My Developmental Psychology class has made me think of some past experiences. I knew a fellow who dated girls who had babies, and he insisted that smoking around them caused no problems for them. His reasoning was that his parents had smoked around him as a baby and nothing bad ever happened to him as a result of it.

Anecdotally, I would like to point out that this guy began smoking at a very young age.

Anyway, he refused to go outside to smoke and pretty much considered any concern about it to be a bunch of BS. I disagreed with this point of view but this was before I had studied psychology. So I had no basis for my disagreements other than my own feelings.

He was also the type of guy who would insist that the baby be made to “cry it out”. If I recall correctly, his concern was that the baby would grow up to be a spoiled kid if mommy was always running in whenever the baby would cry.

I sat in my developmental psychology class today thinking about this fella and his approach to child rearing, and was thinking “wow”. This guy was doing everything wrong, and they’re the type of things that could cause the kid to grow up with certain mental problems. Two possible, and perhaps even likely results are attachment disorders and learning disabilities.

I realize that it seems like I’m really ragging on the guy, but that’s not necessarily true. This guy doesn’t know any better, and like I said, at the time I didn’t know any better either. I disagreed with his opinions, yes, but that’s all that they were to me at the time: Opinions; different ideologies to raising children. I had no facts to back up my views, and who am I to tell somehow how to raise kids? Heh.

This is a guy that I no longer speak to and I haven’t for quite some time. Even if I were still in steady contact with him I suspect that he would view whatever information that I tried to share with him as “bullshit”. He’s the type of person who has his beliefs, and I doubt that he would listen to any contrary information to those beliefs… short of his doctor forcing him to sit and listen to the reasons behind the contrary information, at least.

It’s really a shame that this guy simply won’t listen to reason when it comes to this subject. Any kids that he may end up having are going to be in considerable danger of having significant issues. Seeing as he smokes around babies he would probably also smoke around his pregnant wife / partner. That, combined with the detachment problems that the kid will experience from being made to “cry it out”…. I just shudder inside to think of what that kid’s life is going to be like.

Anyway, this is filed under the “Rambling” category for a reason. It all simply made me think about my past experiences, and here we have the resulting ramble.

~Steph