Babies

sometimes amusing, sometimes horrifying, always fascinating, the book would more accurately be titled "white babies: history, art & folklore" because it focuses entirely on the upbringing of european, mostly french, babies. reading through this book, i came to wonder why the authors chose to detail the history of white babies & not include the traditions of other cultures, and then it came to me - because our european culture is absurdly, almost dangerously, "clever" in our devising of ways to presumably make our lives easier! one need only look into simple pieces of cloth the african bushwoman uses to tie her baby onto her back, or the split-crotch pants devised by the chinese to facilitate easier pottying by their babies or even the daily baths & massages lavished upon indigenous babies all over the world to realize that the western culture is extremely backward in it's thinking. breast milk is poisonous? well, who else but the europeans would come up with such an absurd notion?! men attending at birth? well golly, it had to be white men who decided they were so threatened by the success of midwives that they burned them at the stake! babies need fresh air? well, let's hang them from the windowsills! all that aside, i really enjoy beatrice fontanel's thorough style of investigation & her ability to dig up the most amazing images from all points in history. this book is the complementary opposite of her other book, "babies celebrated", which remains one of my very favorite pictorial accounts of traditional cultures & their newest societal members.