Meredith F. Small

It is a pleasure to read an interesting academic book on babies. Small is an actual professor (well, was, emeritus now) of anthropology at Cornell, and this book is a popular gloss on ethnopediatrics, the anthropological subfield focusing on childrearing.

The first two chapters are a quick survey of the underlying theoretical perspectives. From an evolutionary perspective, humans are intelligent bipedal apes, and this basic biology informs the limits of what can pass through the birth canal. show more Human babies are notably helpless compared to other primates, effectively born 3 months premature in terms of basic motor skills. The other theory is one of cultural relativism. All cultures differ, no culture is inherently superior, and other cultures have useful things to teach us.

The next three chapters are focused on areas of obvious concern for new parents: sleeping, crying, and nursing. Here, Small skips among various ethnographies, showing how other cultures, especially traditional hunter-gatherers or pastoralists raise there young. The repeated impression is that the mother-baby dyad is close, and maintained by constant closeness: co-sleeping face-to-face, carrying in a sling, and breast feeding at very frequent intervals.

These traditional practices are in contrast to American childrearing, which is WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic, but also just plain odd). Medicalized western births, starting with early separations at the hospital, and continuing on through a system of quiet and isolated nurseries and regimented feeding and sleep training systems, seem to produce mostly negative outcomes, from colicky babies, to failures to breastfeed, to child mortality far in excess of other developed nations.

Small has a clear agenda against medicalized births here, from the title which is a riff on the famous feminist health book "Our Bodies, Ourselves", to her selection of ethnographic case studies. In the decades since this book has been published medical practice has move towards Small's arguments. For our upcoming birth, Kaiser will place the baby on the mother immediately after delivery (barring a clear medical emergency). Breastfeeding is, if not well supported, better supported.

This is a fascinating book, but I wish Small had included more from other developed nations. We are unlikely to adapt !Kung childrearing practices, but perhaps the Netherlands or Japan has some cultural practices that better fit working motherhood under capitalism. Still, I can see this book being revolutionary when published, and it's aged very well. show less

I will preface my review by saying that I recognize that I might be biased about this book because it reinforced many things about parenting that I already believe.

That being said, I really found this book enlightening. Small, an anthropologist at Cornell University, outlines research done here in the West about parenting practices and the nature of human infancy and describes parenting practices in cultures around the world. Her basic premise is that, while parents (and even those without show more children) often believe that there is a "right" way and a "wrong" way to raise children, what is right and wrong in parenting varies dramatically across cultures.

As a mother, I find myself now looking at my relationship with my daughter through a cultural lens. This book has helped shift my perspective so that I feel better able to recognize when I'm doing something contrary to the best interests of my family because of cultural influences, and I feel more free to make choices that contradict those paths deemed right by my culture. I've actually reevaluated our family's sleeping arrangements when I realized that the changes I had made and was planning to make in the near future were more based on cultural pressures than on what seemed right for my family.

I especially appreciated the inclusion of James McKenna's research on cosleeping/infant sleep. Small's discussion of SIDS was much more logical and based more on research and evidence than a lot of the information parents receive about SIDS from physicians and public health agencies, which is often way too dependent upon scare tactics, in my opinion.

For those interested in reading more about James McKenna's research and about safe cosleeping, check out his 2007 book, Sleeping With Your Baby: A Parent's Guide. show less

Summary: Although sex is intimately (heh, sorry) wrapped up with matters societal and cultural, it is at its heart a biological act. In What's Love Got to Do With It?, anthropologist Meredith Small looks at this basic human behavior from an evolutionary perspective, attempting to dissect what human mating behavior has to say about the human animal.

Review and Recommendation: Although I didn't finish this book - in fact, I gave it up about 1/3 of the way through - it's not because it was bad. show more It's because it's outdated, and consequently I wasn't learning anything I didn't already know. As an evolutionary biologist, I'm already familiar with most if not all of the topics that Small covers, and what's more, I know about the scads of new studies that have been published in the 16 years since What's Love Got to Do With It? was written. She'd frequently end a section with something like "But the reasons behind ________ remain a mystery." and my immediate response was always "No they don't!" It's incredible how far the state of the science has progressed in such a relatively short time span.

But while the book can't be faulted for not seeing into the future, there were some inaccuracies that stuck out. Small is a highly respected evolutionary anthropologist, and her research in her own field is just brilliant. However, she's not necessarily an expert in endocrinology or genetics, and consequently there were a number of small errors that slipped through the cracks. For example, in a section where she's talking about how there's not a one-to-one gene-to-behavior correspondence (i.e. there's not a gene for "laughter"), she states "It's relatively easy to come up with the genetic recipe for something like insulin or the hormone Human Growth Factor because they're straightforward chemical combinations of DNA." (p. 36) And, while I see what she was going for, that statement as written is incorrect. (For the record, insulin and HGF are proteins, which are more-or-less directly coded for by DNA, but they are not made up of DNA itself.) It's rarely something that would be noticeable to a non-specialist, and I'm sure that if I tried to write an anthropology book, there'd be just as many mistakes, but I still found it distracting.

But, then again, I'm not the target audience. Small's writing for the layperson, and she does present the science in a clear, accessible way. Even the fact that it's out-of-date might not be a deterrent to someone interested in just getting a general overview of the topic. However, I can't help feeling that there are other, newer books on similar, if not exactly the same, topics. For the general evolution of mating behavior, I'd recommend Olivia Judson's Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation; for a feminist perspective on the evolution of mating behavior, Marlene Zuk's Sexual Selections is a bit more recent; and for a highly readable and informative book on human mating behavior, I have to give the nod to Mary Roach's Bonk. 3 out of 5 stars. show less

A great introduction to ethnopediatrics (the study of how culture and evolution affect parenting). My judgement is skewed by the fact that my wife read this first and couldn't bear to not talk about the content :) Small can be repetitive at times and relies on the same cultures, but her work seems very well researched and thought out. A great sensical assesment of what every parent should learn: don't let culture necessarily override the evolutionary symbiotic relationship of parenting.