I was not surprised. Nobody ever mentioned it, that is why we didn't know. I think it was at this time I first asked myself: _Is there a subconscious conspiracy to keep this kind of information from leaking out?_ It wasn't important that women didn't know this. They had selective memories (proof of this was that mankind lasted as long as it did). If they were maternally inclined (as most of them were at one time or another), the disadvantages of pregnancy faded into a sort of merciful blur. If there was a conspiracy, it was aimed at fathers. It was intended to lull them into the logical supposition that conditions usually improve and that experience is the great teacher. Pure delusion! With women, things are always worse, and they are born with all the knowledge they will ever need. * * * * * Babies could be divided into two kinds: "most" and "occasional." Consider, for instance, the following quotation: "Most babies in the early months sleep from feeding to feeding; an occasional baby won't fall into this pattern but insists on being sociable after his meals." The first time I read that I supposed that this business of "most" and "occasional" was a statistical matter. That was my fatal mistake. If there was any statistical backing for that statement, I never found it. In my experience, the chances were nine out of ten that--try as you would--you would have an "occasional" baby. We did. We had two of them. The fourth type of mis-statement was the false generalization. It was said, much too often: "A full baby is a sleepy baby." That is a re-statement of the quotation above. I sat down with a pencil and paper and figured it out. A small infant took half an hour to finish a bottle. If he ate five times a day, he would have spent 21-1/2 hours asleep out of every 24. A little farther on I would read something like: "If a baby wakes up early, he is not getting enough to eat." I drew up a schedule: _Baby wakes up (being hungry)._ _Baby gets fed (all he can hold)._ _Baby is sleepy (being fed)._ _Baby goes to sleep (being sleepy)._ _Baby sleeps until next feeding (being full)._ I didn't recognize the baby. Who could? He wasn't my child or anybody else's. He was the pediatrician's pipe-dream child. I looked at it another way: if the baby slept except when being fed, when did it get the baths, orange juice, vitamins, cereal, and everything else the pediatricians prescribed? Hoist by their own petards! The fifth type of mis-statement was the impossible ideal. I tried this one for logic: "Babies should not be allowed to cry before feeding."[2] [Footnote 2: Editor's note: This led to swallowing air which made gas bubbles; gas bubbles caused colic.--W. M.] Had those doctors ever tried to keep a hungry child from crying? Hungry children cried. It was their nature. Some of them--my kind for instance--cried very hard. And children--even pipe-dream children--woke up hungry.