173: Why we shouldn’t read the “Your X-Year-Old Child” books any more

<div class="ql-block" data-block-id="block-0a0a0d8f-3420-4777-9afe-650451c9910a">Have you ever seen recommendations for the books called Your One Year Old, Your Two Year Old, and so on, by Louise Bates Ames?  Every few weeks I see parents posting in online communities asking about some aspect of their child’s behavior that is confusing or annoying to them, and somebody responds: “You should read the Louise Bates Ames books!”</div> &nbsp; <div class="ql-block" data-block-id="block-52e849f2-4dd4-43af-9edb-f4b000a23f9b"></div> <div data-block-id="block-52e849f2-4dd4-43af-9edb-f4b000a23f9b"></div> <div class="ql-block" data-block-id="block-d8f568aa-72d5-48ba-91e4-d26a9362f945">This usually comes with the caveat that the reader will have to disregard all the 'outdated gender stuff,' but that the information on child development is still highly relevant.</div> <div class="ql-block" data-block-id="block-22a52017-6639-4331-87a7-4f11c7e2b344"></div> <div data-block-id="block-22a52017-6639-4331-87a7-4f11c7e2b344"></div> <div class="ql-block" data-block-id="block-cba3d9da-eef6-40e1-bb07-4709c35ab5ab">In this episode I dig deep into the research on which these books are based. While the books were mostly published in the 1980s, they're based on research done in the 1930s to 1950s.</div> &nbsp; <div class="ql-block" data-block-id="block-19d09dd3-8de7-44c4-85d3-72cfb30bddb2"></div> <div data-block-id="block-19d09dd3-8de7-44c4-85d3-72cfb30bddb2"></div> <div class="ql-block" data-block-id="block-d8cf668d-cffc-4d6c-bf16-d94a51bc8fc4">I argue that far from just 'stripping out the outdated gender stuff,' we need to look much deeper at the cultural context that the information in these books fits within - because it turns out that not only were the researchers not measuring 'normal,' 'average' child development, but that they were training children to respond to situations in a certain way, based on ideas about a person's role in society that may not fit with our views at all. And if this is the case, why should we use th