Defending The Indefensible

Daisy Goodwin Executive Producer of Bringing Up Baby

I have been prompted to write a second post about the Channel 4 programme Bringing Up Baby after reading an article in The Sunday Times News Review. The article can be read in full here. Daisy Goodwin, who devised the idea behind the programme and in the article defends the programme and Claire Verity. The premise of the programme could, had it not been an "reality TV" experiment on babies unable to provide consent and parents at a time when most vulnerable to the opinions of others, have been an interesting exploration of childcare ideologies, especially if there had been recognition of the vast improvements and new discoveries in childcare made over the time scale chosen 50's - 70's and been inclusive of developing awareness of the cognitive and emotional development in an infant. As it was , to me in this article Daisy Goodwin is defending the indefensible. The article begins by claiming that Claire Verity has received death threats, as though we should feel sorry for her. Now let me be clear on this point, I do not advocate violence or the threat of violence against anyone, but I am not surprised that Claire Verity's behaviour towards babies has elicited this response and I do not feel sorry for her, I feel sorry for the babies who have been emotionally and physiologically scarred by this so called child care expert's regime and their parents, who while they may reap the rewards of quiet nights from their traumatised babies now, are likely to raise a withdrawn or angry, emotionally detached child who has difficulties with anxiety, forming relationships and depression and later may look back with regret.

Claire Verity claims to be a "victim". She says she has received death threats. In another article from The Times http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article2490406.ece She complains that the NCT are "bullying her and about a blog that has been created to get rid of her (anyone know the web addy of that blog and of heckled at events she has spoken at. Here are quotes from that article.

“Oh yes,” she says, “I’ve been hung, drawn and quartered by the National Childbirth Trust. The last lot looked like they had just come off some peace camp. They accuse me of being a bully: I think they are the bullies. They have their opinions and their boxes to tick and they stick to them. But they’re just as rigid as any of my routines.

“They look appalling – and they are appalling. I just loathe them. They’ve even started a blog to get rid of me,” she continues, warming to her theme. “There they were, barricading the back of the room, bitching about me. What does she know? She doesn’t have any children of her own.’ Well, I always say: does a heart surgeon have to operate on himself?”

I rather think that a heart surgeon may not have to operate on himself to know how to do it, but he/she would still need to have a heart, something that seems to be lacking in Ms Verity's makeup. The comparison with a surgeon is telling for me, as Claire Verity reminds me of those medical professionals who have become desensitised, for whom a patient is no longer a person but a task, or even worse a chore or inconvenience. Hilariously in the comments section of the article I found these two gems that seem closer to the truth to my mind, especially as I have seen the same observation made on other sites.

"Jo, Wolverhampton, UK
As a mother stood at a recent baby show with my happy child in a sling talking to other happy mothers I presume I am a heckler who barricaded the room? That comment is nonsense as is the fact it was the NCT. Claire Verity was asked why she goes against DoH and SIDS guidelines by one lady in a polite manner. She was not heckled, yet she called security as she has no way of defending her outdated and damaging methods. As a nanny she claims to have bedded Mick Jagger with his wife and child in the next room. If you refuse to let a mother hold her child why not sleep with her husband too? Take every bit of love she has?"

"Mrs K Martin, West Yorkshire,
I was at the baby show where Claire verity asked for security to escort 'hecklers' away. The 'hecklers' were asking her why she goes against Department of Health advice on breastfeeding and where baby sleeps. The question was met with a call to security, rather than any sensible rebuttal of the DoH's information. Says an awful lot about the woman and the methods, I think."

But I digress. What I really want to write about here are the comments made by Daisy Goodwin. As programme maker claiming to show all methods impartially, I feel that she has, in defending the Truby King method used by Claire Verity so vehemently, taken sides in the argument especially when she claims Claire Verity's detractors to be self-rightous child care fundamentalists. There is also no sign of remorse or at least understanding of the strong feelings this programme has generated in viewers, the vast majority of whom are appalled.

Reading the article I truly feel that Daisy Goodwin has completely missed the point that is provoking outrage in so many. She says

"A year ago I approached Channel 4 with the idea of comparing and contrasting in real time the most influential childcare manuals of the past 50 years. I was intrigued at the way the fashion in childcare more recently had swung from the liberal, trust your instincts approach of Spock and Penelope Leach, which were current when I had my first child, to the more authoritarian approach of Gina Ford, who also advocates a routine, which topped the bestseller lists when I had my second child 10 years later. "

Now in theory that all sounds fine, but there are routines and then there are routines. Gina Ford may have a fair few of her own detractors but according to yet another times online article http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article2615136.ece

(Gina)"Ford has also joined the battle, writing to the NSPCC denouncing Verity’s techniques as almost a threat to young lives"

Most viewers are not upset at the thought of a routine. What bothers people is the lack of compassion that Ms Verity shows towards babies, the roughness with which she handles their tiny little bodies, the attitude she displays towards them, as adversaries who need to be broken and conquered, the lack of compassion she shows for the parents, treating the mother child bond as an irrational form of hormonally induced idiocy, the leaving children abandoned, isolated and left to cry for hours at a time, the denial of a babies need for family love, human contact, stimulation, eye contact, and being held, the implementation of a 4 hourly feeding routine that makes breastfeeding an impossibility, as opposed to say a 2 hourly feed and is carried out in a manner that is akin to force feeding. (She was literally ramming as much of the teat as she could down this poor babies throat in the second episode). Would it not have been possible to demonstrate a "routine" method that was not carried out in this way? Daisy Goodwin's article continues:

"There are some aspects of Truby King’s routine, such as putting a child in its own room, which are now challenged by cot-death charities such as FSID, which advise mothers to keep babies in the same room for the first six months, and the programme makes current guidelines on this clear. But apart from that there is no hard medical evidence to suggest the Truby King approach poses any threat to a baby’s physical or psychological health."

To say that there is no evidence that the Truby King approach to baby care poses any threat is ridiculous. There is a wealth of evidence that isolation, abandonment, lack of socialisation, ie eye contact and cuddling causes serious damage in the brain development of the infant.ref AN Schore "Introduction And Effects Of A Secure Attachment Relationship On Right Brain Development, Affect Regulation And Infant Mental Health, Infant Mental Health Journal 22, 1-2,2001, also ref LG Russek and GE Schwartz,"Feelings Of Parental Caring Predict Health Status In Midlife: A 35 Year Followup Of The Harvard Mastery OF Stress Study" Journal of Behavioural Medicine, vol 20,pp1-13 to name just two.

"But this is heresy to the self-right-eous childcare fundamentalists of the Internet who loathe Verity so much that she has been spat at in the street and received death threats.
So what’s really going on here? Why has this maternity nurse replaced Posh Spice as the most hated woman in Britain? Her clients all speak highly of her, the families who used her methods on Bringing Up Baby are still following her routines. What is so sinister about parents wanting their children to be in a routine?"

Nearly everyone that I know who has seen any of the programmes feels the same way about Claire Verities methods. It is not as I stated earlier the use of "routines" that specifically bothers people. Women who raised children who were themselves children of the fifties and used "routines", women who have never had children, fathers, and parents who each had their own unique approach, breast feeders and bottle feeders alike, sleep trainers and co-sleepers. All condemn Claire Verity's treatment of babies. Are we all self righteous childcare fundamentalists of the Internet? This throwaway comment seems absurdly dismissive of the mainstream horror that Claire Verity be upheld as a victim, a paragon of good childcare, an "expert" and has urged so many to sign a petition to be presented to No 10. My personal feeling is that Daisy Goodwin and her colleagues at Silver River and at Channel 4 were only too aware of the uproar that this programme would generate, for who could fail to see the outcry the portrayal of the actions of this woman would provoke in the viewing public. I believe that they rubbed their hands in glee at the thought of their little goldmine, knowing the ratings, publicity and advertising revenue such an outcry would provoke. Maybe (as if) Claire Verity is a victim of unjustified crowd anger. We the viewing public may be the abusive jeering crowd, throwing rotten fruit and vegetables, but we weren't the ones that put her in the stocks and displayed her sins for the populace to witness. What responsibility does Daisy Goodwin, Silver River and Channel 4 take? None.

If you would like to contact Daisy Goodwin http://www.daisygoodwin.co.uk/ or Silver River http://www.silverriver.tv/prog_bringingupbaby.php ,Channel 4 http://help.channel4.com/ or Ofcom http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/progs/specific/ here are the links ;0)