美国国家公共电台 NPR Parenting Myths And Facts

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

OK, parents and grandparents out there. Listen up. We want to dispel¹ some of the biggest myths about parenting. NPR is kicking off a series today called How To Raise A Human. Over the next month, we're going to take a close look at the advice parents are given. And we'll look around the world for ideas to make parenting easier. NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff is here to tell us more about the series.

MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF, BYLINE²: Thanks, Lulu.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm very excited about this series, you know? When I had my daughter, I bought parenting books. I even, like, paid a subscription³ for a bunch of YouTube videos. It was supposed to interpret the sounds that your child gives you, so you can understand if they wanted food, or they wanted to sleep. I'm sure you're here to tell me that I wasted my money.

DOUCLEFF: Maybe.

(LAUGHTER)

DOUCLEFF: I mean, first off, a lot of these books and videos, you know, really claim to be based on science. But a lot of that is pretty much baloney, I have to say.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yup.

DOUCLEFF: But we all need advice, you know?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: We all do need advice. And, obviously, you're so vulnerable when you have a kid. You're scared. You don't know what to do. So what is this stuff based on?

DOUCLEFF: You know, it's based on people's experiences. But some of it is actually really based on old, old advice. So if you look at the history of parenting books, you can see that advice is kind of recycled over and over again, tweaked a little bit for the fashion of the time. So, for instance, this idea that babies need to feed at a certain time - that's from the 1700s.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Oh, OK. So this is old advice that keeps on getting recycled through the ages. But is it necessarily bad advice?

DOUCLEFF: No, it's not - I'm not here to say that it's bad advice. But there's a big hole in these parenting books and from the experts. And that's that this advice is almost solely⁴ based on the Western experience, the Western culture. And if you look around the world, there's so many other ways to do things.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, I certainly know that, having lived in other places and experienced other cultures. And as one of the things that really surprised me - that there are so many ways of doing this. And there's really great ways of doing it. So give us an example.

DOUCLEFF: So, for instance, in our culture, there's really this idea right now that parenting is stressful, and we're all stressed out. Turns out not all mothers in every culture feel this way.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right. Convince me.

DOUCLEFF: OK. So a group of researchers have been studying Mayan families for decades because they've been really intrigued⁵ by this idea that the kids are so helpful around the house. And they wanted to figure out what the parents were doing to get the kids to be so helpful.

So for one of the stories in this series, I went down to the Yucatan and spent some time with some Mayan families. And right away, I was amazed by these moms. So a lot of them are raising four or five children. They're doing all the housework. They help out with the business, so they're doing work, too. And they totally didn't seem stressed. And I actually asked them, do you think being a mother is stressful? And the first woman, like, looked at me like I was an alien. She was like, what? Why would mothering be stressful? And I was like, oh, my gosh. Tell me your secrets (laughter).

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And how do they manage that? What were their secrets?

DOUCLEFF: Well, you know, clearly a very different culture. But some of the anthropologists point to a couple of things. So first of all, they have a really different view about children and what the purpose of parenting is. So in our culture, we think a lot of it is about control. Either we're controlling the kids, or the kids are controlling us. But the Mayans see it in a totally different way. They see parenting as this partnership⁶ and a collaboration⁷ so that they're working together with the child to meet some goal. So let me give you an example. So I have a little 2-year-old, Rosemary (ph), and I have a really hard time getting her to put on her clothes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: A very common problem.

DOUCLEFF: Yes. I tend to, like, yell at her about it. Put your shoes on. We have to get out of the house. But the Mayan mom would come at it from more of a cooperative angle. So, like, hey, we're going to the beach. Do you want to come? If you want to come, you need to put on your clothes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So what if Rosemary then says, as happens with my daughter, I'm just not going to do that, Mom?

DOUCLEFF: Yes. Well, the Mayan mom would then just drop the kid off with the neighbor or the aunt and say, fine. I'm going to spend the day at the beach by myself. No worries (laughter). This actually brings up a second thing about the Mayan parenting style that's really different from us. And that's this idea that the Mayan mom is not stuck in a box.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Not stuck in a box. What does that mean?

DOUCLEFF: So in our culture, there's this idea that the ideal thing for kids is, like, a stay-at-home mom who focuses her attention on the children. That ends up in practice being is that you have Mom stuck in a box, an apartment in the city, a big house in the suburbs. But if you look around the world, this is not how the parent-child relationship evolved at all or how kids have been raised for hundreds of thousands of years. Instead, the kids are raised by a whole slew⁸ of people - grandmas, aunts, nosy⁹ neighbors. And so what we do is actually really strange and maybe, arguably, one of the most untraditional family forms that has existed.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Wow. So I guess the takeaway for this Mother's Day is...

DOUCLEFF: Get out of the box.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Get out of the box. That's NPR science correspondent Michaeleen Doucleff. We look forward to hearing your other stories.

DOUCLEFF: Thank you, Lulu.

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1 dispel   

vt.驱走，驱散，消除

参考例句：

• I tried in vain to dispel her misgivings.我试图消除她的疑虑，但没有成功。
• We hope the programme will dispel certain misconceptions about the disease.我们希望这个节目能消除对这种疾病的一些误解。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 subscription   

n.预订，预订费，亲笔签名，调配法，下标（处方）

参考例句：

• We paid a subscription of 5 pounds yearly.我们按年度缴纳5英镑的订阅费。
• Subscription selling bloomed splendidly.订阅销售量激增。

4 solely   

adv.仅仅，唯一地

参考例句：

• Success should not be measured solely by educational achievement.成功与否不应只用学业成绩来衡量。
• The town depends almost solely on the tourist trade.这座城市几乎完全靠旅游业维持。

5 intrigued   

adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You've really intrigued me—tell me more! 你说的真有意思—再给我讲一些吧！
• He was intrigued by her story. 他被她的故事迷住了。

6 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

7 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

8 slew   

v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多

参考例句：

• He slewed the car against the side of the building.他的车滑到了大楼的一侧，抵住了。
• They dealt with a slew of other issues.他们处理了大量的其他问题。

9 nosy   

adj.鼻子大的，好管闲事的，爱追问的；n.大鼻者

参考例句：

• Our nosy neighbours are always looking in through our windows.好管闲事的邻居总是从我们的窗口望进来。
• My landlord is so nosy.He comes by twice a month to inspect my apartment.我的房东很烦人，他每个月都要到我公寓视察两次。