system and extracurricular training, not to mention books and film. “The fundamental requirement,” we are advised, “is to keep the child free from over-fatigue every hour of the day.” 117 In 1910, the Child Health Committee, supported by the Bureau of Education, institutes a standard of “13 hours of sleep for children 5–6, 12 for those 6–8, 11 for those 10–12, 10 1/2 for those 12–14, 10 for those 14–16, and still 9 1/2 up to 18.” 118 Many experts argue about those numbers, some demanding less, some even more, the common denominator being that the child’s life schedule should be rigorous and in tune with the caretaking adult’s. More manuals beget more parental worry beget more attenuation to the child beget the child’s increasing attenuation to the self. Set regular bedtimes. Consult your doctor. Be wary, and prepared.
During World War I, “sleeping epidemics” in the form of encephalitis lethargica spread. In Africa, parasites with trembling membranes enter the flesh and multiply, infecting humans, horses, cows into a deep sleep from which they cannot be aroused. We are encouraged more often to recycle, feeding old shapes back into making new. There is more tangled air in all the speaking, eating, seeing by the hour. Houses grow to hold more artificial glow. Freud starts talking not only about what dreams mean, but how within them our limbs are paralyzed so as not to allow us to act them out. People are regularly X-rayed, photographed inside the body. We get automation and sound film. Each day there are new walls built, old ones torn down. Joseph Jules Dejerine says, “Sleep cannot be localized.”
In 1928, we get sliced bread, antibiotics. Pavlov demonstrates the programmed automation of the animal by making dogs respond as machines, demonstrating how we humans also are. John Watson notes how “ perfect homes had no outsiders dealing with infants.” 119 Cribs proliferate in design, beginning a league of further trends in parenting that fluctuate and flow like the procession of stylish clothes. Your child might be judged on what he or she is wearing, same as you are. This is a reflection of who you are, both morally, and in mind. Older relatives less often live inside their offspring’s house, keeping their own air, or relegated to group homes, where they spend the last years of their lives. Children get their own rooms in the growing houses, as do each parent their own bed. “It is much better to sleep by yourself,” they say. They’re always talking. “You can rest better and breathe fresher air if you have a bed all your own.” 120
Someone invents the radio. Someone invents the TV. There is a new term: chronic fatigue . Several major U.S. cities ban elementary school homework, in coalition against our children’s growing night anxiety. The earth, turning, makes no sound as far as we hear. More and more stimuli are considered factors affecting sleep. Opiates, once considered easy sleep aids, are found addictive, frowned upon—in their place, a growing population of new meds. Neurochemists test their ideas burning portions out of the minds of rats.
In 1929, Hans Berger records the electricity of a human brain, leading to the use of the electroencephalograph for tracking the activity of sleep. Aserinsky and Kleitman birth the phrase “rapid eye movement,” and link it to the seeing of the mind inside the dreaming state, which is soon thereafter subdivided into regions, shifting states. Now sleep as a place is polarized. Everybody’s still looking for the specific organ or the cells responsible for nodding out. We are told to consider light and sound, with new emphasis on airflow and uncrowding of sleep space, and so our brain’s air, and so our emotional well-being. Dr. Spock says kids’ bedtimes can be varied, attuned to rhythms, as long as presented in a pleasant way. No matter which choice you make there are those who will say the opposite is true.
In 1932, Ranson shows
During World War I, “sleeping epidemics” in the form of encephalitis lethargica spread. In Africa, parasites with trembling membranes enter the flesh and multiply, infecting humans, horses, cows into a deep sleep from which they cannot be aroused. We are encouraged more often to recycle, feeding old shapes back into making new. There is more tangled air in all the speaking, eating, seeing by the hour. Houses grow to hold more artificial glow. Freud starts talking not only about what dreams mean, but how within them our limbs are paralyzed so as not to allow us to act them out. People are regularly X-rayed, photographed inside the body. We get automation and sound film. Each day there are new walls built, old ones torn down. Joseph Jules Dejerine says, “Sleep cannot be localized.”
In 1928, we get sliced bread, antibiotics. Pavlov demonstrates the programmed automation of the animal by making dogs respond as machines, demonstrating how we humans also are. John Watson notes how “ perfect homes had no outsiders dealing with infants.” 119 Cribs proliferate in design, beginning a league of further trends in parenting that fluctuate and flow like the procession of stylish clothes. Your child might be judged on what he or she is wearing, same as you are. This is a reflection of who you are, both morally, and in mind. Older relatives less often live inside their offspring’s house, keeping their own air, or relegated to group homes, where they spend the last years of their lives. Children get their own rooms in the growing houses, as do each parent their own bed. “It is much better to sleep by yourself,” they say. They’re always talking. “You can rest better and breathe fresher air if you have a bed all your own.” 120
Someone invents the radio. Someone invents the TV. There is a new term: chronic fatigue . Several major U.S. cities ban elementary school homework, in coalition against our children’s growing night anxiety. The earth, turning, makes no sound as far as we hear. More and more stimuli are considered factors affecting sleep. Opiates, once considered easy sleep aids, are found addictive, frowned upon—in their place, a growing population of new meds. Neurochemists test their ideas burning portions out of the minds of rats.
In 1929, Hans Berger records the electricity of a human brain, leading to the use of the electroencephalograph for tracking the activity of sleep. Aserinsky and Kleitman birth the phrase “rapid eye movement,” and link it to the seeing of the mind inside the dreaming state, which is soon thereafter subdivided into regions, shifting states. Now sleep as a place is polarized. Everybody’s still looking for the specific organ or the cells responsible for nodding out. We are told to consider light and sound, with new emphasis on airflow and uncrowding of sleep space, and so our brain’s air, and so our emotional well-being. Dr. Spock says kids’ bedtimes can be varied, attuned to rhythms, as long as presented in a pleasant way. No matter which choice you make there are those who will say the opposite is true.
In 1932, Ranson shows
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