About the blog
I’ve spent most of my life as a student, and when I became a parent I approached my new life and responsibility as a living, wriggling classroom. Even before I became pregnant, I was already starting to analyze parenting like my graduate-student self – I read, thought, read, changed my mind, and then read more. I’m trained in the medical humanities, and have a PhD in history, and instead of making it obsolete, motherhood actually revitalized my practice as a medical historian. With new questions daily, and access to a glut of information, I set out to make sense of things. I have spent hours exploring medical literature and sifting through internet resources, parenting blogs, and institutional websites trying to find answers and insights about everyday decisions ranging from whether I could drink alcohol while I was nursing to when I should stop swaddling my son. I devised this blog to share some of what I’ve learned.
This blog is, in essence, my own course of study exploring the intersections of medical history and modern parenting science. It is my effort to make sense of the absolutely overwhelming amount of information and resources available to parents, and to try to comprehend where all of this information came from. Since I study the history of medicine, I obviously think that considering the past is valuable. When I dig into a topic, I want to know what the existing medical research indicates and where it started out; most of my pieces thus tend towards an “origins story” arch. I also prioritize thinking about things from multiple disciplines and points of view. My research doesn’t typically uncover clear-cut answers, but in it I almost always gain an appreciation for varying outlooks and reach a deeper consciousness about my decisions.
Approaching parenting as a subject of medical history is an intriguing endeavor – it continues to spark my curiosity, challenge my certainties, and settle some sources of frustration even while ruffling up new ones. But this is the stuff of parenting. I am not a physician, and this website is certainly not an advice manual, but I do believe that learning about the past can help us better understand and respond to our present conundrums. I hope some of what's here does this for you.
This blog is, in essence, my own course of study exploring the intersections of medical history and modern parenting science. It is my effort to make sense of the absolutely overwhelming amount of information and resources available to parents, and to try to comprehend where all of this information came from. Since I study the history of medicine, I obviously think that considering the past is valuable. When I dig into a topic, I want to know what the existing medical research indicates and where it started out; most of my pieces thus tend towards an “origins story” arch. I also prioritize thinking about things from multiple disciplines and points of view. My research doesn’t typically uncover clear-cut answers, but in it I almost always gain an appreciation for varying outlooks and reach a deeper consciousness about my decisions.
Approaching parenting as a subject of medical history is an intriguing endeavor – it continues to spark my curiosity, challenge my certainties, and settle some sources of frustration even while ruffling up new ones. But this is the stuff of parenting. I am not a physician, and this website is certainly not an advice manual, but I do believe that learning about the past can help us better understand and respond to our present conundrums. I hope some of what's here does this for you.