyk said. “Stressed babies grow into anxious adults.”
The strollers that I always used had the option of facing in either direction. My children always preferred to face out, to take in the world and look at something other than me. And frankly I welcomed the time that I was not the sole entertainer of my child.
So what do you think? Are researchers over analyzing everything? Have these so-called scientific studies gone too far? Are my children going to grow up to be maladjusted psychopaths because I “pushed them away from me” in a stroller?
Yeah, “experts” is right. Those are probably the same ones where I read once that you should never pretend you are going to eat up your baby or child because you’ll traumatise her. Phooey, she’s 4 and I still pretend to eat her up and she still loves it.
I bet it’s those expert’s kids who become the maladjusted psychopaths . .
Comment by Brigitte — November 25, 2008 @ 5:59 am
As a future psychologist (grad student) I have to say some studies are right and some are way off and just because some people or even most people turn out one way because of x or y it doesn’t mean everyone will. Like studies have demonstrated that smoking leads to cancer but, not everyone who smokes gets it.
As for this study, there are several questions I would ask before taking it seriously. How was the study done? What measure of anxiety was used? Were there other things going on with the babies that would better account for the “stress”? How many people were in the study? How did they recruit these people (if they only asked people at a phobia support group there may be genetic factors that play in, for example). How was the data analyzed…etc?
Comment by Angela — December 10, 2008 @ 8:24 pm