Becoming a parent can be an overwhelming experience with a bewildering array of questions, decisions, and “experts” around every corner. I vividly remember returning home with my son after his birth. It was just the two of us, as my wife remained in the hospital requiring surgery. I scanned the books on our shelves and saw dozens of titles about pregnancy and birth but not a single book on baby care. We had done more research before we bought our fox terrier. We had a lot to learn.
Like most new parents, we did just fine. We live in a time with an abundance of immediately accessible and reliable information (assuming you are literate in navigating and evaluating all this information).
Books and the internet were valuable tools for answering the many questions we had about parenting but so were our peers. We learned at least as much through the time spent talking to the other parents in an informal playgroup we joined as we had on the web or from our pediatrician. Playgroups are much more than socializing opportunities for babies and toddlers, they are information exchanges for the parents. For that reason I was very pleased to read about this playgroup and its membership pledge:
We pledge to not take our medical advice from celebrities and Oprah show guests. We pledge to vaccinate our children, and to always ask for sources when presented with claims we aren’t familiar with. Then, we investigate what we've found.
Michael Blanford is Director of Educational Programs for the James Randi Educational Foundation