[NovaJehovah]

Feel free to change every "you should" to "one should" in your head.

I understand that this is a sensitive subject, but there are people reading this thread who are about to become parents, and they need to know the truth.

[lhorie]

> one should

No offense, but that's still kinda condescending. I have 2 kids myself but I don't go around preaching. Stuff like post partum depression, pre-existing chronic conditions, overbearing grandparents, domestic abuse, etc are all real things and you and I are neither psychologists, pediatricians, nor social workers so best to leave the advice giving to licensed professionals.

[NovaJehovah]

Your point seems to be that parenting is hard so we can never publicly criticize any common parenting practices because it might hurt some parents' feeling. I disagree. If I'm doing something harmful to my child, I want to know about it.

The "licensed professionals" I've talked with about this, like my kid's pediatrician, gave me terrible advice and were either ignorant of the research that's been done, or grossly distorted it to fit their bias.

[lhorie]

> Your point seems to be that parenting is hard so we can never publicly criticize any common parenting practices because it might hurt some parents' feeling.

I mean, parenting being hard is neither here or there. You said it is "hard" yourself. There are parents that think parenting is wonderful and can't see themselves do anything but raising kids.

> If I'm doing something harmful to my child, I want to know about it.

That's great, and it's exactly what I meant when I said I took issue w/ the "you" pronoun: wanting better for oneself is very very different than telling others what ought to be what.

Medical professionals are known to make recommendations based on probabilistic heuristics (i.e. 95% of cases with certain circumstances fall into the same bucket so they usually assume said bucket) and this is why celebrity doctors like Dr Mike say that it's important to build rapport and have an open dialogue with the physician, armed with all the knowledge you are able/willing to muster yourself.

The thing w/ online advice is that people seeking help on the internet are often already very apprehensive and vulnerable and having a flood of strangers on high horses passing judgment doesn't necessarily help. The irony is that if we're in "I did my research and know better than professionals" territory, then the problem is that everyone and their mothers also claim to have done "research" too and "how dare they question my self-acclaimed expert authority", and that type of thread derails real fast.

Many of these parents are well-meaning but are in fact woefully underprepared to effectively provide help that is clear cut among medical professionals (e.g. dealing w/ a fever), and they often are eager to offer quick takes on topics where the research is mixed, non-existent, poorly done and/or where it doesn't really really matter (stuff like optimization advice for parents worrying about late blooming in development milestones like potty training). And then there's topics like spanking, where it's pitchforks galore, and the signal-to-noise ratio is basically zero.

[NovaJehovah]

To be clear, I’m not asking anyone to accept my “authority”, which as you rightly point out, is nonexistent as a random anonymous person on the internet. I’m not claiming to be an expert on child psychology, but I do have some knowledge of statistics and research methods, so I can read the abstract of a study and know, at minimum, if its methodology renders it worthless BS, scientifically speaking.

But, ultimately, the experts are divided on this issue, and the research is available for anyone to look into on their own. I gave my interpretation. Anyone else is free to give theirs. People can make up their own minds.

My experience is that it’s usually the sleep training people who handwave away the research, relying instead on appeals to convention (in the US) or emotional lectures about “shaming” the poor, helpless parents. But again, people can decide for themselves.

Also, for the record, I’m in the group that loves being a parent. It’s my favorite thing in the world and brings me joy every single day. It has been hard at times, but that never reduced my enjoyment.