Talk:Early infanticidal childrearing

Does this "model" reflect actual facts?

Increased mortality after weaning is common in non-Neolithic cultures as well; it's a consequence of inadequate nutrition, not of parental desire. Vicki Rosenzweig

You're wrong there. "Inadequate nutrition" isn't some random fact of reality. It's a consequence of feeding pap to children, and not having the empathy necessary to understand that crying means the baby is hungry. These are both psychological problems of the parents (since feeding pap is a response to the fear of breastfeeding).

And if you'll pay more attention to the page, the crash in child population (which is enormous among the Papua New Guinea tribes) is not a result of parental desires for the child's death, or parental sexual desire for the infant. The latter is irrelevant and the former only develops in advanced societies where parents actually take care of their children to some degree. No, the crash is due to total neglect. That makes it axiom #3 of the model, not #1 or #2.

Does it reflect facts? Every single fact I'm aware of regarding neolithic tribes! -- ark

Well it would help if I knew who you were. I have no way of knowing if you've lived in PNG for 30 years and your information is commonly found in peer reviewed journals or if you are just repeating what you've heard third hand. My bs alert is going off, and it would really help if you inserted information about how you know what you know.

I believe every fact I've given is commonly accepted, though I haven't verified it. It's just the interpretation of those facts within a model which is controversial. If even half the stuff I've read is true, this is the model that fits best.

Cites, please? You seem to be aware of facts that I haven't come across--they'd strengthen the article. And no, inadequate nutrition isn't random, but it's a common cause of death worldwide, not only in "neolithic" cultures (which I'd be happier if you specified). Nobody breastfeeds children forever, and most cultures wean children later than the contemporary US: the problem isn't that weaned children are given soft, bland food--it's that there often isn't enough of that food. Vicki Rosenzweig

That's not true. If it were true, we'd expect the weaning crash to be smaller or absent in the upper classes, when in fact it's worse. With modern medical knowledge, things may be different, or maybe not. -- ark

I was wondering where this article came from as well. If nothing else it needs more citation (i.e. who says this) and more context (i.e. do most antropologists actually believe this).

A disturbing number of anthropologists follow a radically different model called "Pedophilia is good". Or in their own words, "Pedophilia is a random and legitimate cultural variation." Let's not talk about that.

Why not talk about it? A lot of the times once you talk about it you find that the claim that X believes that is total non-sense.

Nice try. If this is true, we *need* to talk about it. How many anthropologists? (If this is something three people claim, it may be disturbing in that you wouldn't hire them to babysit, but it's not indicative of the consensus in the field.) Which ones? Do they actually say "pedophilia is good", or do they say "parents can touch children's genitals without sexual intention" (e.g., to wash an infant)? Vicki Rosenzweig

Both. And actually, they say that parents can masturbate children, and derive sexual pleasure from it, without it being incest. Which of course, is completely absurd.

I want anthropologists summarily disqualified from any matter related to childrearing or psychology. I except only the very few anthropologists who have specific psychological training or who are working in partnership with a psychologist. Without such training, they're simply not qualified to make any judgement about psychological or psychologically-driven phenomena. -- ark

Ark wrote: "The model of early neolithic childrearing developed by Lloyd deMause can be summarized into three basic ideas:

children are not considered human
infants are useful to parents as erotic objects
children aren't considered useful to any adult in any other way"

What deMause really wrote was:

The invention of agriculture and then of civilized urban life which marks the Neolithic is an achievement based on the evolution of childrearing. This evolution consisted of an increase in attention, consistency and identification by the parent with the child. Hunting groups can be distinguished from farming and urban groups by the shift from the impassive mother-who can handle her infanticidal wishes only by either merging with the child or by complete emotional withdrawal - to the mother-father unit, which is able to massively project their unconscious into the child, identify with it, and then severely discipline and shape it. The mark of early civilizations is, paradoxically, connected with the invention of severe physical punishment in obedience training. Even with contemporary groups, the higher the level of culture, the more consistant the child training for "obedience, self-reliance and independence."

I would really like to know where he got his information from. Danny

I meant earlier than that, the tribes which aren't civilized, the ones who don't provide any attention to children. The Neolithic is a long period after all. Perhaps it's better called 'early infanticidal childrearing'. Thanks for bringing it up. -- ark

Another issue, deMause doesn't think that stone age tribes are representative of infanticidal cultures for nothing, just because it's some outdated belief of anthropologists, he does so because their thinking patterns (extremely magical thinking, etc) correspond to what can be deduced from cave paintings and other such data. And even if they're not representative then they're certainly indicative, they're a lot closer to the neolithic than we ever will be! I'm sure he discusses the issue somewhere. -- ark

Still ridiculous. Just for starts, the Yolngu live in Australia, not PNG. At least get the geography right. Danny

No shit, they live in Australia. I guess that must be why deMause calls them aborigines!! Hey, have I ever said they lived in PNG??

We have practically no certain knowledge of paleolithic childrearing practices. There is absolutely no evidence that Paleolithic peoples did not gaze into the eyes of their children or used them as dildos. None at all. I will of course take this back if someone can cite any peer-reviewed archeological study that demonstrates either of these possibilities conclusively. By the way, ark, I am truly glad that you have finally decided to "think" about it. ;) SR

I did it about 30 seconds after I wrote that. The new pages are under infanticidal childrearing.

"absolutely no evidence"? That's like saying that we have absolutely no evidence that black holes exist. BS!

What we have is a good understanding of mental patterns across the ages, including what kind of practices give rise to those patterns. We have massive evidence of a progression of both throughout history. We have some direct evidence of the mental patterns of paleolithic people. The conjecture that child rearing practices were of the most primitive sort is supported both by good theory and the little evidence we do have. That's the same kind of evidence we have for black holes. -- ark