BTW, I was once perusing a series of young lady’s manners pamplets published in the 1950s. They suggested that one should treat all people with good manners — not because all people deserve to treated with respect, but because you never know who might be powerful and mighty someday and help you get stuff. I mean, that’s a nice BENEFIT to being nice (see: the moral of many a fairy tale), but it shouldn’t be the sole REASON.

Thanks - change made.

I think some of the issues stem from the fact that the original book Ezzo wrote was called, “Growing Kids God’s Way.” If you read some of the original material, and if you like to use your thinker, you’ll extrapolate that the folks who wrote and use a book called, “Growing Kids God’s Way,” are pretty confident that people not using their techniques are, “Growing Kids Satan’s Way.”

I mean… the Ezzo crowd was uninvited from John MacArthur’s church for being too hardcore.

Wow. Now… that’s hardcore.

Oh, also, I’ll see if I can get Paul to stop practicing medicine long enough to get off his lazy, recovering-from-knee-surgery ass and write that post.

Beth (reader / commenter on the blog) said something a while back that makes a lot of sense to me. She said that parent’s should reason with kids, because kids aren’t yet reasonable people.
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correction: parents shouldn’t reason with their kids.

He has not. Paul has been a very lazy, very tardy blogger. Something about other publishers actually paying him for his work, and me being a cheap bastard who exploits the talents of all who wander into my path. I didn’t catch the whole thing because I was pretty drunk at the time.

[quote]p.s. My husband and I are new parents. We have relatives who have used Babywise. We are adopting a very few principles from Babywise but are not avid fans of the whole system.[/quote]

I think that describes us pretty well, too. The biggest thing was getting a handle on scheduling. When we got Sophia on a consistent bedtime, regular feeding, scheduled naps, the resulting change in her behavior and disposition was very clear, and very fast. 2-3 weeks felt like forever at the time, but looking back a year and a half later, it was pretty quick.

Beth (reader / commenter on the blog) said something a while back that makes a lot of sense to me. She said that parent’s shouldn’t reason with kids, because kids aren’t yet reasonable people. We’ve seen a lot of parents who take the opposite approach, and treat their kids like they’re fully grown, fully developed people right from the beginning. The idea that a 6-month old (or even a 2-year old) knows how to make the connection between actions and consequences, between getting enough sleep and being in a good mood the next day, is kind of absurd.

For us, reading the Babywise book, and more importantly, seeing how some friends of ours that we respect adopted and adapted it for their kids, gave us the permission to actually be the adults in the parenting relationship, rather than letting our little bundle of stinky joy go completely haywire on her own accord.

A while ago, you posted 20 things you had learned in the process of parenting. One of the items was that Babywise works. Someone else (Paul?) said it was your parenting that worked rather than the somewhat suspect system of Babywise and he was going to write something for this blog on Babywise. Has he done so? I’d love to read what he has to say.

In the meantime, http://www.ezzo.info is a good site for further info.

p.s. My husband and I are new parents. We have relatives who have used Babywise. We are adopting a very few principles from Babywise but are not avid fans of the whole system.

Beautifully written, Michael. I almost drifted away when I saw “Linux”, but hung in there and was suitably rewarded with a wonderful ending. Thanks for reminding ME why I say please and thank you.

This Sesame Street Literary Moment brought to you by the letter C.

And also, great essay, Michael…

It’s all a matter of who wants it more.