Did childcare guru Penelope Leach backpedal on…

Did “childcare guru” Penelope Leach backpedal on shared parenting?

One (the more reliable of the two) studied only data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing database. That population very clearly bears no resemblance to that of adults and children generally. It deals with families that have broken down, are poor and mostly consist of racial minorities. The data from that study are an excellent source from which to derive many conclusions, but generalized notions about children and overnights aren’t among them.

The second was far worse. It of course was authored by Jennifer McIntosh, et al and is so bad methodologically as to be irrelevant as demonstrated by Dr. Linda Nielsen’s utter destruction of it. In brief, not only did the authors study a tiny sample of children (as few as 21), but they used matrices to conclude that certain behaviors indicated stress in children that had never been verified to indicate that. As if that weren’t enough, they went on to decide that one type of behavior that has been verified as an indicator of progress toward the acquisition of language is actually an indication of stress. No one before or since has made such a claim or validated McIntosh’s claim.

Tellingly, Leach relies on the latter study to advance her theory that overnights away from the primary caregiver are detrimental to young children. She did that earlier this year and, as this article indicates, she’s still at it (Daily Mail, 11/29/14).

What Leach, McIntosh and the few others who are committed to marginalizing fathers in children’s lives refuse to acknowledge is that the great weight of good science on the subject of children and overnights demonstrates no detriment (assuming both parents to be fit and capable) and suggests positive effects. That’s the gist of the summary of existing science authored by Dr. Richard Warshak and signed onto by 110 of the preeminent social scientists on children’s well-being around the world.

You can’t back-pedal if your fish doesn’t have a bicycle. Or whatever.