Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez is a primary care pediatrician at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She hosts the American Academy of Pediatrics Healthy Children podcast for parents.
A few weeks ago, I posted on social media what I called “unhinged” advice I’ve given to families. I’m a pediatrician and a mom of two, and I chose that word deliberately — it’s half sarcasm and half scroll stopper, but the point is that many parents have lost the plot when it comes to children needing to be comfortable with discomfort.
In truth, I don’t believe my statements to be all that unhinged.
Before I go any further, it’s important to say my statements were not blanket prescriptions for every family, everywhere. The words of advice are things I have said to specific patients in the context of knowing them, their babies, their households, their histories and their struggles. That context matters enormously in medicine, and it matters here. If that nuance got lost in a short-form video, that’s worth acknowledging.
With that said, what happened next wasn’t really about my advice. The comments that followed were a referendum on what modern Western culture believes mothers are allowed to do and want, and what children are owed.
