Mayim Bialik Defends Controversial Parenting Style

Mayim Bialik, most commonly known as "Blossom" from the hit 90s sitcom, or more recently for her role in "The Big Bang Theory", has been in the spotlight for another reason -- her new book, "Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way" is making waves. The actress, who also has a PhD in neuroscience, supports "attachment parenting" and chronicles what it's been like raising her two sons. In the book, Bialik explains her idea of good parenting -- that mothers and fathers instinctively hold all of necessary tools to parent, and that following a child's natural rhythms is key. She told the LA times that essentially, the attachment method is: "The notion that natural birth means something to the mother and the child. Breast-feeding is the natural, optimal way to feed a child. Sleeping with your child, wearing your child in a sling as opposed to pushing them around in expensive strollers, those are things that matter biologically and sociologically for the structure of a family." Good Morning America deemed her method "the ultimate hug it out style of parenting" while highlighting some questionable tactics -- Bialik doesn't use diapers or formula and she won't hire a nanny or go on "date nights" with her husband. Here on The Huffington Post's new debate platform, Change My Mind, Bialik defends the most controversial decision she's made: to co-sleep with her children. Read the rest at link.

http%3A//www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/mayim-bialik-beyond-the-sling_n_1327434.html



• I saw her on Nightline the other night. What I didn't understand is, she said she didn't put her kids in diapers...they were allowed to just piss and shit everywhere. She and her husband also slept with their babies in their bed. So...how many mattresses did they go through???

• Controversial? It's called "how babies have always been raised everywhere until recently", that's because strollers and storing them present a hassle. Ever try to hang out with a new mom? All the young moms I know including my sister do away with the ridiculous clutter at some point. I haven't read the article but I'm thinking Bialik takes care of her baby's excreta based on the kid's "rhythm".

  that's how many ppl did it before diapers, too

• the stroller thing I understand getting rid of, and frankly it's easier carrying a child in a sling. letting them piss anywhere isn't good.

• I hope her kids inherit her brains and not her looks.

  http://www.superiorpics.com/hs/mayim_bialik/main1.jpg

• [quote]Controversial? It's called "how babies have always been raised everywhere until recently" "Recently", as in when, gramps? Was that back when women smoked and drank during pregnancy? Do you not understand how many parents roll over on their kids and smother them? How old are you? What country are you from? This woman should have her kids taken away from her. She's endangering them!

• Ok, R5, how many parents roll over onto their kids and smother them?

• It's speculated little Lisa died that way.

• Bialik's husband is huge.

  Baby go splat

• R1 I didn't understand that either. How is letting them go to the bathroom anywhere and everywhere potty training them?

• Do you have no concept of the modern era, R5? Do you know anything about history or pre-history. Gawd, you are dumb.

• She's no classic beauty, but I think she looks nice here:

  http://premierguidemedia.com/wp-content/themes/arthemia-premium/scripts/timthumb.php%3Fsrc%3Dhttp://premierguidemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Mayim-Bialik-1.jpg%26w%3D300%26h%3D300%26zc%3D1%26q%3D100

• "The distinction between encouragement and pressure is not always clear. It is certainly implicitly clear that children should be encouraged not to say to Great-Aunt-Pearl, "You smell like rotten flowers and it makes me want to throw up." But is it necessary that we insist and enforce that young children use "please" and "thank you" all of the time?" I heartily disagree on this one. I'm a huge believer in drilling "please" and "thank you" into their little heads, because I think it's the verbal symbol of the cognitive leap the child should be making to grasp the existence of other people as PEOPLE rather than just satellites orbiting around him to satisfy his wants and needs.

• Supposedly, mothers learn to sense when their babies have to go.

• Nothing and no one exited before R5 was born.

• -existed-^

• [quote]Supposedly, mothers learn to sense when their babies have to go. Oh, really? Well, I'd like to know how in the hell you "learn" to do that.

• Will they deal with this issue on a very special episode of Blossom?

• If you're feeding an infant a diet free of processed food, their stool should be minimal and firm in texture, easy to clesn up, much like rabbit droppings.

• When my cat had kittens she would like the babies' bottoms.

• Well, shoot, and here I thought r5 had to be the oldest child.

• So mothers can wake up in the middle of the night when they sense their child is about to piss/shit the bed?

• [quote]Will they deal with this issue on a very special episode of Blossom? Yes. In fact, that's part of the storyline for the reunion special.

• I don't know, but they claim an accident rarely happens.

  But%20I%20think%20that%27s%20bullshit

• Okay I just found this link. Are you ready for this? They call it "elimination communication."

  http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/

• There really is a website for everything, isn't there?

• So she got a PhD in Neuroscience to do THIS shit?

• [quote]"The notion that natural birth means something to the mother and the child." That's like saying appendectomy surgery without anesthesia means something to the patient and surgeon. No, morons, it doesn't mean anything more special because you're screaming your head off in pain. It means you were too stupid to take the pain meds. Your kid has a giant fucking head because it's a human. It even comes out a bit too early, survival-wise, because otherwise the head would get stuck because your bones have moved as far as they can and the next step is them breaking. How can she have a PhD in neuroscience and not understand basic facts of human evolution. There is no special anything simply because you chose to suffer more for no reason. What a quack.

• R27, you seem a little unhinged.

• R28, I'm a scientist who hates when other scientists give science a bad name by being stupid. When someone as smart as she is takes part in the utter quackery represented here, it gives license for everyone else to do it, doubly so.

• [quote]When my cat had kittens she would like the babies' bottoms. Did she like their tops, too?

• Mayim really is a genius (not being sarcastic) and you gotta admit she turned out pretty great for a precocious child star in the spotlight a long time. So I'd sure listen to her advice over, say, the Spears mother. But then, who wouldn't.

• R29, So you read a snippet of a book and then extrapolated a bunch, then got mad about it? I thought scientists exclude assumptions. But then what do I know, I'm not a scientist.

• What does pain medicine have to do with evolution, r27?

• [quote]Mayim really is a genius Mayim shows what good parenting and effort can do. Her grandparents emigrated from Eastern Europe in the 30s and her parents practice reformed Judaism. She turned down Harvard and Yale to attend UCLA because she wanted to stay close to her parents. Mayim is the product of good parenting, ambition, and a family and culture that believes in education. The world is littered with "geniuses" who have accomplished nothing. Genius isn't what made Mayim who she is.

• R32, it isn't from reading a snippet of a book. There's an entire school of parenting out there that believes this nonsense with zero proof behind it. They're the one reading one little book and then extrapolating their entire parenting philosophy out of it. R33, evolution lead to giant heads. Until the invention/discovery of pain meds, women just had to suffer. Now, idiotic women are choosing to suffer for no reason due to the equally idiotic belief that it enhances their bond. All evidence is to the contrary. The pain worsens the experience for both the mother and the baby. The mother for obvious reasons and the baby because the mother, being so constricted and tensed up from the almost unbearable pain, makes it more difficult for the baby to get out. A more relaxed, less pained mother is better for both. That's what the science shows.

• HAVE A NICE DAY!!!

  Mayim

• Her method isn't the 'time immemorial' one. It's fiction based on how she wants it to have been. You can look through six thousand recorded history, prehistoric archaeology, and in contemporay tribal cultures without finding any evidence of the system she advocates. To use a DL classic, This.Never.Happened.

• She also feeds her kids a strict vegan diet. And she squirts breast milk into her son's eye to cure pink eye.

• As a gay guy who gets super cranky when I don't get enough sleep I am always amazed when women manage to raise a kid without choking it to death at some point. It seems to me what she gives her child is unconditional love which - according to self help books I read - is the greatest gift parents can give their child (next too food and shelter of course). I know I sound like some broken 'The Secret' record, but the really smart and happy people in our civilisation are the ones who were raised with unconditional love or were able to put their abusive childhood and all the child traumas behind and go through life without any emotional baggage from the past.

• I'm with R39. I wouldn't last five minutes with a screaming child. I'd be an abusive parent FOR SURE.

  Kids%3A%20Seen%20not%20heard.

• I think it is very important to be kind and warm and affectionate with your children, but the no diapers and sleeping with them is nutty. Kids have to understand they are in a world with other people, not just themselves, and they have to be strong and independent.

• Is sthis by any chance (I haven't read the book, sorry) anything to do with being old-fashioned and Jewish or an Orthodox Jew? Which, I shouldn't automatically assume she is, but this sounds VERY old-world. Can agree to some extent with the basis of what she's staying but yes, parents can accidentally roll over kids in their sleep (I don't know stats on this)S but ESEPCIALLY: no diaper???? Are you f---ing KIDDING me!? That seems the ultimate in "entitled" or "actress-y" thinking (and yes, I know Bialik has a Ph.D. in something) - what about OTHER FUCKING PEOPLE WHO WILL ENCOUNTER THE KID??? Sorry for the all caps but I am actually at a loss for words with this diaper thing...

• And people thought the Chinese were bad with their Dragon parenting; maybe there should be a new name for Biaylik: "JapHelicoptering sans Pampers."

• Don't get the extended breast feeding. There is no species on the planet that feed milk after infancy. Mayim claims people that follow her method can breastfeed into the fives and sixes. I don't understand how people can consume another animals bodily fluid in the first place, but if milk was important to adults, all species would have known it.

• To R31: no, I don't think she turned out at well; I daresay most former child stars have the brains to put diapers on their kids. She/husband/family can give their kid(s) all the unconditional love they like, and that IS actually wonderful. But a little prep for the cruel hard people, i.e., other people - wouldn't hurt. I have worked in NYC, in law firms, and the worse "entitled" attorneys to work for are Jewish and overly-helicopter-parented. Think their shit doesn't stink. The women are whiny little girls, not attractive at age 30+. (Hmmm - just thought of something, maybe their parents raised them like Bialik who must actually think her kid's shit doesn't stink!)

• Silly culturally blinded frauish people. All of these things are traditional to humans, and are done in many parts of the world, even NOW.

• SOME of it sounds good but no diapers? That is bullshit. I wouldn't want to visit Miss Bialik at her HOME. Sounds like a feces infested shithole.

• Er, link, R46?

• I don't know why exactly but I detest this woman. I'm sure she's nice in person, but I find it hard separating her irritating characters (all TWO of them) from her personally. I finally gave up on the Big Bang Theory when I realized she wasn't going away. To me, they ruined the show my insisting that Sheldon MUST have a "girlfriend". That and the fact she's a horrible actress makes it difficult for me to watch her for more than 30 seconds. Sounds like she has some odd parenting tactics but good on her if it's working for her.

• I hate when people use that BS excuse that diapers are a new invention and this is how people in Peru or India or some other third world country raises children. We don't have dirt roads and live in shacks with no indoor plumbing. If a baby shits all over the ground in the middle of the marketplace, it makes no difference because it's outside and probably unpaved. If a baby shits all over the floor in a grocery store in America, it's a major health code issue. Do whatever you want with your kids at home, but as soon as you enter a public place, you need to follow basic decorum rules for a modern US society.

• Also, she works. Hello, she's not home for at least some portion of the week, at least when she's filming her TV show. So who's dealing with the poop? Frankly, this kind of parenting is self-indulgent, pretentious bullshit.

• On Nightline she was talking about being in constant contact with her kid...constantly carrying him, etc. Talk about an overbearing mother!! We'll see if he turns out gay (wink).

• When I adopted my daughter from Russia as a baby they said she was potty trained. What they would do was set all the little ones on a pot after they ate until they went.

• To use a DL classic, This.Never.Happened. For you:

  http://nancymariemithlo.com/poolaw2008_files/poolaw_papoose.jpg

• Do they have sex with their kids in the bed?

• from the article "How did I avoid potty-training either of my boys? Easy! Babies are born potty-trained; it's the parents who need the training!" ummmm.. ok. So for years we've had it backwards and the kids were already potty trained at birth? Adults just didn't know it? Riiiiiiiiiiight. "I have used acetaminophen (found in Tylenol) maybe six times in six years. I have never given my children ibuprofen (found in Motrin and Advil). I have never administered any medication for teething pain, nor have I ever used antibiotic ointment (found in Neosporin), antihistamines (such as Benedryl), cough syrups, or steroids (as in cortisone creams)." She never lets her kids out of the house does she? The play in padded rooms.

• [quote]I have never given my children ibuprofen (found in Motrin and Advil). I have never administered any medication for teething pain, nor have I ever used antibiotic ointment (found in Neosporin), antihistamines (such as Benedryl), cough syrups, or steroids (as in cortisone creams)." They may have [bold]needed[/bold] those medicines, she just didn't give it.

• This was the first thing I thought of. From the film Away We Go...

  http://youtu.be/I6CMxvwRA-o

• My sister has her girls still sleep in the bed with her even though they're 11 and 2 and each has their own room. But I think it has to do with not wanting to be alone. She's a bit of a scaredy cat. Her husband is a police officer and works nights. Also, she's still breastfeeding the 2-year-old. She didn't do this with her older daughter, whom she weaned before she turned one. But I think since this is her last child she's babying her too much.

• Blah, blah, blah. In other words, she doesn't work and she'll never have to.

• I'll give Blossom the breast feeding bit even though it would be far more healthy if she just did it until the age or two or so like how some third world mothers do out of financial necessity. But, what is she to do when her children go through puberty? They will be sleeping on the floor with their mother and father and maybe having the odd wet dream or something. They won't know how to clean up after themselves because they piss and shit on the floor. All that schooling Blossom got and it was for nothing.

• Why the hostility? I don't have children nor will I. Even if I did, I wouldn't raise them exactly the same way as Bialik. I agree with some of the stuff and not with others. How is sleeping with your babies and young children so extraordinarily controversial? Half the world probably still does it. I slept with my mom and brother and I didn't get smothered. Diapers? If I had a baby, would I use it? Probably, for the convenience but there are lots of babies around the world who don't wear diapers. Somehow they and the parents are doing okay. I didn't and I was born in the early 70's. Geez, Bialik sounds like a mom who's doing the best she can for her kids--how does that warrant some of the venom here? How about worrying about the moms who neglect their kids or worse, abuse them.

• R62, you didn't wear diapers? How did you mother deal with the mess?

• Why did they make Blossom Italian (her last name was Russo) when Bialik reads so clearly as Jewish?

• R63, honestly I don't remember and haven't asked. I was born in a country at a time where diapers weren't used. I'm not even sure if it's widely used today. I know in China, the parents "train" the babies. For example, after a meal or beverage, a parent will hold the baby and make a noise to stimulate peeing. The baby pees. It's not all that different from house-training a puppy I suppose. Yes, there are accidents but eventually the puppy learns that he needs to go out to do his business. I haven't been to China since 2008 so things may have changed significantly but babies and toddlers usually wore pants or babysuits with a slit in the bottom. When it was time to go, the parents would hold the slit apart for the drop or stream. No diapers. It was really funny to be there in China in the winter and see kids dressed like the Michelin man and then see the split in their pants.

• As usual, a scientists ignores all of human history. Happens all the time with economists.

• It's the latest trend to stay Mommies-4-Ever. That's why these women in their 40's are squirting out quadruplets. Keeping their offspring in college until they're 30. Botoxing, collagening, dye-ing and working out. Mommy means power. Without a brat you're just an aging frau whose husband is plotting to replace you with a younger version.

• [quote]Do they have sex with their kids in the bed? No, she said on Nightline they don't have sex since it would be so disrespectful to do it on the child's bed. She and her husband don't even sleep in the same room. They have two beds in her house. She sleeps in one room with her 9 year old son. Her husband sleeps in another room with her other son. Her husband is FAT. I don't blame her for not having sex with him. Who would?

• Two fat people don't make love, two fat people make SLOP!

• SURPRISE, SURPRISE the crazy bitch is getting DIVORCED!

  http://www.dlisted.com/2012/11/21/dr-blossom-getting-divorce

• I bet their split had more to do with MB being in Hollywood again than their parenting style. I like that pic of Mayim.

• Attachement parenting sounds like a good idea, when the child is small and helpless. It's what mother nature intends, for the first few years. But when the kid is NINE puberty is just around the corner, and the poor sprat needs some privacy. Good luck to her meeting someone new, with her kids tied to her with the umbilcal cord.

• My friend is trying to do this and she is pulling her hair out at a year and a half because she has not had sleep in that long. Seems dumb to me.

• "Mommy means power. Without a brat you're just an aging frau whose husband is plotting to replace you with a younger version." So?? Apart from a little hit to their egos, I bet most fraus are glad to be rid of the middle-aged lumpy loser who doesn't really contribute anything anyhow.

• This thread is making me HORNY as HELL

  tension-breaker%2C%20had%20to%20be%20done

• So did she eat the placentas after giving birth? Did she at least make a casserole from them?

• Yeah, no. She's over-attached which is almost as child-personality-warping as not being attached at all. Children are separate human beings and deserve to be treated as such. Too many mommy-tweakers just don't get that. I suppose they don't want to, it doesn't feed their overwrought, narcissistic egos the way this kind of fuckwitted behavior does.

• Quell surprise. She said herself in the article that the kids sleep in her bed and she doesn't go on date nights with her husband. These moms who practice attachment parenting, in general, do not devote enough (or hardly any) time to their spouses.

• He's a bit fugly. Wikipedia says he was a Mormon who converted to Judaism. (And his mom converted too.) I imagine Mayim will be paying alimony and/or child support.

  http://content3.catalog.photos.msn.com/ds/pic-en-us/picenus_msnentertainment/WireImage.com/D53F3343-3257-495F-B092-BE2190DDCFF0.jpg

• Wonder if her parenting style is what broke up the marriage? He's probably sick of shitting, pissing kids constantly underfoot and in bed with them.