Thru-hiking with a 3 month old baby?

[s k]

Silly? Maybe on the surface, but peel back the silly skin and consider the crucial core question. Parenthood: Right or Privilege?

Everyone would agree on the basics of Privilege.

1 You can't be a parent unless you have an offspring.
2 You can't be a genetic parent without the ability to procreate.
3 You can't be a parent unless you are an offspring.
4 You must have/had a genetic mother/father to be a mother/father.
5 And on and on….

For this basic privilege, I doubt we'd need a test.

And everyone would agree on the near basics of Privilege.

1 Parent must love offspring. (We'll leave the definition of love, the required depth of love, the length of the loving commitment to offspring, the contributory responsibility of the offspring to the commitment, etc. to a group comprised of your extended family, spouses extended family, neighbors, and other community members who care deeply about your parent/child relationship/dynamic.
2 Parent must shelter offspring. "Definition by above group."
3 Parent must talk to offspring. "…"
4 And on and on…

The parenthood privilege test could be added to the driving privilege test. Driving test in front seat, parenting test in the back. Couldn't be easier!

Hey,I think I could get my head around these issues in a couple of weeks or so. I could make a set of rules for the bpl community under which the community/family would surely prosper. I know your hearts, I sense your souls. I feel your hunger, your pain, your doubt, your fear. You and your children will revel in comfort and security of my enlightened guidance! Trust me, I know you better than you know yourself.

[Ken Thompson]

You can't live for what might happen. People love to give their opinion, wanted or not. HYOH indeed.

[Roger Caffin]

> Parenthood: Right or Privilege?
Neither.

Just an inevitable requirement for the evolution and survival of the human race. Without parenthood we would not be here. Rights and privileges have nothing to do with it.

I wonder how responsible we should judge people who set off half way around the world in leaky boats with minimal navigation resources to an unknown land occupied by savages with completely inadequate resources for survival and hopelessly inadequate medical facilities. What was the boat called? Something like the Mayflower?

Cheers

[s k]

Hey Roger,

Who are you calling savages?

[Art Sandt]

I'm trying to gauge what people here think is "responsible" parenting because to me it seems some (many) here have a really warped idea of what this means. You folks who are saying that I'll go to hell if I don't take a baby into the mountains as soon as it's born, that there are no risks involved in mountain travel and so forth: is the following picture also a representation of what you consider "low risk" parenting? And if so, explain why.

[Dave T]

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[s k]

Art,

Terms like "responsible parenting", "really warped idea", generally assigned ultimatums regarding hell and mountain travel, risk free mountain travel, and "low risk parenting" are rather broad and open to creative definition; but not to communicating.

Maybe you could draw a continuum, title it Parenting, and identify one end as Responsible Parenting, and the other end as Irresponsible Parenting. If you want to make it manageable, you could confine it to Parenting a Three Month Old. Variations in feeding practice, shelter, rest, sleep, medical, verbal stimulation, physical contact, activity, are examples of topics with which you could populate the line. You can use your own experience. Maybe you have two kids and the care of the two varied according to medical recommendation, family finances, work schedules, etc. Get your friends and neighbors to note their experiences. Don't forget to include the parenting of your wierd brother-in law. Now research the data for your parents, grandparents, and the generation before. Plug that into your continuum. Now research cultural or religious variations, latitudinal, and continental variation, desert, nomadic, herders, etc. Examine family context in these varied situations in terms of historical/cultural behavior, values, traditions. Be sure to consider financial and economic resources. Has your definition of responsible broadened?

Now, back home, think of the relatives and friends who made more money than you, the ones that were able to give their kids more opportunity than you gave yours. The ones that were smarter regarding the prep that their kids received in clubs, schools, summer programs, etc. Could you have done more for your kids? Could you have given more to your kids? Could you have been more responsible regarding their opportunity? Were you the most responsible parent that you knew? If not, why not? If so, did you know any parents who were "reasonably responsible". What is the difference between a reasonably responsible parent and an reasonably irresponsible parent? Were you ever irresponsible? Did you ever do anything that you thought responsible, and later decided was irresponsible? How did you reconcile that?

The exercise will be much more revealing than asking people to judge a picture of a guy jumping over six kids as low or high risk parenting.

[Arapiles .]

"> > "It was selfish to expose a newborn to anything other than the comfort of a crib
> > in the critical first months of its life"
> I think that quote is one of the saddest things I've heard in a long time.
I have to agree 110% with Erin."

Can I start by pointing out that the parents cut short the trip because they decided that it was too dangerous to continue – which is what myself and a few others were politely saying to them when they originally posted about the planned trip?

In relation the quote above I have to disagree 100% with both of you. I don't think anyone is suggesting that affective parenting (e.g., carrying your kid around with you in a sling) is a bad thing – and I say that as a dad who did kangaroo care with a 13 week prem daughter – what is bad is WHERE you're carrying that kid. Like in the Alps, instead of your livingroom.

When the parents originally posted about this trip I said at the time that it was Romantic (and I mean that in the sense of being inspired by the Romantic movement of the 18th C) but risky. And that's what they eventually decided.

[Derek Goffin]

Hi Arapiles,
people who politEly said that" in their opinion it was a little too dangerous" said nothing wrong and were proved correct. My objection is to the people who continue to criticise beyond thaT

[W I S N E R !]

I would totally jump over a bunch of infants.

At second glance, I notice he's only jumping six.
$100 says I could do twelve.

[W I S N E R !]

[Jonathan DeYoung]

oh no… you should have stopped at jumping infants for money.

***this is me adding to the silliness of where this thread has gone***

[W I S N E R !]

Something needs to lighten this thread up.

[Jonathan DeYoung]

Agreed. I think you nailed it!

[Miguel Arboleda]

What an utterly strange discussion. If so many of the people here are so concerned about infants, tell me, how many of those who criticize what those two parents did take your infants in cars driving to the supermarket or on the highway? As you all know, statistically driving on the city streets is far more dangerous and your chances of getting killed far more likely than going hiking. So why, then, would you take your infant driving in a car? And yet, you do. All the arguments could be trained on this one act of foolishness, don't you think? But surely some of you are going to come up with counter-arguments that tell us THAT is a different matter, right? Pray tell, how so?

I'd like to know… how many more infants get killed in car accidents than in hiking accidents, proportionately of course.

[Dave T]

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[Casey Bowden]

"Something needs to lighten this thread up."

Flying babies???

[W I S N E R !]

My in-laws HATED it when I did that with my kids!

[Dave T]

.

[Miguel Arboleda]

THIS ought scare the crap out of some parents here. And yet it is a very effective method for helping infants survive if they fall in the water and are alone.

(warning: contains images that might be detrimental to heart conditions!)

Please, this is no call for conniptions…

[W I S N E R !]

Awesome video! The little dude is just floating there…

[Elena Lee]

Thanks, Craig, for pointing out my yelling. yes it is a bit silly. I apologize for some of my comments.

but… it is equally silly to impose once parenting views on others, and that is the heart of some 100+ posts here. but those who are imposing their views mask this act behind their genuine care for the kid they don't even know. i say, most people whom i've observed in life that are truly and meaningfully contributing to kids safety and happiness, are not spending their time on internet forums criticizing others in such preachy, unyielding way!

please forgive me my idealism and slogans..but nevertheless…aren't there more problems in the world to worry about?

yes, i need to lighted up. Listening to Pink Floyd's "Leave them kids alone…"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUASiDg-kg4

[Art Sandt]

It's just an internet forum, guys. Wouldn't it be great if we could just have a discussion about a given topic without being met with gut-reactionism, aversion to thoughtful consideration as though it had a poisonous chemical taste, and dozens of people all too willing to jump on the bandwagon?

I think it would, which is why I kept posting as long as I did, in spite of people like Mr. Caffin mysteriously trying to connect my opinion with a certain predestination to fall into the fires of Hell, other people speciously playing the "statistics card" yet unwilling or unable to themselves quote statistics for their opinions, and still others questioning whether I'd been dropped on my head in early childhood or had some other tragic past affecting my mental health. Obviously the group mentality here is too strong to permit that the "annoying guy with the minority opinion," as I have apparently been labeled, might have a point.

And with this, I take my leave of the thread. While I have no reason not to expect that many of you will whole-heartedly wish me good riddance, I must mulishly make the final request that, with me now absent from the discussion and out of your lives, those of you who might ever have the opportunity in the future to decide whether or not to take a three-month-old into the mountains, or recommend on a public forum whether or not this be done, first stop and try to think where I might be coming from when I say that you do not have the right to make a decision like that.

Just think about it. That's all I'm asking. Why would I say something like that? I'm well aware that it's bold and presumptuous–distasteful to anybody who has the slightest sense of self-righteousness in his convictions. Yet there's a reason why I say it. Can you leave your reactionism at the door long enough to figure out what that reason is?

[Dave T]

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[Roger Caffin]

Hi Art

> Mr. Caffin mysteriously trying to connect my opinion with a certain predestination
> to fall into the fires of Hell,
Whee! That has to be one of the better out-of-context extrapolations I have seen for a while.
No, it was not aimed at you. It was meant to be a very light-hearted analogy. Perhaps you took it that way too?

> when I say that you do not have the right to make a decision like that
Now here I will be serious.

If parents do not have the right to determine how they will look after their baby (which in this case they did with great care and safety), then who has the authority to deny them that right? This is not a dictatorship or a totalitarian State: it is a Democracy. Have the people voted to remove that right from parents? I didn't hear about it.

And if parents do not have the right to determine how they will look after their baby – then who does have that 'right'? The State? Some arbitrary unelected body? No way!

Sorry, but you and I must differ on this point. I will fully support your right to express your opinion, but I will oppose any claim you might make to have the right to dictate to other parents what they can and cannot do. Not in this Democracy.

Or am I reading too much into what you wrote here as well?

Cheers

[Author]

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