Alloparents
NPR had a deep dive into parenting advice last month, covering not only what we do but what we don’t do. Hint: other cultures deeply value people who aren’t the parent but play a critical role in the child’s life. You can be infertile, therefore, and parent.
More on that in a second.
It begins with looking at parenting advice. Most parenting advice — especially the stuff pertaining to raising babies — is opinion. The stuff printed in books: opinion. The stuff from experts: opinion. So many of us get our knowledge about parenting from said books or the Internet, and it’s sometimes untested and not used in the rest of the non-Western world.
In many instances, what we think is “necessary” or “critical” for childhood is actually not present in any other cultures around the world or throughout time. “The list of differences is really, really long,” says Lancy… “There may be 40 to 50 things that we do that you don’t see in indigenous cultures.”
That, of course, is true of everything outside parenting, too; what is important to one culture is unimportant to another, hence why we have such a hard time successfully repeating another culture’s ideals, even when they’re spelled out to us in a how-to book in no uncertain terms.
I loved this article for the stuff that comes in closer to the end about alloparents. Alloparents are all the adults who help out with the child — grandparents and aunts but also teachers and friends and neighbours. Therefore, you are parenting, even if you are not the mother or father; playing a role in shaping that child. The former teacher in me loved this idea.
In Western culture, we’ve created what NPR calls, “a mom stuck in a box, often alone, doing the job typically performed by a handful of people.” We diminish the alloparents in the name of control, to be the leader in charge of shaping the child but if you take a step back and really look at it, we’re making this trade-off at our own expense.
I’ve written about this idea before, but I’ve never seen it summed up quite so well as this NPR post depicting WEIRD culture and the way we find the advice we hold onto so tightly.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the piece.
11 comments
Love this! I was lucky enough to have many alloparents (many of whom did not have children “of their own”) help me with my children and have been alloparent to other kids.
I grew up in a missionary community in West Africa, and I had a ton of “aunts” and “uncles” in that community, as well as my in the community around us. I am not quiiiiite to the trying for kids stage (and terrified that it won’t work, because I’m an Old), but this makes me wish that, if I manage to have kids, they could have what I had. It was pretty great. I don’t think it’s that common in this country.
I agree with this. I would go further and say that our culture suffers from a lack of community and human connections generally, and this lack leads to a host of problems.
For some long, I’ve been irked by other mothers telling me they don’t trust parenting advice and insight from people who don’t have children. Never mind the advice or observations are coming from people who are trained and skilled to work with children (teachers, pediatricians, childcare providers, etc). This article gives me something tangible to counter these comments.
I completely agree with you about alloparents. I reliable on them daily given that we don’t have easy access to extended family. Frankly without them, the Beats would not be doing as well as they are. And neither would I for that matter.
Cool. I feel like I grew up rather isolated, albeit in a close family and I love the idea that many people can be part of my daughters’ lives.
I like this idea. I admit I get frustrated with family members who “parent” when I’m right there but that’s more about my relationship with those adults than their love for my children, which is a gift.
I totally agree with this, and love it. I’ve often bemoaned the insular nature of parenting in Western society these days. I think Western society has changed in the last 50-60 years itself too, away from the “village” or extended family helping to raise the child, to the focus on the nuclear society. And I’ve always felt sad – obviously for me, as a No Kidding woman, but also for the parents who have increasingly borne the burden of raising a child without outside help. No Kidding aunts and uncles and friends and neighbours are a great potential resource for parents, but we aren’t being used!
I agree, both with what you wrote and the comments above! I had lots of other adults besides my parents looking out for me when i was growing up — as you said, teachers, neighbours’, my best friends’ parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles, and people that I called “Grandma” & “Grandpa” & “Auntie” & “Uncle,” even though they really weren’t (they were often neighbours, or my mother’s cousins). I also agree with Mali that those of us who don’t have kids are an under-used resource — I know I would have welcomed the chance to spend more time with my nephews, the children of our cousins, etc…!
I love the idea of alloparents, of having many people contribute to the parenting of a child. As a teacher, I often feel like one of my students’ parenting influences, even though I’m not the parent. I love the idea of taking motherhood off the pedestal of “you must do it all by yourself, and love it, and have a smile on your face while you’re covered in vomit and haven’t showered” and have it morph more into “I’m going to go shower while my friends love on my baby and we’ll all share responsibilities and that’s okay, in fact it’s great.” I can see my stressed-out mom friends really benefiting from this, and their kids benefiting from it, and also having more people to serve as “aunties” (and “uncles”) who might not otherwise have time with little children. Love it.
This is the passage that leapt out to me:
“She often tosses off little warnings about safety…But her tone is calm. Her body is relaxed. There’s no sense of urgency or anxiety.”
Collaboration vs control.
Also, that optical illusion thing has me thinking.
Jim Gritter talked about something similar to the alloparent concept in his open adoption book Life Givers. He says that in adoption, there are Life Givers (first parents), Life Sustainers (adoptive parents), and Life Affirmers (other shepherding family members, teachers, coaches, mentors, etc). There’s a lot more room than we sometimes think, and, as he article says, having Life Affirmers helps keep mom out of the box.
Looking forward to reading this! I feel so overwhelmed a lot of the time by all the crap I need to do and wanting to take on more that makes NE happy (ie work!) over caring for my family. It’s such a hard balance!!!