Customer Reviews

The Continuum Concept: In Search Of Happiness Lost (Classics in Human Development)

5 star:		(74)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Let me get two caveats out of the way (and forgive the narcissism of my mini-bio):

1) Most of the reviews I have seen on this book seem to come from parents and are testaments to the validity or lack of validity of the continuum concept. I am not a parent*. I have no immanent plans to experience parenthood (or to not experience parenthood) at this point and I am painfully nearsighted on this issue. So I have no desire to debate whether the Continuum Concept is 1) the right way to raise a child in this culture, 2) if its feasible or 3) what to do about modern dangers that exist outside of the environment that man evolved under, etc. I read the Continuum Concept at the suggestion of a friend who is a psychoanalyst. I read it for the insight it would give me into my own life and childhood. It is the similar soul that this review is directed toward: the reader who simply wants to understand their own past and present in light of the concepts that Liedloff puts forth.

2) I try not to write reviews just after finishing a particular book. I find that I am still 'impressionable' and it takes a while for me to let the subjectivity of the author pass out of my system. It takes a while to integrate my identity with any new thoughts or perceptions that arise from reading a new book.

With that said, I read The Continuum Concept earlier this year and I am amazed at how much the thoughts and ideas that were bubbling in my mind at the time I read the book are still present in my conscious mind. If you want to read a book that will bring your opinions about your upbringing and the whole western system of values under scrutiny, this is the book for you. It's dangerous literature for anyone who is happy with the status quo, but my assumption is that the reactionary reader will simply dismiss everything in the Continuum Concept as invalid.

To accept the validity of The Continuum Concept really changes so much about our perceptions of the modern world. It has been quite some time since the seventies when this book was much more revolutionary, and now there is plenty more research and science to corroborate Liedloff's claims. Perhaps she idealized these people that she lived with in the rain forests of South America. But even if she has waxed a tad bit romantic in her opinions of the Yequana (sic) we can still learn something from her observations. The truth is that far too few of us question the system of baby-care in western culture in its totality. We debate how to discipline a child and the proper age to begin potty training and when to wean the child (after we have solved the debate over whether to breastfeed or not). But there are deeper questions we do not ask...and the obvious question that arises from reading Liedloff's book is "are we doing our children a disservice by using any modern child-rearing techniques at all?" Other questions soon arise such as "Are most of us victims of an incomplete childhood?" "Is the average member of westernized society simply trying to fill some unnatural emptiness created in its earliest and hardly memoralbe experiences?" "Is every aspect of our modern culture infected with our skewed beliefs (e.g. happiness is elusive and only to be pursued but never attained)?" Is the most exhilarating experience in life `falling in love' or is this just a brief lapse into the state of being we should be living our entire lives under?" These are all very interesting questions and if this is the kind of psychological and philosophical introspection that you like to engage in than this is the book for you (and please send me and e-mail because I am generally better for knowing people like you).

The book led me to the final question which I am still trying to answer. "Is the combination of our modern upbringing and the modern world we live in so grossly mutated from the environment that mankind evolved in, that there is no way to adapt and find our way back to intuitive living, and the kind of self acceptance (being comfortable in our own skins) that so many of us strive for?" I guess this is a question (like all profound questions) that must be answered through experience, but I am thankful for this book for at least coloring some of my experiences with a new hue. My hope now is that I can get my mother and twin brother to read this book as well, and we can all dialogue about what it meant for our pasts and what it means if anything for the present and future.

I gave the book a five star rating because it made me think and it stretched my mind to new dimensions, which gets harder to do as I get older and older.

Serenity

*[side note: I can see how this book could grossly misfire in the hands of parents obsessed with raising perfect children. I think the idea should be to provide the best environment we know how to for the child and let the child become what it will become without any preconceptions about what a perfect child is like. After all, its questionable if the emotionally unhealthy and stunted are even prepared to recognize the signs of emotional health.]

My husband and I read this book 9 years ago, before the birth of our son, and it spoke to our hearts. Employing the simple idea that a baby who starts life in the womb shouldn't be abruptly separated from the mother after birth, we maintained almost constant contact with him for the first few months. I was amazed at some of the resistance, resentment, even hostility, people sometimes demonstrated when informed that we slept with our newborn and never left him to cry. All their protests were based on nothing but groundless fears -- "You'll roll over and smother him! You'll 'spoil' him!" Etc. Well, he became naturally more and more independent and separate at his own pace, not an arbitrarily imposed one (that's the "continuum" part), and weaned himself from the breast at 11 months, rather than at a time decided by the "experts" or demands of employment. He is now 9 years old, and is a wonderful, happy, secure, well-adjusted boy, and I never cease getting compliments from everyone who meets him on how considerate, engaging, empathetic, kind, and well socialized he is. I credit Liedloff's book for all of this. If I could give one message to all would-be parents, I would say: Don't buy into the lie that material things are what's important to provide your child, and if you yourself are so wrapped up in financial gain that you won't temporarily sacrifice it to bond with him the first year of life, you're selling yourselves short. Invest the first 6 months to 1 year of his life raising him in your arms, and you will be giving him, and yourself, more than a billion dollars could ever buy.

A friend told me that this book picks up where Spiritual Midwifery leaves off. So, I read it while I was pregnant. Where the former book completely changed the way I view childbirth, Continuum Concept radically altered my view of childrearing. I knew I wanted to parent my child in a way that was very different from how I had been raised, but I wasn't sure just what to do. This book taught me to trust my heart and intuition. It taught me to know that if I listen to my son and learn from him as much as I teach him, then he will grow up strong and secure and loving, despite this crazy world. Her observations of the indigenous family structure were profoundly insightful, showing us that, sadly, we have lost a great deal in our material culture. True, there are many books related to parenting out there, but I encourage all parents to read this one. I have given a copy to every pregnant friend for almost 10 years now, and everyone has loved it and passed it on. Few investments are this worthy.

Somehow I had the impression that Jean Liedloff's diamond-in-the-rough work was a comparison of modern day parenting to that of primitive tribes in general; instead, it is primarily her observations on the Yequana tribe of Venezuela. It's obvious that Ms. Liedloff has a great affection for these peaceful people, but that positive bias is apparent, and eventually weakens her argument. It is also often necessary for the reader to make decisions about whether the author, writing in 1975, should be forgiven for her (currently) strange ideas -- using the universal "he" and "man" can certainly roll off one's back, but proclaiming that male homosexuality is the result of a mother's demanding and overattentive nature and female homosexuality the result of cruel or unloving fathers is not so forgivable. If this theory were true it should have better predictive value, yet who today believes her assertion? In addition, Liedloff avers that children's accidents and burns are not caused by children's physical or cognitive limitations but primarily by subconscious suggestions from the parents, even relating (and she should be ashamed) the story of a toddler who died in a drowning accident that was, according to her, caused not only by the parents' admonitions to stay away from the pool but also by their installation of a security fence around it. Furthermore, roller coaster devotees are actually attempting to capture the experience of adventure denied them as children (I can attest from personal experience that this is not the case), and criminality and addiction are explained by the lack of in-arms time, as are child abuse (discussed solely in terms of women abusing their children), promiscuity, martyrdom, acting, academics and compulsive travelling. Neat trick, if you can make it work. I didn't even know compulsive travelling was a problem. That said, this is the theory as created *and interpreted* by Liedloff, and her misapplication of the continuum concept does not invalidate the theory, any more than Sigmund Freud's personal problems invalidated his few brilliant insights into the human psyche.

The author's positive bias also shows up in her willingness to view every act by the Yequana as positive, including parties and work sessions at which all tribe members, including children, drink to drunkenness. She lauds the Yequana's lack of parental guidance, saying that praise and scolding are equally corrosive to the child's ability to function later in life. I disagree with that assertion. I believe feedback is important, and I believe in praise and encouragement.

The author shrugs off anomalies such as the Yequanas, despite their having achieved perfect serenity, nonetheless having a mythology of a fall from grace and a yearning to achieve a better state. She also ignores contradictions, stating that modern humans search for physical contact because we were denied it in early life, but the Yequana enjoy physical contact because .... this is not explained. These particular passages convince me that the Yequana probably have a more realistic self-regard than does Ms. Liedloff. Reading this, in it's unfinished, untested, doctoral-thesis-that-never-got-turned-in state, you can see why scientific methods, for all their limitations, are valuable.

Having criticized, I will say that when the author gets it right, she gets it profoundly right. Simple statements she makes are well stated and ring true: The intellect is not always our only, or our best, guide. There is an evolutionary dance, informed by experience, between expectation and design. A spirit of competition is not always appropriate. We need to make the assumption of innate sociality. Happiness should be a normal condition rather than a goal. Parents do not own children. Children, though less physically powerful, are no less human and have no fewer rights than adults; consequently, children should be treated with respect and dignity.

While the Liedloff version of the continuum concept had little predictive value in the area of social science, she shows some timely insight into what was then becoming cognitive science, and offers some fertile material for artificial systems modellers.

As a parent, an education librarian and a substitute teacher, I thoroughly enjoyed the author's introduction of the ironically radical underpinnings of attachment parenting concepts as well as her suggestions for social change. As a cognitive science researcher and an optimistic populist, I was nonplussed by the lack of any bibliography or research -- just opinion and anecdote. There are some tremendously valuable insights here, but the author has slathered it with her own problematic conclusions. For pity's sake, ignore her advice about child safety, which is not appropriate for 21st century parents. My advice is to read this book with an open heart and a sharp mind, and to cull the wheat from the chaff.

My son was born with what pediatrician William Sears calls a "high needs" personality. From birth, if I set him down for a second, he would cry and protest loudly. He could only tolerate his stroller for 15 minutes and he turned shades of red and purple while riding in the car seat. He needed to touch my body or be held in-arms to sleep soundly. I carried him in my tired, aching arms the first 4 months and refused to put him down, because it never felt right to me to let him fuss, become agitated and cry. Finally, a mother at a local La Leche League meeting showed me how to use my baby sling (OTSBH, then Maya Wrap) when he was 4.5 months old.

I read this book when my son was about 5 months old. While I never consciously worried about my son's fussy disposition, I was relieved to finally recognize that my baby was perfectly normal. I thought that "normal" was a baby lying in a crib most of the day staring at a mobile, or one that was carried around in a baby seat or "Moses basket" as I attended to other things. Read OUR BABIES, OURSELVES by MEREDITH SMALL to learn about how culture influences baby care and how human biology is at odds with Western expectations for baby care. My son was just expressing a very strong craving for vestibular movement and appropriate sensory stimulation. Being wheeled in strollers and carried in cars seats for the majority of the day in infancy (a trap I would have fallen into if my baby wasn't so fussy) is NOT good for human development. (Check out the Amazon reviews for SENSORY SECRETS by Catherine Chemin Schneider.) "High need" babies are simply born experts at getting their developmental and emotional needs met.

This book convinced me on the spot to stop trying to use the stroller completely. That in itself was freeing to me as I had no idea how much my expectation to use the darned thing was making me tense and frustrated. Once I let that go, and thanks to the baby sling, things became much easier. Basically, Liedloff argues that time spent "in-arms" in infancy is what helps make happy, well-adjusted, non-neurotic adults. A baby should be carried until he expresses a desire to go down.

She argues that the reason so many adults are unhappy is because they are endlessly searching for something outside themselves. People use excitement (i.e., bunging jumping, dangerous sports, dangerous treks, endless traveling, etc...) to fill a void, none of which are good enough and they keep trying to top their last exhilarating experience. Or they turn to shopping, or drinking, or drug use (anything in excess) for that something they missed in infancy... feeing whole and connected to something: ANOTHER PERSON. A mother, father, a caregiver... somebody who carried them around where they felt peaceful for the majority of the time. By being carried the baby experiences inner peace and there is no continuous anxiety, where the baby is begging or signaling with smiles and seemingly happy gestures to be held.

Essentially, Liedloff showed me that instead of the mother centering her life around the baby, the baby should be in the center of the mother's life/activity. So I went about my daily activities (which included social outtings with new mothers) where he was a happy and peaceful observer in the sling. He was always in the middle of my activity, taking in the sights, smells, real world sounds, feeling swaying gentle movement and generally at peace. My "high touch" in-arms parenting helped my son to feel loved, secure and calm and he settled down considerably. He never cried or fussed in restaurants. Car rides even became easier. Thanks to the baby sling, I never felt like a shut-in with a miserable baby. He learned that happiness (not want) was the normal state of being. My first year was so easy just because I carried him in the sling all the time. Yes, at times it felt exhausting, but I mostly I found it exhilarating to carry and hold my precious baby. It never felt like a burden to me because I knew I was doing right by him, largely thanks to Liedloff's book. In fact, my son's first year was one of the happiest times of my life, thanks to the wonderful bonding and sense of peace that resulted from "babywearing." I never had to deal with frustration, disappointment, feelings of resentment or guilt for having to choose between meeting my babies needs and my own. We were a traveling and peaceful unit.

In addition, I highly recommend THE VITAL TOUCH by SHARON HELLER and MAGICAL CHILD by CHILTON PEARCE. Heller presents an abundance of scientific research that explains the biology and importance of touch and the great influence it has on the babies growing brain, body and nervous system. I recommend Heller's book (which essentially validates Liedloff's theories) to any skeptic. Pearce's book expands further on Liedloff's concepts and is a wonderful companion.

I came to this book while pregnant with my first child. I enjoyed it very much and took it to heart. However, as the realities of our new baby set it, many of Liedloff's generalizations about the right way to raise a baby came back to bother me. This book tries to import a very cultural specific way of raising a baby to our modernized society. And while I have no objection to this in the purely theoretical, it is important for readers to keep this in mind. What works for people who live in the forest, within a tribal support system, without walls of privacy or electricity, may not translate as well to a mother and baby, alone in their house full of lights and machines. In my own life, I found many of the things I enjoy, like reading and sewing were not mobile enough for my daughter. She craved movement. Of course when I was up and doing things around the house, I would carry her in my sling, but I just didn't DO enough. For the mother who is constantly moving and strong enough, exclusively carrying the baby for the first 6-8 months may be feasible. But I am not this mother. Another important consideration is sleeping. When darkness falls in the deep forest people go to sleep. In our culture this is not the case. We utilize electricity to keep the day going long after the sun has set. And while my daugher would sleep on and off in the sling, she soon became aware that we were not sleeping and the light was on. She began to sleep less and less in the sling and even less in the night with us. I don't think tribal parents have to deal at all with sleeping issues, not because they are super-parents but because the low-tech environment they inhabit mandates sleeping patterns for everyone. Overall, I began to resent the feeling that I was doing my daughter a disservice by not being "primal" enough. In the end I think if you carry your baby as much as you can, feed her breast milk and give her all the love you have, then you are doing your best. I think this book may leave mother's feeling like they can't measure up to the perfect tribal mothers. It is important to realize that their world and our world are VERY different and because of this we may have to amend some of Liedloff's suggestions.

The back cover of The Continuum Concept by Jane Liedloff categorizes this book as "Parenting/Anthropology". An interesting combination, in my opinion, but hopefully one that won't turn away too may readers. Most people looking for parenting books don't have much time for anthropology, and there isn't a great demand for anthropology books on their own--it's a suprise this book ever gets read. But Liedloff doesn't seem too interested in parenting fads or commercial success, and we are all better off for it. This book presents one simple concept, carefully wrapped in the diaper of a discussion of hunter-gatherer child rearing, that just might live up to the quote on the front cover: "...it could save the world."

On the surface Liedloff presents an examination of the differences between child rearing behavior of remote indian tribes of the Amzaon rainforest with modern America. A fascinating if sometimes long-winded account, she explains the "in-arms phase"--how the Yanoami and other hunter-gatherer tribes maintain constant physical contact with their newborns until they voluntarily crawl away, and the resultant lack of both psychological neruosis in their populations and post-partum depression in mothers. To say that such isn't exactly the case in America would make the Brittish look like a culture with a chronic tendancy to exaggerate.
The core concept referenced earlier lies in the reason Liedloff gives for this difference: Over millions of years, humans (and precursor species) evolved to function properly within specific physical, psychological and social parameters. The needs of human genetic ontogeny are sometimes (often?) at odds with the needs of the civilizational machine (where humanity doesn't evolve) that replaced the hunter-gatherer tribe (where they do). Many cultural and personal problems result from the acendancy of the civilizational need over the genetic need--and their solutions may lie in discovering where these needs are in conflict.

The applications of this theory are widespread. Liedloff leads the charge with psychological problems stemming from child rearing practices not in concert with "the continuum" of human evolution. Consider, for a moment, how many other things are required of us from "civilization" that we are uniquely maladapted to through evolution: separation of labor into simplistic and repetetive tasks, processed diets high in simple carbohydrates and low in fiber and fresh vegetables, lack of exposure to the unique light spectra of the sun, moon and fire, forced interaction with group sizes far larger than a "tribe", sleep schedules and activity cycles not in tune with nature, the extension of "childhood" years past the clear evolutionary onset of adulthood, a dominion over rather than communion with nature, the list goes on and on.

Liedloff makes a convincing case that any parent raising their child outside the "continuum" is doing the child and society a great disservice...I'm happy to say that I know of at least one couple whom this book has influenced to choose to reject society's standards and raise their child "in the continuum". While the books drags at times, and fails to make the theoretical connection between the continuum in child-rearing and in all aspects of life, it is a definite must-read AND must-do. Hopefully the intrepid reader will realize that its true value lies in providing a new framework for looking at life--if we examine our wants and desires within the context that they orriginated to serve either evolution or society, but not us, we can for the first time truly choose for ourselves.

This is a fascinating book, and asks some compelling questions about what is 'normal' and 'desirable' in parenting. Much of it is good, common sense dialogue on what is biologically appropriate for children.

On the other hand, it has to be taken with salt. 1) Leidoff is/was not a trained anthropologist, and it would be far too easy for an outsider to make critical mistakes interpreting a vastly different culture. 2) Liedoff did not/does not have any children, which would likely change her perspective. 3) There is a strong emphasis on trusting your instincts (good), but not if it disagrees with the way Yequana do things (bad). 4) Her attitude that children and babies should be trusted to look out for their own physical well being (i.e., they don't need gates or to be watched closely near water, etc) incorrectly assumes that all babies are born with the same high level of self-preservation. While babies who had a lesser sense of safety and danger may have been 'naturally selected out' in tribal cultures, I don't think most people would (or should) willingly embrace 'survival of the fittest' among their own offspring.

There's more, but in short, I think that while Leidoff was/is really onto something, she's too enthusiastic to be thoroughly objective. Be careful of taking too much at face value.

With this book, Liedloff offers many penetrating insights into child development. It is a profound work that should be read by everyone living inside Western Civilization. However the book does not not come without a few problems. For starters, Liedloff fails to make clear the debt she owes to the Yequana Indians from whom she gleaned the "continuum concept." To recognize this debt, the book might better have been titled "The Yequana Concept."

Similarly, the original intent and purpose of Liedloff's foray into the South American rainforest is horribly suspect. She went there to discover and plunder diamonds. This is not to discount the knowledge and wisdom she gleaned from the Yequana, but it does display Liedlof's ignorance concerning native land and resource rights, not to mention what possible affect diamond poachers like herself might have on local cultures. These issues never seemed to have entered her mind.

Finally, the actual content of the book itself is often repetitive and over-simplified. Having recognized that, unlike Westerners, Yequana are a happy, well-rounded, neurosis-free people, Liedloff asks why. Her answer, that all Yequana babies experience 24-hour in-arm care from their mothers, is insightful, but partial and lacking. Clearly, Westerns have a lot to learn from the Yequana about childcare, but I believe it takes a lot more than in-arms care to produce a happy, healthy society. The success of the Yequana does not hinge on one variable. To understand their success, we must look at the total culture and its environment.

Unlike Westerners, the Yequana still live within the bounds of and draw support from Mother Nature, via the surrounding rainforest. Westerners, on the other hand, grow up in concrete jungles, divorced from the living, biological world. Nor do Yequana have to endure the relentless nine-to-five, junk food, population pressure, or any of the other ills of modern civilization. Moreover, although Liedloff never mentions this, the Yequana are by no means unique. All indigenous cultures are sustainable and remarkably free of neurosis.

Before coming into contact with West, every indigenous tribe enjoyed high standards of health, wealth, happiness and security - standards which we so-called "civilized" people continually strive for but fail to achieve. If you are interested in learning more about non-Western cultures and their success, there are a number of authors I can recommend, such as John H. Bodley (Victims of Progress, Cultural Anthropology, Power of Scale, etc), Chellis Glendinng (My Name is Chellis), Daniel Quinn (Ishmael, the Story of B), and Robert Wolff (Original Wisdom). All of these authors and their works come highly recommended.

A great book, but don't stop here.

I read this book while I was pregnant and it totally changed the way I thought about parenting. I am so happy to be the parent I am, and this book has a lot to do with it. My baby is now 9 months old and is very calm, happy, and just such a joy. The bond we have is incredible and we have no struggles around eating, sleeping, separation or anything else! I know what he needs and am happy to meet those needs. Parenting is such a joy when you understand your child so well.