This week a study linking antidepressant use by pregnant women, specifically SSRIs (Prozac and Zoloft are examples of SSRIs), to a greater risk of autism was published, reviewed, and found wanting in many ways. I am so very happy about this.
Because I am tired of the demographic slur of Helicopter Mom.
Stay with me on this…
Many years ago, before the internet, when people listened to music on a stereo and all housewives were real housewives, a couple of women put out a book about pregnancy, and ruined everything.
The book was What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and it was chock full of information. The book was cleverly arranged, and some of the information was useful. A lot of it was not. (You can arrange the words ‘fruit,’ ‘sweetened,’ and ‘cookie’ in a way that makes grammatical sense, Jabberwocky-like, but that doesn’t make ‘fruit sweetened cookie’ a sensical thing.)
The worst thing the book did was to create for new mothers a quasi-statistical fantasyland of “Best Odds”; the “Best Odds” diet, for example. But they didn’t have any odds. Odds is a statistical synonym for probability, but there weren’t numbers to go with the pronouncements. Don’t color your hair or drink herbal tea because there’s no research proving that it’s safe isn’t science, it’s fearmongering.
And these women with their book mongered a lot of fear. Many obstetricians gave the book to women at the first appointment. The parents read the book, and pregnancy was transformed from a biological process to minefield.
They put out more books about childhood, and a mindset was created that posited that every move a parent makes effects their child profoundly for good or ill, and with every juice box and unheld hand, you are creating the potential for a disaster that will be on your head.
And then, after many years of soul-racking worry, high-school teachers and college admissions boards screwed up their faces and asked why the parents couldn’t step back and let the chips fall. You people are crazy! You’re ruining America with your parenting!
To which I say, this helicopter got built with flimsy click-bait science. We can’t land it until we learn that women aren’t incubators, the planet’s not a laboratory, babies aren’t soufflés, and a cup of coffee and 3 drive-thru burritos are nothing compared to the genetic goulash we pumped in at the moment of conception.