When the research is rude, with Cara Goodwin

How to feel when science indicates you already made inferior parenting choices

Cara Goodwin, PhD, of

Parenting Translator

, translates recent scientific research into information that parents can use in their everyday lives. She and I were recently corresponding about a possible crossover issue on the topic of redshirting. Redshirting is when you have a summer baby and hold them back so they are the oldest in the lower grade rather than a young child in the grade above that. People do this for a variety of reasons, from their kids not being ready to wanting their kid to be a dominant force in sports (but be careful what you wish for #BabyGronk)

Cara had covered some recent research that showed the benefits of redshirting. I was thinking about interviewing a sample of elder witches of grown kids who either pushed their summer kids ahead or held them back to hear how much it mattered on the other side of childhood.

Then I realized I only wanted to hear one answer: that it didn't matter. Because I didn't redshirt my summer baby. We let him be a young preschooler because he seemed ready for it! And, selfishly, preschool was closer (a walk compared to a drive) and cheaper than daycare.

I think it's worked out. I don't know. I still remember talking with someone when we were about to start our kid in preschool that they heard that the research was definitively in favor of redshirting. I had one of those "Oh my god, am I making the right decision? I hope so because this is the decision" decisions that I hate making. I ask his teachers if he's in the right spot every year, and they say yes. That's the decision we made. But every time I see this topic come up, I still wonder.

Cara, soon to be a mom-of-four, kindly agreed to pivot our talk to cover how she approaches childrearing (not medical!) research when you're a person who cares about science and data, but also when life has guided you to make choices that go against what research suggests.

Before you go on to read about things like gentle parenting and the parenting research Goodwin goes against in her life, I wanted to ask if you'd consider becoming a paid subscriber if you’re not already. This is not a paywall but a pretend paywall. So if you aren’t one yet, but want to keep reading, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at any level. And if you just appreciate what a paywall does but are relieved not to encounter an actual one, don’t you want to support that?

Now, an edited and condensed conversation I had with Cara Goodwin:

I was originally doing a piece talking to parents about whether their summer babies thrived or not in their class, I was like, deep down, “I don't want to hear anything other than the decision you make is best for your family.” What do you advise your readers when the decisions they’ve already made goes against the parenting research, and they can't do something about it? What do you do with that information and those feelings?

I worry about that a lot because I'm putting all this research out there. Still, even as a child psychologist, even as somebody obsessed with the research, I sometimes make decisions as a parent that go against the research. Sometimes it's convenient, and sometimes it's like, “I know my child better; this is the right choice.” I like talking about research because it helps take away a lot of the shame that parents feel, so I would never want to have the research add additional shame to parents because we have enough. We have enough mom guilt; we have enough shame without it.

I want to make sure that parents understand with the research that, first of all, research only shows what works for the average child. It doesn't show what works for your individual child and if you're making decisions that go against the research. It feels right to you, you should feel confident in that because you are the expert on your child. People on social media are always calling themselves parenting experts. Still, it's like, each parent is the expert on their individual child. The research is only one source of data in making the best decision, and there are all these other sources of data that are all of your individual factors related to your family and your child. It's okay to not always follow the research.

What's an example of one or two things that you do, if you don't mind sharing, that go against the general research?

I co-sleep with all of my kids, and I mean, research shows that it does increase the risk of SIDS, and there is a risk there, but that was the choice I made to survive those early days because all of my kids are terrible sleepers. It was like it was either the choice between falling asleep in a chair holding my baby or just planning for it and being like, I'm going to co-sleep as safely as possible, which was just based on my level of sleep deprivation and my husband is not helpful at night. I didn't have any other support at night, so this was a decision I had to make.

What's your thought process when you see another story or a comment from people who get harsh about co-sleeping and accuse you of endangering your child? How do you process that information without letting it get to you?

Not well. I want to do a newsletter on sleep training and then a newsletter on co-sleeping. Still, I worry about the backlash of people being like, "Well, you're promoting something that potentially could kill infants." When you think about the realities of early motherhood, especially when you don't have a lot of support, you're forced to make these choices that don't feel ideal to you, but you have to choose something unless you can afford to have somebody come in and help you every night if you have a bad sleeper.

Do you have advice about taking parenting research that goes against your own choices without taking it like an indictment?

I think it's just being confident in your own decisions, and a lot of that comes with experience. I'm sure you've experienced this, the longer you're a parent, the more you feel confident in those decisions that you've made. The other big takeaway from all these parenting decisions is that most children who have at least one stable, loving adult in their life turn out fine. We worry about redshirting and pacifiers and all these little detailed questions. Still, if you have one stable, loving adult in your life, you'll probably be fine. That's the big picture.

All this data and obsessing over these little questions, it's like a lot of it ends up not mattering. The more kids, the more you experience parenting; we realize it doesn't matter. Your son probably would've thrived being a year ahead or a year behind; it probably won't matter in the end.

If you're already worrying about this, your kids are going to be fine.

Everyone wants to find research that backs up their decision. I was reading your melatonin issue, and that was also very relevant because we resisted it for a long time. But we have this kid with ADHD, and he has such a hard time winding down at night and turning off his brain that we threw it at him like a Hail Mary, and it worked. Of course, now we're like, well, shit. It says to use it for a limited time, but it's working so well. So when I saw the expert you interviewed, she mentioned neurodiversity. I was like, sweet. Okay, good, that means I'm okay for now. Thank goodness for this data point.

I have a daughter with sleep issues, and we take melatonin almost every night. I try to give her a chance to fall asleep on her own. If it's like 9:00 and she's still not asleep, we just do it because it's like, there's also negative side effects of not getting enough sleep.

Not just for her but for you.

100%. But yeah, so much of it weighs the different risk factors. Here’s another example of another research finding I don't follow; I'm sure you've seen some of these nutritionists on social media. I've delved into this research and posted that you should serve dessert with dinner. The research supports that, and I can't bring myself to do it. I'm like, I just can't because I just can't handle the anxiety that they will literally only eat the Oreos. I believe in research, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

Screen time is another example where I think we all have an idea what the research says, and the research also is inconvenient in terms of reality.

Obviously, there are all these negative correlations with screen time, but the research is also limited. It's all correlational studies, so we don't even know if screen time is causing these negative impacts. But also, it's like, in the real world, if you're in a situation where you're about to scream at your kids because you're going to lose your mind, it's like it'd be better to put on a screen. If you're cooking dinner and have a one-year-old who you need to keep safe, it might be a better choice to put on a screen than potentially they hurt themselves while you're trying to make dinner.

So it's all about these real-world trade-offs that the research doesn't capture. I was a child psychologist before I became a parent. I cringe because I was like, "This is what you should do. It's so simple," when I was advising parents. Then I became a parent, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe how simple I thought it was. Then in the real world, it's so complicated, and it's like, you can't just apply these principles.

Is there anything about the state of research on childhood and parenting that could be done differently or improved?

The issue is more with how the research is interpreted. The research is all pretty objective. It's like, "This is what we found." But it's more like when interpreted as "You must do it this particular way." Whereas, like we've been saying, the research is all about what works for the average child. Even the most high-quality studies are limited. We could find 10 years from now, there could be another study that totally disproves the first study. So it's like, you can never be like, this is a cold, hard fact.

I'm reading Jess Grose's book about the unsustainability of modern motherhood. All these experts out there are, like,"This is what you must do. You are not a good mother if you do it exactly this way." It's a lot of male experts, actually, or in history, it's been. Now there are a lot of mom-influencers that also create a lot of shame for mothers. But it's just this idea that there is one right way to do it, and if you do not do it that way, you are a bad mother.

I feel like with all the gentle parenting influencers out there, not everyone one of them, but a lot of them have this script of like, "This is the one way to do it. If you do not do it this way, you're harming your child. It is equivalent to child abuse."

I noticed that you did a thing on timeouts. I was doing a story a long time ago and I spoke with this guy, Alfie Kohn, and he said that timeouts are child abuse, basically. He wasn't listening to any kind of nuance from me, the mother at the time of two little boys. So are you then proposing that we remove all of our own emotions and our own experiences and just become that soft monkey towel mom?

A lot of the gentle parenting accounts say you should never say, "That hurt mommy's feelings," or "That made mommy sad." They say, well, we have absolutely no research showing this, but they say that you're creating codependency because [your kids] feel responsible for your emotions. I'm like, “No, no, no.”

In relationships, we should be aware that other people have feelings and be aware when we're making other people feel bad. We're teaching our children emotional understanding. I mean, it's almost like, as parents, we're not allowed to have feelings. We are people too. We have needs. If you're raising your child in this parent-child relationship where you don't have any needs, you don't have any feelings, you're not setting them up for future relationships. In every one of their future relationships, the person will have feelings and will have needs.

Wow, okay. This is a whole new way that I didn't know I was a bad parent.

It's like you have to be 100% there for your children all the time. That's A: not realistic. B: you're setting them up for expectations for future relationships. None of them will be able to have a spouse who will be there 100% of the time for them. It's like, you have to set them up for real human relationships. I don't know how any parent is capable of that.

I've ignored gentle parenting because I'm not a gentle person, but it reminds me of attachment parenting. Is it the same vibe, or what are the differences?

It's the same vibe but it's very anti-timeout or using rewards or consequences, all very evidence-based practices on which we have decades of research. It's a lot of unrealistic expectations like, "You must be there emotionally validating your child at every moment of the day." There's a lot of shame wrapped into it, like, "If you do not do it this way, you are harming your child," but we have no research evidence on this, what these influencers call gentle parenting. All the parenting programs out there involve some of these positive strategies but also timeouts, consequences, and reward systems. We don't know that this strictly positive parenting actually works; in reality, it's hard to implement perfectly.

It's funny how science, morality, and judgment can feed into each other. So it's good to talk about this kind of stuff, especially gentle parenting because gentle parenting sounds like, "Well if you're not a gentle person, what are you even doing? Why'd you have kids?"

I'm not a gentle person, too; I understand that.

Now, just the word 'gentle' is making me laugh.

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