Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost (Classics in Human Development) by Jean Liedloff ISBN: 0201050714 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 1986 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.52
Rating: 5
Summary: The Continuum Concept for the Generic Non-Parent Reader
Comment: Let me get two caveats out of the way (and forgive the narcissism of my mini-bio):
1) Most of the reviews I have seen on this book seem to come from parents and are testaments to the validity or lack of validity of the continuum concept. I am not a parent*. I have no immanent plans to experience parenthood (or to not experience parenthood) at this point and I am painfully nearsighted on this issue. So I have no desire to debate whether the Continuum Concept is 1) the right way to raise a child in this culture, 2) if its feasible or 3) what to do about modern dangers that exist outside of the environment that man evolved under, etc. I read the Continuum Concept at the suggestion of a friend who is a psychoanalyst. I read it for the insight it would give me into my own life and childhood. It is the similar soul that this review is directed toward: the reader who simply wants to understand their own past and present in light of the concepts that Liedloff puts forth.
2) I try not to write reviews just after finishing a particular book. I find that I am still 'impressionable' and it takes a while for me to let the subjectivity of the author pass out of my system. It takes a while to integrate my identity with any new thoughts or perceptions that arise from reading a new book.
With that said, I read The Continuum Concept earlier this year and I am amazed at how much the thoughts and ideas that were bubbling in my mind at the time I read the book are still present in my conscious mind. If you want to read a book that will bring your opinions about your upbringing and the whole western system of values under scrutiny, this is the book for you. It's dangerous literature for anyone who is happy with the status quo, but my assumption is that the reactionary reader will simply dismiss everything in the Continuum Concept as invalid.
To accept the validity of The Continuum Concept really changes so much about our perceptions of the modern world. It has been quite some time since the seventies when this book was much more revolutionary, and now there is plenty more research and science to corroborate Liedloff's claims. Perhaps she idealized these people that she lived with in the rain forests of South America. But even if she has waxed a tad bit romantic in her opinions of the Yequana (sic) we can still learn something from her observations. The truth is that far too few of us question the system of baby-care in western culture in its totality. We debate how to discipline a child and the proper age to begin potty training and when to wean the child (after we have solved the debate over whether to breastfeed or not). But there are deeper questions we do not ask...and the obvious question that arises from reading Liedloff's book is "are we doing our children a disservice by using any modern child-rearing techniques at all?" Other questions soon arise such as "Are most of us victims of an incomplete childhood?" "Is the average member of westernized society simply trying to fill some unnatural emptiness created in its earliest and hardly memoralbe experiences?" "Is every aspect of our modern culture infected with our skewed beliefs (e.g. happiness is elusive and only to be pursued but never attained)?" Is the most exhilarating experience in life 'falling in love' or is this just a brief lapse into the state of being we should be living our entire lives under?" These are all very interesting questions and if this is the kind of psychological and philosophical introspection that you like to engage in than this is the book for you (and please send me and e-mail because I am generally better for knowing people like you).
The book led me to the final question which I am still trying to answer. "Is the combination of our modern upbringing and the modern world we live in so grossly mutated from the environment that mankind evolved in, that there is no way to adapt and find our way back to intuitive living, and the kind of self acceptance (being comfortable in our own skins) that so many of us strive for?" I guess this is a question (like all profound questions) that must be answered through experience, but I am thankful for this book for at least coloring some of my experiences with a new hue. My hope now is that I can get my mother and twin brother to read this book as well, and we can all dialogue about what it meant for our pasts and what it means if anything for the present and future.
I gave the book a five star rating because it made me think and it stretched my mind to new dimensions, which gets harder to do as I get older and older.
Serenity
*[side note: I can see how this book could grossly misfire in the hands of parents obsessed with raising perfect children. I think the idea should be to provide the best environment we know how to for the child and let the child become what it will become without any preconceptions about what a perfect child is like. After all, its questionable if the emotionally unhealthy and stunted are even prepared to recognize the signs of emotional health.]
Rating: 3
Summary: timeless kernel of wisdom within a flawed tract
Comment: Somehow I had the impression that Jean Liedloff's diamond-in-the-rough work was a comparison of modern day parenting to that of primitive tribes in general; instead, it is primarily her observations on the Yequana tribe of Venezuela. It's obvious that Ms. Liedloff has a great affection for these peaceful people, but that positive bias is apparent, and eventually weakens her argument. It is also often necessary for the reader to make decisions about whether the author, writing in 1975, should be forgiven for her (currently) strange ideas -- using the universal "he" and "man" can certainly roll off one's back, but proclaiming that male homosexuality is the result of a mother's demanding and overattentive nature and female homosexuality the result of cruel or unloving fathers is not so forgivable. If this theory were true it should have better predictive value, yet who today believes her assertion? In addition, Liedloff avers that children's accidents and burns are not caused by children's physical or cognitive limitations but primarily by subconscious suggestions from the parents, even relating (and she should be ashamed) the story of a toddler who died in a drowning accident that was, according to her, caused not only by the parents' admonitions to stay away from the pool but also by their installation of a security fence around it. Furthermore, roller coaster devotees are actually attempting to capture the experience of adventure denied them as children (I can attest from personal experience that this is not the case), and criminality and addiction are explained by the lack of in-arms time, as are child abuse (discussed solely in terms of women abusing their children), promiscuity, martyrdom, acting, academics and compulsive travelling. Neat trick, if you can make it work. I didn't even know compulsive travelling was a problem. That said, this is the theory as created *and interpreted* by Liedloff, and her misapplication of the continuum concept does not invalidate the theory, any more than Sigmund Freud's personal problems invalidated his few brilliant insights into the human psyche.
The author's positive bias also shows up in her willingness to view every act by the Yequana as positive, including parties and work sessions at which all tribe members, including children, drink to drunkenness. She lauds the Yequana's lack of parental guidance, saying that praise and scolding are equally corrosive to the child's ability to function later in life. I disagree with that assertion. I believe feedback is important, and I believe in praise and encouragement.
The author shrugs off anomalies such as the Yequanas, despite their having achieved perfect serenity, nonetheless having a mythology of a fall from grace and a yearning to achieve a better state. She also ignores contradictions, stating that modern humans search for physical contact because we were denied it in early life, but the Yequana enjoy physical contact because .... this is not explained. These particular passages convince me that the Yequana probably have a more realistic self-regard than does Ms. Liedloff. Reading this, in it's unfinished, untested, doctoral-thesis-that-never-got-turned-in state, you can see why scientific methods, for all their limitations, are valuable.
Having criticized, I will say that when the author gets it right, she gets it profoundly right. Simple statements she makes are well stated and ring true: The intellect is not always our only, or our best, guide. There is an evolutionary dance, informed by experience, between expectation and design. A spirit of competition is not always appropriate. We need to make the assumption of innate sociality. Happiness should be a normal condition rather than a goal. Parents do not own children. Children, though less physically powerful, are no less human and have no fewer rights than adults; consequently, children should be treated with respect and dignity.
While the Liedloff version of the continuum concept had little predictive value in the area of social science, she shows some timely insight into what was then becoming cognitive science, and offers some fertile material for artificial systems modellers.
As a parent, an education librarian and a substitute teacher, I thoroughly enjoyed the author's introduction of the ironically radical underpinnings of attachment parenting concepts as well as her suggestions for social change. As a cognitive science researcher and an optimistic populist, I was nonplussed by the lack of any bibliography or research -- just opinion and anecdote. There are some tremendously valuable insights here, but the author has slathered it with her own problematic conclusions. For pity's sake, ignore her advice about child safety, which is not appropriate for 21st century parents. My advice is to read this book with an open heart and a sharp mind, and to cull the wheat from the chaff.
Rating: 3
Summary: take some, leave some
Comment: I came to this book while pregnant with my first child. I enjoyed it very much and took it to heart. However, as the realities of our new baby set it, many of Liedloff's generalizations about the right way to raise a baby came back to bother me. This book tries to import a very cultural specific way of raising a baby to our modernized society. And while I have no objection to this in the purely theoretical, it is important for readers to keep this in mind. What works for people who live in the forest, within a tribal support system, without walls of privacy or electricity, may not translate as well to a mother and baby, alone in their house full of lights and machines. In my own life, I found many of the things I enjoy, like reading and sewing were not mobile enough for my daughter. She craved movement. Of course when I was up and doing things around the house, I would carry her in my sling, but I just didn't DO enough. For the mother who is constantly moving and strong enough, exclusively carrying the baby for the first 6-8 months may be feasible. But I am not this mother. Another important consideration is sleeping. When darkness falls in the deep forest people go to sleep. In our culture this is not the case. We utilize electricity to keep the day going long after the sun has set. And while my daugher would sleep on and off in the sling, she soon became aware that we were not sleeping and the light was on. She began to sleep less and less in the sling and even less in the night with us. I don't think tribal parents have to deal at all with sleeping issues, not because they are super-parents but because the low-tech environment they inhabit mandates sleeping patterns for everyone. Overall, I began to resent the feeling that I was doing my daughter a disservice by not being "primal" enough. In the end I think if you carry your baby as much as you can, feed her breast milk and give her all the love you have, then you are doing your best. I think this book may leave mother's feeling like they can't measure up to the perfect tribal mothers. It is important to realize that their world and our world are VERY different and because of this we may have to amend some of Liedloff's suggestions.
 |
Title: Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for Your Baby and Young Child by Katie Allison Granju, Betsy Kennedy, William Sears ISBN: 067102762X Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent by Meredith F. Small ISBN: 0385483627 Publisher: Dell Pub Co Pub. Date: 04 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: The Natural Child: Parenting from the Heart by Jan Hunt, Peggy O'Mara ISBN: 0865714401 Publisher: New Society Pub Pub. Date: 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: Magical Child by Joseph Chilton Pearce ISBN: 0452267897 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 1992 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two by William Sears, Martha Sears ISBN: 0316779059 Publisher: Little Brown & Co (Pap) Pub. Date: 1993 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
