Bad Science, Infant Cereal, and Church Tradition

In her post, “Why Ditch The Infant Cereals?” KristenM at Food Renegade makes a compelling case for not giving cereal to babies before they are one year-old. The case is made of two important arguments: 1) What is developmentally and biologically appropriate and 2) There is no “traditional” basis for it.

Against these two arguments, one can only feebly make up something like “well, if it weren’t OK, then it wouldn’t be in stores” or “it’s just a little wheat–what’s the harm?” You know, the best debate champions in their clique.

So powerful are these two arguments, and so counter to what my friends and relatives are doing, that it leads me toward that strange existential crisis of fighting with my own mind. Normally, we settle these fights with a pretty obvious question: could I send this to my sister and get a positive response? Or is she simply going to say “What a quack”? And we normally let that question govern our decision-making. What will others think of me if I followed this? And the answer is usually go with your gut because your friends and family are wrong.

Knowing that my friends and family are no doubt reading this, I will say that you aren’t always wrong. And I trust you with my life. You never steer me wrong.

However, our friends and family are more interested in your not being weird and outcasted than they are in discovering scientific truths about child-rearing. Except my Mom. But she’s a little weird, herself.

This also seems incredibly relevant to churches and all people of faith. How does current practice match up to those two questions: 1) What is developmentally and biologically appropriate and 2) What is the traditional basis for this. Or better yet, when faced with new ideas, how do they match up?

Our philosophy is to ignore the stats and make up the difference. We paint in the space between the our beliefs and the truth with the detail of a Thomas Kinkade print. But really, Catholic or Protestant, our worship is not biologically or developmentally appropriate to the average participant, let alone to our youngest members. Nor are many of our practices historically traditional.

Like those experts who fail to recognize the biological development of babies before encouraging new parents to stop nursing and start popping cereal in their mouths as soon as possible, many Christians fail to recognize how untraditional our current practices truly are.

And in the end, what is more important than raising healthy children?

What are your thoughts? What is the place of innovation and tradition with raising our children? And with raising up the church?

4 responses

becomingcliche

November 9, 2011

My curiosity is piqued. Can you offer some examples of religious practices that are not appropriate. I may find myself agreeing with you.

Reply
1. Drew Downs
  
  November 9, 2011
  
  Specifically, I had in mind the extended sermon, or the one-man-show approach, which encourage children and those with ADD to zone out. More broadly I had the basic structure of passive watching, rather than physically and intellectually engaged in a shared practice. The argument from tradition says that this is what we’ve done and we have to adapt to it, but these elements haven’t been universal or static throughout history.
  
  What others can you see?
  
  Reply
  1. Tom
    
    November 9, 2011
    
    I’m not sure I agree. There was a time (before television) when the extended sermon or debate was very popular. Could the media be conditioning us to pay attention in shorter and shorter bites? As to traditional litergy–it does evolve to suit tastes, but every so often there is a “return to basics” effort that once again “discovers” the old ways.
    Tom
    
    Reply
    1. Drew Downs
      
      November 9, 2011
      
      Perhaps I was trying to be too brief. You know I could talk forever about this. I had in mind the static, 60-90 minute worship service when preaching extends beyond the 15 minute mark. Even after the Reformation, it wasn’t until Vatican II that Roman Catholics saw the sermon as anything beyond a minimal requirement in the mass. Up until that point, they saw no reason to go on longer than 6-8 minutes, and often reading someone else’s text. My suggestion about preaching is in reference to the long sermons found in evangelical churches, but we in the Episcopal Church are prone to the one-person-at-the-front-praying-on-behalf-of-the-people worship style, only mixed up with pew aerobics! The lessons-sermon-nicene creed-prayers sequence in Rite II can get incredibly dull.
      
      Also, my statement about the word ‘traditional’ is about our use of it to describe an historic, static practice, or more accurately, to ascribe that historic veneer to something relatively new. Like, say, when our parents or grandparents started it. I also point toward the “which traditional do you mean” argument. I don’t think our “traditional” liturgy is so static as we pretend it is. This is what I was getting at. Like the late 20th Century doctors that decided to change the diets of babies established a new traditional approach, I feel much of what we do is similar. At the macro level, there is little change since Constantine, but at the micro level, it is vastly changed from a century ago.
      
      Reply

Bad Science, Infant Cereal, and Church Tradition

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