The details provided by Hulbert suggest a different reading of the history than the one she offers. At least until the last quarter century, child rearing probably moved in a softer, more child-centered direction, but experts have steadily had to acknowledge more uncertainty about some basic questions of parenting.
By 1950 leading figures like Erik Erikson and Spock were already presenting their advice with less scientific bravura than their predecessors had, and more recent decades have brought a further chastening of claims about alternative approaches to parenting as evidence has mounted in favor of other influences, particularly heredity and peers.
Today there is a great deal more confidence than there was in the past, however, not only about infant nutrition and other areas of pediatrics, but also about many behavioral and learning problems. Just as I would prefer a doctor with today's science to one with the knowledge of a century ago, so I am glad to have been a parent with the information about children available during the last two decades instead of the popular knowledge of 1900.
Fundamental controversies remain, but that is partly because much of the advisory literature concerns matters on which there was never any reason to expect scientific research to yield a consensus, like how to instill children with good moral character.
Hulbert does not pretend to know any better than the prominent advisers what to tell parents. Her advice at the end of the book is that those inclined to be soft or hard consult the literature on the other side. It is too bad that after so much work she was unable to reach more definitive conclusions. But, then, as a mother herself, perhaps she knows that telling readers what path to take in life may not have the intended effect anyway.
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