The new e-book

I just have a few quick thoughts on Candy Brauer's new e-book about birth and childcare, "Christian Homebirth and Happy Babies: How I Did It Ages pre-birth to 4."

1. I wish she had not put Christian in the title. I think that is going to be off putting to women who choose hospital birth, birth centers, or midwives at home. There is nothing in the scriptures to say those choices are wrong and in fact midwives are mentioned throughout the scriptures!

2. I think a couple has to be very prepared to do an unassisted birth, particularly the husband! If the baby needs help and the mom needs help too (like baby struggling to breathe and mom bleeding out) the husband will have to handle both of these things. Another set of hands would certainly be useful. I had a cord prolapse at home. My skilled birth professional found it. I am not sure Mr. Pete would have known what he was feeling if he had to do a vaginal exam on his own. I also witnessed a very scary shoulder dystocia at home with a midwife. The midwife worked for several minutes to free the baby and she almost died. Couples attempting an unassisted birth I'm sure are aware of these things, but living through them myself, I would never opt for an unassisted home birth.

3. Candy has some breastfeeding issues. In fact she stated that it repulsed her to nurse an older baby and that she stops nursing when the standard 6-month-old nursing strike stuff starts to happen. I'm concerned that this will influence young inexperienced moms to wean their babies early, or not even attempt to nurse at all. I notice that in Candy's preview, she makes no mention of breastfeeding.

4. I wonder if her chapter on the strong-swilled child will include her brush with CPS last spring as she deleted all of that from her blog. She could do her readers a big service by including it and also mentioning the protection and services of the Home School Legal Defense Association. I am a member because someone threatened my family a year ago. It's money well spent every month in my opinion.

5. Candy uses 100 Easy Lessons to Teach Your Child to Read at age 4. She does reading readiness at age 3. I used the very same book for all of my five reading children. Three of them took to it like fish to water. Two of them did not and in fact had problems that made it very difficult for them to learn to read. My oldest did not read until he was 12 and that was after we started taking him to a reading specialist.

Learning to read is like learning to walk, talk, potty training, riding a bike and every other skill. Some kids get it, some don't right a way and there has to be some allowances for the variants. The late Raymond Moore suggested "wait until eight" for little boys because he did not think they were developmentally ready to learn to read until then.

Also while I enjoyed 100 Easy Lessons around Lesson 50 it starts to move a little too fast. None of my kids have finished that book. I usually put them into Pathway readers around that time. Those are delightful stories about kids in universal situations. My kids loved them. The new/old Dick and Jane books are a delight too!

Well that's it for me today. I am taking my cord-prolapse, 8-year-old daughter to an eyes pecialist today because she is a struggling reader. (she only made it to lesson 25 in 100 Easy Lessons. After that she will need to see the reading specialist again. Back later tonight.