Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing, without much substance
Review: A good idea for a book, very easy reading and a very interesting premise, but not well executed. The author describes how differences in culture and environment affect child rearing practices (for example, children of nomadic rainforest tribes must be continually carried for years), and the resulting differences in how children develop and behave. However the actual details and examples provided are very thin, and left me wondering about her conclusions and wanting much more. Instead of supplying additional details or anecdotes the author repeats the same conclusions over, and over. The author is probably trying to avoid sounding too academic in order to find a wider audience, but errs on the side of too little information. This is a good book to give as a gift to a insecure new parent who is fretting about the one "correct" way to raise a child. Anyone hoping to gain insight into cross cultural parenting will be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing and eye-opening!
Review: Small's book on the biological and cultural influences on human development and parenting provides some real food for thought. I found it so fascinating that I finished it too quickly and wished I had more to read. The extensive reference list should be helpful in that respect. It can be so hard to get out of the rut of what you are used to, even when you actively attempt to do so. This book provides some real examples of how parenting is done in other parts of the world, as well as what the biological reality of the infant is (which often clashes significantly with Western practices). I found the anecdotes very helpful for adding to a repertoire of mental responses for various situations - the story of the gorilla raised in isolation from other gorillas who couldn't breastfeed her baby properly (can be used to argue for our society's need to be more exposed to breastfeeding) and the story of the "difficult" and "easy" Masai babies, in which the difficult babies were much more likely to survive a famine because they were best at alerting others to their needs (helpful in arguing with people who think "demanding" babies are bad babies). I also enjoyed the photographs. A very nice touch. This was honestly one of the most riveting books I've read. I hope that others will read it and give some of the perspectives a chance.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but Too Judgmental
Review: The book is a popular account of several cross-cultural studies of infant care. I found it a fascinating insight into the wide range of "good" infant care across many cultures. Of particular interest were apparent disparities in some characteristics that we consider immutable. For instance, while for us the average age of walking is one year, for the !Kung San of the Kalahari the age is nine months, and for the Ache of Paraguay, the average age is one year and nine months. These variations are apparently the result of parental encouragement to develop gross motor skills. Our Babies, Ourselves focuses primarily on three areas of cross-cultural comparison: feeding, crying and sleeping. It addresses such questions as: Where are infants expected to sleep? What are they fed? When are they expected to sleep through the night? How much crying is considered "normal" and under what circumstances are babies allowed to "cry it out"? I, for one, found it reassuring to discover such wide variability in human approaches to infant care - it helped me get past that nagging worry about whether I am doing things wrong. While I found the cultural details fascinating, I did have one major concern with the book. The author too often lapses from the descriptive to the prescriptive - that is, she draws too many conclusions from her data about the best way to raise babies. I think this is exactly the sort of judgmental perspective that good anthropologists seek to eliminate from their work. Ms. Small seems to feel that the way traditional societies do things is the better way, and she wants all of us to start carrying our babies around in animal slings with moss diapers. For this reason, I encourage readers to maintain a healthy skepticism about some of the conclusions reached by the author. Still, a fascinating read that reminded me a "parenting" book doesn't have to be without intellectual heft.
Rating:
Summary: Great info - poor typesetting
Review: This is a great overview of the research and a thought-provoking analysis of the behaviour of babies and their parents. It provides lots of good reasoning for our intuition and ideas about parenting, both in the U.S. and in other countries. Absolutely fascinating - a must-read for parents and educators. My one major complaint is the tiny size of print in the paperback; it is so small you can hardly read it. The hardcover was much easier to read.
Rating:
Summary: Very Useful to Parents of a 6 Week Old Baby
Review: Our Babies, Ourselves has been making a huge impact on me and my approach to my almost 6 week old baby - strongly recommend it. It's a look at ethnopediatrics, cross cultural study of babyraising. It's strong confirmation of a lot of our casual observations of how our baby behaves and responds, and is the most powerful thing I've read to confirm to me that my instincts about what to do are good and effective (my instincts and my baby's desires = strong alignment with how attachment parenting is described). Not a how to baby book but really great. Looks closely and nursing, sleeping and contact. Powerful thing I just read: all babies cry, with the crying peak at 6 weeks or so. But babies who are slept with and held when parents aren't asleep (as our baby is - he's solo for only about an hour a day total exclusing of changing him) cry for far shorter periods of time. That is, it can be proactive - babies who are carried and held will cry much less when the do cry. If you pick them up only when they start crying - too late. The book does a great job of explaining some of the complexities of the parent-kid bond, and looks at how different cultures parent differently according to their society's values, and how attempts to inculcate those values can sometimes (and not only in our culture) lead to babyraising practices that don't make sense developmentally. Really inspiring and smart book.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've ever read about raising children!
Review: Meredith Small's well researched, scientific, and fascinating book should be read by all expectant parents. What a load off to know that all the things I was doing out of instinct (breastfeeding on cue, sleeping in the same bed with my daughter, carrying her around, picking her up when she cried) were normal resposes everywhere else in the world. Armed with Small's research I could feel confident around other moms', who told me I was spoiling my baby, that my instincts were indeed o.k. and correct. I wish all new moms would read this before buying Ezzo and Ferber!
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Summary: Physicians need to read this book!
Review: I am a family physician and mother of 3 girls. I am ashamed that this information is not being made available to those in the medical field. Or rather that we/they are not open to recieving it. I knew as a new mother that it was "wrong" to leave my child screaming in her crib but my colleague physician (never a mother herself) said it was the "right" thing to do. I listened to my heart but only after much conflict and conflicting messages being communicated overtly and covertly to my child I'm sure. I've subsequently read THE CONTINUUM CONCEPT to which Ms Small refers and armed with both of these books I intend to return to the halls of academia and medical training to reeducate the doctors of the new millenium (if I'm not laughed out of the classroom or the office!) Regardless, as a mother of 3 under 8 years of age I've been reinspired to stick to my instincts in childcare and love from the heart and less from the head!
Rating:
Summary: Extremely interesting, but not "light reading"
Review: I've really enjoyed this book - its extremely interesting and thought provoking and well written. However, it is also gets pretty in depth into evolutionary science and biology. I have enjoyed that quite a bit and learned an awful lot, but it is definitely not light reading as far as that goes. It is more scientific than I expected, which I actually like a great deal, but it is different from what I originally thought I was buying. This book is less of a "how to raise your child" type book and more of an "evolutionary and biological cross cultural study of infants and children and how different child rearing practices influence personality and culture". Which I found absolutely fascinating myself. I highly recommend the book - but with the caveat that you need time to sit down and concentrate on it, which is hard to do with small children around!
Rating:
Summary: Should be required reading for the nation!
Review: As parent who has defied many of the parenting norms of this culture: letting baby cry it out, sleep alone, rigid feeding and sleeping schedules,overuse of props etc., this book gives affirmation to those who have listened to their hearts where their babies/children are concerned. I like that it beckons people to question the values of our culture. I also love to see the research that validates humane parenting practices.A must read if you are interested in attachment parenting and related reading.
Rating:
Summary: A must for parents who want the best for their children
Review: This book was very interesting for me, a student of cultural anthropology and sociology, and absolutely indispensable for me as a parent. It offers an interesting look at how cultures around the world raise their children, and discusses how those children turn out as a result. It answers a lot of questions about why we raise our children the way we do, and gently invites the reader to consider alternative childrearing practices. A book you'll want to read again.
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