What to Expect When Your Expectations Get All Out of Whack
Categories: Babies, Development
When my first child was born I spent a LOT of time reading everyone's favorite make-you-crazy parenting book, What To Expect The First Year. I mean, I'd had so much fun with . . . When You're Expecting, what with the many, many potential pregnancy complications I hadn't even considered before I read about them (like when the fetus implants in your ear canal and you have to give birth out your nose, oh you hadn't heard of that one EITHER?), clearly I needed to make my way through the whole series, eventually getting to What to Expect When Your Children Have Left Home and You're Wrinkly and Decrepit But Unable to Retire Because Gas Costs Eleventy Hojillion Dollars per Gallon.
I've found that with caring for a baby the second time around I haven't had much desire to re-acquaint myself with my battered copy of What to Expect, but I did find myself idly flipping through the chapter on 4-month-olds the other day. If you've read these books, you know that each month's chapter starts with some milestones -- broken down into categories of things your baby "should" be doing, "will probably" be doing, "may possibly" be doing, and "may even be able" to be doing.
This is the crazymaking part, as far as I'm concerned, because it seems like my kids are always all over the map. Dylan isn't quite doing the baby pushup he "probably" should be doing, but he's been saying ah-goo for weeks, and that's what they describe as a vowel-consonant combination and list in the "may even be able" category. He's a genius! Wait, no, he's behind schedule! He needs physical therapy! No, he needs to join MENSA!
There's an ever-festive note at the beginning of each chapter that solemnly intones: "If your baby seems not to have reached one or more of these milestones, check with a doctor. In rare instances the delay could indicate a PROBLEM."
Oh, thanks very much, like my parental anxiety level wasn't already humming like an electrical fence over "When Baby Is Sick" (Chapter 17) and "The Baby With Problems" (Chapter 20).
Also, in nearly every month's selection of milestones, the book references a raisin. Can your baby pay attention to a raisin or very small object? Can your baby rake a raisin and pick it up in his fist? Can your baby pick up a raisin with any part of his thumb and finger? But then it goes on to remind you that for the LOVE OF GOD, whatever you do, DO NOT FEED YOUR CHILD A RAISIN. RAISINS ARE A CHOKING HAZARD.
Why compare everything to a raisin if a raisin essentially represents death? WHY?
It's not like these books don't contain useful information, but I think they should be read only in small doses to reduce the potential for Fret Overload. Although I will say that I read in this same book that it's officially "okay" if your kid eats off the floor -- because there aren't as many germs as you think and they're germs babies have been exposed to before -- so, thanks, What to Expect When Your Child Is an Uncivilized Floor-Eating Primate! I needed a free pass on that one.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
queenoqueens 6-06-2008 @ 9:04AM
I never made it to "What to Expect the First Year", because I stopped reading the series when I hit the chapter in "...When You're Expecting" when it gave step by step detail of how to deliver a baby should you happen to go into labor at WORK, (and I was working during that pregnancy)
Step 1: Clear your desk
Step 2. Get an empty box from the shipping dock and put it under your legs
.....
Step 28. Have your co-worker, Bob, take the umbilical cord and.......
or some such horrifically frightening nonsense like that.
No thanks!
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sharon 6-06-2008 @ 9:31AM
My friends and I renamed it "What to Freak Out About When You're Expecting" I can't believe that it is still the #1 go to book out there. Personally I liked the Girlfriends Guides. Maybe because I'm snarky like that and I think we should actually be prepared to poop on the table in delivery! Linda I think you should write the next How-To Baby/Toddler Book!
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Jamie 6-06-2008 @ 9:43AM
How fondly I remember those anxious raisin days (now that they are safely behind me).
My current reading list is more like What to Expect When A So-called Friend Ambushes You into Becoming Room Parent.
and
What to Expect When You Inadvertently Drop an F-Bomb at a PTA Meeting.
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Jenn 6-06-2008 @ 9:51AM
My OB & daughter's pediatrician both call that series the "What To Expect when you're paranoid" books....
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dzappone 6-06-2008 @ 9:56AM
My wife and I took to calling What To Expect The First Year, What The Hell Did You Expect. That was with our first, with our twins we haven't even looked at the book and just wish we could grow extra limbs.
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Laura - DashinFashion.com 6-06-2008 @ 10:53AM
I remember spending time reading what to expect when I was pregnant but never seemed to have time to read these books once my girls were born.
I do remember surfing the web when I had questions which seemed to be more balanced.
I'd love to see a guide on teen years...
Laura
Dashin Fashion - Online Guide to Children's Fashion Worldwide
http://www.dashinfashion.com
http://www.dashinfashion.blogspot.com
http://www.mykidsfashion.com
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Sleepynita 6-06-2008 @ 11:57AM
I threw out that baby nazi book series when I was 4 months pregnant. It was such a fear mongering book for me and i was very pleased to see it go. My partner called it the "every thing that can go wrong, will; because you didn't eat squash last monday" book.
I kinda thought that title fit.
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Andrea 6-06-2008 @ 12:07PM
I remember seeing somewhere recently that the writer of the What to Expect books (dubbed The Paranoid Schizophrenic's Guide to Pregnancy/Parenting in my house) rewrote them and the new edition is MUCH. LESS. doom and gloom and did that breath rattle, and a breath rattle means RSV or some such fatal respiratory ailment and I have only minutes to get my daughter to the hospital now now now!
Yes: http://www.amazon.com/What-Expect-When-Youre-Expecting/dp/0761148574/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212768196&sr=8-1. The new cover even has a woman in jeans! So progressive.
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Jenin 6-06-2008 @ 1:00PM
This same thing drives me CRAZY! I have no idea what my child can do with a RAISIN since I have never actually given him one to play with, because, as you say: Raisin= DEATH.
Ugh.
I do occasionally skim the beginning portion of each chapter to see what my son "should" be doing- but for the most part I think the questions that are answered in the book are like TOTAL common sense... (Mostly)
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nonsoccermom 6-06-2008 @ 2:04PM
Hee! I have that book and was wondering about the raisin thing myself.
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Sara 6-06-2008 @ 2:59PM
Thank goodness I'm not the only one who noticed the raisin thing. I thought sleep deprivation was making me fixate on the raisin when I read What to Expect... during my son's first year. I really, seriously thought the "raisin raisin raisin" thing was something I was HALLUCINATING, because WHOSE KIDS PLAY WITH RAISINS? Uh, anyway.
I did like the book for its stage-by-stage guidelines, but that was mostly because a lot of it backed me up when I was arguing with my mother-in-law. ("When I was raising kids, we just KNEW not to take the baby outside!" "Well, I'm raising this one and THE BOOK SAYS babies LOVE to be outside! Suck it!") I spent a horrific month when my son was six months old living in fear of Tay-Sachs syndrome (even though we are not Ashkenazi Jews) and staying up all night reading about what to do if my baby severed a limb. In fact... I think I even wrote about it. (Yes. I did. In exhaustive detail. Here: http://connorashley.livejournal.com/5638.html. You're welcome!) After that, I started to move away from the damn book, because that? Was horrible.
Also, I was getting a little more sleep by then, and What to Expect... is nowhere near as fun when you're almost lucid. I mean, really.
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Jennypen 6-06-2008 @ 6:16PM
Good lord I hated that book. I was given it as a gift when I was six months pregnant and it really is the biggest fear-mongering thing.
I feel like a bad parent now, my 9 month old has loved raisins since we started solids at six months. Oh well. Woo for baby-led weaning, carrying in a sling, playing the "throw baby in the air and catch her again" game, and other such things the What To Expect people say is bad/unsafe.
Someday I'll write a book called "Don't Read Books - Not Even This One", and all it says in it is trust your heart, because we're built over years and years of evolution to be able to understand our babies - I think books, while helpful in intention, often end up undermining our confidence. My mum didn't have a book to help her bring me up, and I (hope that I) turned out ok!
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Lydi 6-08-2008 @ 2:49PM
OMG why do you all hate that book? Were the first 3 editoions that diferent? I got the 4th edition from my mother in law in 2002, and I LOVED it. but than again, I guess i'm not the parinoid type to think every thing bad in the book related to me and my son, then again, at 25now, I'm still in my fearless teen years, where i havent realy come to grips with my own, my childrens or anybodys mortality.
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gnometree 6-09-2008 @ 10:33PM
The problem with all of those baby books is that the babies can't read them.....
;)
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Erin 6-09-2008 @ 11:22PM
Yeah, my parents took those books away from me. Every time C had a sniffle I thought he had polio. Luckily no one can take away my precious Dr. Google!
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