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Every Woman's Book: Dr. Airola's Practical Guide to Holistic Health
Some shelf and edge wear. First page clipped at top edge. Creasing to cover. There are writing/highlighting marks in the book. Most of the 638 Pages are clean and binding is tight.
639 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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About the author
Paavo Airola
18 books13 followersPaavo Airola (1918-1983), Ph.D., N.D., was a Finnish-American nutritionist, naturopathic physician, educator and award-winning author.
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November 23, 2023
Quotes:
“Although men and women are entitled to equal human rights, their roles in life were not meant to be identical. . . . If the Creator had meant man and woman to perform the same functions in life, why make two different models for the same job?” (23)
“Unwanted pregnancies rarely produce happy, healthy, and well-adjusted children” (32).
“One of the important aspects of social and emotional maturity is the willingness to submit to authority—in school or at work, or to government and law enforcement agencies” (203).
Health tips:
Repeat aloud five times daily: “Every day, in every way, I am getting better, and better, and better!” (513)
Avoid sunglasses and artificial light (they cause cancer) (37)
Brewers yeast should be taken on an empty stomach (63). Take with calcium. Don’t eat live yeast intended for baking (64).
Eating certain foods or abstaining from certain foods (such as the carnivore diet) may have therapeutic benefit, but staying on that diet forever can result in deficiencies that cause more health problems (46). Synthetic vitamins are useful for short-term treatment of acute disease and severe deficiency, but for regular preventative health, it’s best to get vitamins from food (181).
One reason meat is bad is because it has 22 times more phosphorus than calcium, which leads to magnesium deficiency, pyorrhea, and tooth decay (71). (I’ve heard similar about soda.) “A high protein diet can cause severe deficiencies of B6, magnesium, calcium, and niacin (B3)” (71).
Most vegetables should be eaten raw, except for these: spinach, rhubarb, asparagus, cauliflower, beans, and the cabbage family. Boil in water for 3-5 minutes before eating (52, 55). Don’t use their boiling water as vegetable broth.
The best grains are buckwheat and millet (51). They should be cooked or sprouted (56).
The best oils are olive and sesame (61).
The best seeds are flax, sesame, chia, and pumpkin (50). Sunflower is usually rancid. How to tell if your sunflower seeds are rancid: “Spread them on a white paper and notice all the seeds that are not medium grey, but are, in whole or in part, brown, yellow, white, black—these are all rancid” (51).
Vitamins for pregnant women: 1000-1500 mg C (can be synthetic), B-complex, 10,000 A, 400 units D, 200-400 IU E, 2-3 tbsp Brewer’s yeast or phosphorus, kelp, bone meal, 1000-1200 mg calcium, 500 mg magnesium, potassium, 18 mg iron, selenium, 20 mg zinc, manganese, chromium, molybdenum (67).
All vitamins should be taken together except E and iron. Separate these two by 8-12 hours, unless they are eaten as foods (68).
How to conceive a boy or girl (80-87% effective) (p. 92-93):
A boy: eat lots of salty (potassium & sodium) food 6 weeks before conception; before sex, douche with mild alkaline solution; orgasm during sex.
A girl: eat lots of dairy (calcium & magnesium) 6 weeks before conception; before sex, douche with acidic solution.
“Almost every substance injected into, or ingested by the mother, can reach the fetus within minutes” (123).
Unborn babies respond negatively (with violent motions and increased heart rate) to loud noises. A baby likes soft, gentle, mellow sounds (103). Which is evidence that this is the kind of music humans naturally prefer before they’re exposed to society’s influence.
Pregnant women should avoid long hours of TV watching (radiation); it makes the child more susceptible to leukemia (104).
Teas okay during pregnancy (and helpful for relieving worries and mood swings): valerian, scullcap, lady slipper, rosemary, camomile, garden sage, hops, licorice root (104).
“95% of all births to healthy mothers happen without complications” (125). Airola said that only 5% of babies are born premature. That was in 1979. I looked up the recent stats, and it’s now 11%.
Hospital births had 30 times more forceps deliveries, 30 times more birth injuries, 6 times greater incidence of distress in labor, 8 times greater occurrence of getting stuck in birth canal, 4 times as many babies needing resuscitation, 4 times higher infection rates, and 3 times greater hemorrhage in the mother (118).
But Airola says that the following women should not give birth at home: first time mothers at age 35+, a mother of multiples, a mother who had a C-section before, a woman who has diabetes, epilepsy, anemia, hypertension, heart disease, or kidney disease (121).
A few hours of labor makes the C-section easier, and it can prevent hyaline membrane formation in the baby’s lungs (127).
Avoid cutting the umbilical cord until the placenta is expelled, which may be 5-20 minutes (131).
“Immediate breast feeding after delivery can help the uterine contractions needed to separate the placenta from the uterus, since the uterus contracts by reflex from breast stimulation” (132).
“The baby’s digestive system is not equipped to efficiently digest foods rich in starch, such as cereals, until maybe one year or even longer, and therefore, he should not be fed starchy foods for at least that long” (140).
Airola suspects that the non-lactose sugars in formula causes multiple sclerosis and mental/nervous breakdowns in adults (144).
He says that feeding infants cow milk causes gluten intolerance later in life (216). I didn’t know of any US mothers who fed their infants cow milk, but I looked it up online and learned that formula has cow milk in it!
He says that breastfed babies aren’t susceptible to anemia while bottle-fed babies are, despite little iron being in breastmilk (221). There is twice as much iron in human milk than in cow milk. Even when bottle fed babies get more iron from their fortified formula, they are still more likely to be anemic. Supplementary iron destroys vitamin E since vitamin E deficiency causes anemia (221). Human milk has 20 times more vitamin E than cow milk, and vitamin E is needed for iron absorption (222). This is interesting since my baby’s pediatrician told me I had to give my baby iron supplements since I exclusively breastfed. I was skeptical of the recommendation in the first place, since cave women never gave supplements to their babies, and they turned out fine. Anyway, I stopped giving my baby iron supplements when they caused her to be constipated. And she still turned out fine!
If you circumcise your son, wait until he is at least 8 days old because vitamin K (natural blood coagulant) doesn’t enter the bloodstream until the eighth day of life (267).
What to feed baby (163):
4 months: a few drops of plain cod liver oil daily
6 months: 5 drops cold liver oil, juice (carrot, apple, or orange, but not mixed)
8 months: 1/2 teaspoon cod liver oil, pureed fruit and veggies
12 months: 1 teaspoon cod liver oil, yogurt, kefir
18 months: grains, cereals (oatmeal or millet are best)
Hyperactive kids were “virtually unknown 100 years ago in the pre-chemical era” (228). The symptoms are: can’t sit still, aggressive, destructive, bad temper, extremely short attention span, nervous, rebellious, disobedient, disrespectful, below average in school (228-229). “Make sure that your child has not picked up the habit of listening to unbearably loud music. Quiet, soft, mellow music is conducive to quietness and gentleness in disposition, while loud music can make a child irritable, nervous, and ill-tempered” (234).
Vaccination: Airola describes several cases of when people have been vaccinated but still get the disease anyway. For an outbreak of diphtheria, the vaccinated got infected more than the unvaccinated (275). Diphtheria virtually disappeared in Sweden without vaccinations (277). In Germany, mass immunization was forced in 1940, and cases increased from 40,000 per year to 250,000 by 1945, virtually all among vaccinated kids. “Many other countries in Europe showed a striking increase in cases of diphtheria after compulsory immunization. For instance, the increase in France was as much as 30%, in Hungary 55%, and in Geneva, Switzerland, the number of cases tripled after compulsory immunization was enforced in 1933” (277).
In 1977, there were 18 cases of paralytic polio in the US. Three of the victims had gotten the vaccine, and 10 had been in close contact with recently immunized people (275). People vaccinated against rubella are still capable of becoming infected, though they may not always show symptoms (276). 80% of rubella vaccinated people got infected with rubella in Australia (276). “Contrary to popular belief, measles doesn’t cause blindness; it can cause photophobia, a temporary sensitivity to light, which is treated simply by pulling down the window shades and keeping the lights low” (278). “Australian scientists have also implicated measles vaccination with the risk of developing multiple sclerosis. They found that MS sufferers have a higher than normal proportion of the measles antigen in their blood” (279). A unvaccinated group of kids contracted measles at 2.4%, while a vaccinated group contracted it at 33.5% (279). 1-2% of vaccinated people develop arthritis and arthralgia. 50% of rubella vaccinated women get side effects, mostly mild but arthritis occurred in 10-15% (280). Of the kids who experienced serious shot reactions (paralysis, death, brain damage), 65% of the cases were following triple shots. About 60% of reactions (collapse, major convulsions, intense screaming) happened within three days, and all within 12 days. “During the period 1969-74, when 64 deaths resulted from whooping cough, 56 cases of severe brain damage followed whooping cough vaccination” (281). Giving triple shots can be deadly if the infant is deficient in vitamin C (281). “The cancer-producing effect of vaccinations has been demonstrated in animal studies” (283). Of all the vaccinations that existed at the time Airola wrote the book, he says the tetanus vaccine is the only one in which the benefits outweigh the risks (289).
Airola says that a child “should learn to obey simply because his father or mother said so” (195). He says that a three year old won’t know the difference between right and wrong, but will obey his parents because he wants the approval from those he loves (196). I know from experience that some toddlers love to disobey their parents, and they know the parents don’t like what they’re doing, but the kids do it anyway, either for fun, selfishness, or gaining attention. Even if a three year old can’t yet speak very well, they do understand what they’re being told to do or not do. When they’re told not to do something, and do it immediately after with a big grin on their face, you can tell that the child is pleased with itself for disobeying you and is challenging your authority. If you allow them to get away with it, they’ve just learned they can get away with disobeying you more in the future.
Airola recommends not having kids start school until age seven or eight; he says they will be eager to learn at this time (197). I’m doubtful that will be the case in our modern age when they’re already been spoiled by electronic screens by that age. Children are eager to learn from ages younger than that; they just don’t like having to sit for long periods of time because their attention spans are short. I looked up online the countries with the best education rates. Currently it’s Germany, Denmark, and Finland, and all of these countries have school start at age six. Airola says that kids who start school too early start to hate learning (197). But I think this will be the case for any student no matter when they start, as long as they are forced to learn things they don’t want to learn. American kids often go into school eager to learn in kindergarten, but by third grade they hate school. If school were started at age 7 or 8 as he recommends, I think they’d still end up hating school in 1-3 years.
Airola quotes a poem by Dorothy Law Nolte which has lines that I disagree with:
“If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith”
No, plenty of children live with all of that today, and they turn out spoiled, ungrateful, and selfish. Tolerating bad behavior leads to more bad behavior. Praising a child no matter what they do or produce just gives the child an inflated ego, which will set him up for a bigger fall when he enters the real world and doesn’t get the same praise from his peers, teacher, or boss. Parents tend to treat their child’s artwork like it’s a masterpiece, but in school most kids will learn that their art is not the best in the class, therefore they will be disappointed and feel like their parents can’t be trusted. Patience is learned by having to wait, and either being rewarded for waiting patiently or suffering consequences if not waiting patiently. Appreciation is learned by having little. Faith is learned by being taught religion; it has nothing to do with security. The most religious people in the world are people growing up in poverty.
Airola says that acne is caused by excessive sebum production, which is caused by sexually maturing too quickly (250).
Airola included a letter written to him by a child of unstated age. She complimented his writing as informative, but she disagreed with him about this being a promiscuous age. She said “if two consenting adults perform the act of sexual intercourse, is it really promiscuity? What is more natural than sexual intercourse? Does it really make any difference if two people are married to one another or not?” (205)
I would have answered those questions like this: “Yes, sex is natural. But just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s good. Animals in the wild live naturally and have sex whenever they wish and with whomever they wish. But is this best for humans? Not when the human woman ends up pregnant and has to take care of many children resulting from her promiscuity for 18 years (wild animals don’t take care of their offspring that long), which is expensive and stressful (wild animals don’t have to worry about money). Not when the humans get STDs and spread them around to all their partners, which decreases their health (wild animals have short lifespans). As for marriage, I don’t think that matters, but what I do think matters is the couple being committed to staying together, as this results in the best environment for the children. It’s also more costly to live separately than to live together.”
Airola answered her letter in a disappointing way which was all too familiar to me from the people I’ve argued with online. He called her question naive (206) and said “There is a severe lack of logic in several of your conclusions and statements” (205-206). Him attacking her intelligence was totally unnecessary and distracts from the topic at hand. He puts her down as naive and stupid instead of just keeping his emotional opinions out of it and answering her questions in a calm, rational manner. Very disappointing to see a doctor doing this, but I suppose even the highly educated people of the world are often guilty of arrogance. Maybe they feel that by being questioned, it’s attacking their own intelligence, and they feel that they must defend themselves with “no, YOU’RE the stupid one!” IMO, it shows weakness. If you’re confident your opinion is correct, then you can back it up with logic and facts, not resort to insults.
I also disagree with Airola when he says that promiscuity in children is caused by viewing their parents negatively (208), therefore he places the blame on the parents for not treating their children better. Our modern age is full of parents who spoil their kids rotten, and the kids still end up promiscuous. To me, the cause is obvious. Promiscuity is encouraged in the media and by school peers. These sources are more important to the child of age 8+ than parental approval. Keep kids away from media and school, and they won’t be promiscuous. (And I suppose parents should also not sleep around so that their kids don’t imitate it, but I’m guessing most parents today aren’t sleeping around in front of their kids, so parental influence is not as much of a cause of promiscuity as media and school which almost all kids get exposed to.) Airola later names media and peer pressure as a cause in the next paragraph.
I have an explanation for the promiscuous kids who view their parents as “dominant, forceful, hateful, threatening, firm, aggressive, and distant” (208). The kids want attention, and they aren’t getting it from distant parents. Kids who are promiscuous tend to be trouble makers in other areas of life too, and naturally this would cause their parents to make threats. A parent has no need to make threats to a child who is behaving well. And if a good child is being treated aggressively and hatefully, that would cause the child to be shy and nervous, not sleep around. (Just look at Stephen King’s Carrie!) So besides the distant description, I’d say it’s the child’s behavior which causes the adult behavior, not the other way around.
Airola blames child suicide, criminality, and running away from home on parental permissiveness and lack of clear authority and discipline in the home (209-210). I disagree. Kids run away from home when their parents are being too strict, not too permissive. Why would a kid who is allowed to do drugs and have sex run away when they can do it all at home? Suicide is caused by depression, and there are all sorts of reasons why a kid could be depressed, not all of them having anything to do with the parents. But if a kid is being raised by permissive parents, the kid wouldn’t be depressed over that. She’s more likely to be depressed by overly strict parents. Criminal behavior is more likely the cause of personality or school/media influence. Some kids already love to do what they know is wrong from their toddler years, no matter how much the parent scolds, punishes, or rewards good behavior; while other kids will naturally want to please their parents, and the first sign of parental disapproval causes instant and long lasting compliance (my mom being one of these). The baddies are cool in school, and other kids who may have been good previously conform to the baddies in order to be cool too. Parental permissiveness just makes it easier for the kid to commit crimes, but even strict parents can’t be on 24/7 watch to make sure the kid doesn’t skip school or sneak out at 1am.
“Although men and women are entitled to equal human rights, their roles in life were not meant to be identical. . . . If the Creator had meant man and woman to perform the same functions in life, why make two different models for the same job?” (23)
“Unwanted pregnancies rarely produce happy, healthy, and well-adjusted children” (32).
“One of the important aspects of social and emotional maturity is the willingness to submit to authority—in school or at work, or to government and law enforcement agencies” (203).
Health tips:
Repeat aloud five times daily: “Every day, in every way, I am getting better, and better, and better!” (513)
Avoid sunglasses and artificial light (they cause cancer) (37)
Brewers yeast should be taken on an empty stomach (63). Take with calcium. Don’t eat live yeast intended for baking (64).
Eating certain foods or abstaining from certain foods (such as the carnivore diet) may have therapeutic benefit, but staying on that diet forever can result in deficiencies that cause more health problems (46). Synthetic vitamins are useful for short-term treatment of acute disease and severe deficiency, but for regular preventative health, it’s best to get vitamins from food (181).
One reason meat is bad is because it has 22 times more phosphorus than calcium, which leads to magnesium deficiency, pyorrhea, and tooth decay (71). (I’ve heard similar about soda.) “A high protein diet can cause severe deficiencies of B6, magnesium, calcium, and niacin (B3)” (71).
Most vegetables should be eaten raw, except for these: spinach, rhubarb, asparagus, cauliflower, beans, and the cabbage family. Boil in water for 3-5 minutes before eating (52, 55). Don’t use their boiling water as vegetable broth.
The best grains are buckwheat and millet (51). They should be cooked or sprouted (56).
The best oils are olive and sesame (61).
The best seeds are flax, sesame, chia, and pumpkin (50). Sunflower is usually rancid. How to tell if your sunflower seeds are rancid: “Spread them on a white paper and notice all the seeds that are not medium grey, but are, in whole or in part, brown, yellow, white, black—these are all rancid” (51).
Vitamins for pregnant women: 1000-1500 mg C (can be synthetic), B-complex, 10,000 A, 400 units D, 200-400 IU E, 2-3 tbsp Brewer’s yeast or phosphorus, kelp, bone meal, 1000-1200 mg calcium, 500 mg magnesium, potassium, 18 mg iron, selenium, 20 mg zinc, manganese, chromium, molybdenum (67).
All vitamins should be taken together except E and iron. Separate these two by 8-12 hours, unless they are eaten as foods (68).
How to conceive a boy or girl (80-87% effective) (p. 92-93):
A boy: eat lots of salty (potassium & sodium) food 6 weeks before conception; before sex, douche with mild alkaline solution; orgasm during sex.
A girl: eat lots of dairy (calcium & magnesium) 6 weeks before conception; before sex, douche with acidic solution.
“Almost every substance injected into, or ingested by the mother, can reach the fetus within minutes” (123).
Unborn babies respond negatively (with violent motions and increased heart rate) to loud noises. A baby likes soft, gentle, mellow sounds (103). Which is evidence that this is the kind of music humans naturally prefer before they’re exposed to society’s influence.
Pregnant women should avoid long hours of TV watching (radiation); it makes the child more susceptible to leukemia (104).
Teas okay during pregnancy (and helpful for relieving worries and mood swings): valerian, scullcap, lady slipper, rosemary, camomile, garden sage, hops, licorice root (104).
“95% of all births to healthy mothers happen without complications” (125). Airola said that only 5% of babies are born premature. That was in 1979. I looked up the recent stats, and it’s now 11%.
Hospital births had 30 times more forceps deliveries, 30 times more birth injuries, 6 times greater incidence of distress in labor, 8 times greater occurrence of getting stuck in birth canal, 4 times as many babies needing resuscitation, 4 times higher infection rates, and 3 times greater hemorrhage in the mother (118).
But Airola says that the following women should not give birth at home: first time mothers at age 35+, a mother of multiples, a mother who had a C-section before, a woman who has diabetes, epilepsy, anemia, hypertension, heart disease, or kidney disease (121).
A few hours of labor makes the C-section easier, and it can prevent hyaline membrane formation in the baby’s lungs (127).
Avoid cutting the umbilical cord until the placenta is expelled, which may be 5-20 minutes (131).
“Immediate breast feeding after delivery can help the uterine contractions needed to separate the placenta from the uterus, since the uterus contracts by reflex from breast stimulation” (132).
“The baby’s digestive system is not equipped to efficiently digest foods rich in starch, such as cereals, until maybe one year or even longer, and therefore, he should not be fed starchy foods for at least that long” (140).
Airola suspects that the non-lactose sugars in formula causes multiple sclerosis and mental/nervous breakdowns in adults (144).
He says that feeding infants cow milk causes gluten intolerance later in life (216). I didn’t know of any US mothers who fed their infants cow milk, but I looked it up online and learned that formula has cow milk in it!
He says that breastfed babies aren’t susceptible to anemia while bottle-fed babies are, despite little iron being in breastmilk (221). There is twice as much iron in human milk than in cow milk. Even when bottle fed babies get more iron from their fortified formula, they are still more likely to be anemic. Supplementary iron destroys vitamin E since vitamin E deficiency causes anemia (221). Human milk has 20 times more vitamin E than cow milk, and vitamin E is needed for iron absorption (222). This is interesting since my baby’s pediatrician told me I had to give my baby iron supplements since I exclusively breastfed. I was skeptical of the recommendation in the first place, since cave women never gave supplements to their babies, and they turned out fine. Anyway, I stopped giving my baby iron supplements when they caused her to be constipated. And she still turned out fine!
If you circumcise your son, wait until he is at least 8 days old because vitamin K (natural blood coagulant) doesn’t enter the bloodstream until the eighth day of life (267).
What to feed baby (163):
4 months: a few drops of plain cod liver oil daily
6 months: 5 drops cold liver oil, juice (carrot, apple, or orange, but not mixed)
8 months: 1/2 teaspoon cod liver oil, pureed fruit and veggies
12 months: 1 teaspoon cod liver oil, yogurt, kefir
18 months: grains, cereals (oatmeal or millet are best)
Hyperactive kids were “virtually unknown 100 years ago in the pre-chemical era” (228). The symptoms are: can’t sit still, aggressive, destructive, bad temper, extremely short attention span, nervous, rebellious, disobedient, disrespectful, below average in school (228-229). “Make sure that your child has not picked up the habit of listening to unbearably loud music. Quiet, soft, mellow music is conducive to quietness and gentleness in disposition, while loud music can make a child irritable, nervous, and ill-tempered” (234).
Vaccination: Airola describes several cases of when people have been vaccinated but still get the disease anyway. For an outbreak of diphtheria, the vaccinated got infected more than the unvaccinated (275). Diphtheria virtually disappeared in Sweden without vaccinations (277). In Germany, mass immunization was forced in 1940, and cases increased from 40,000 per year to 250,000 by 1945, virtually all among vaccinated kids. “Many other countries in Europe showed a striking increase in cases of diphtheria after compulsory immunization. For instance, the increase in France was as much as 30%, in Hungary 55%, and in Geneva, Switzerland, the number of cases tripled after compulsory immunization was enforced in 1933” (277).
In 1977, there were 18 cases of paralytic polio in the US. Three of the victims had gotten the vaccine, and 10 had been in close contact with recently immunized people (275). People vaccinated against rubella are still capable of becoming infected, though they may not always show symptoms (276). 80% of rubella vaccinated people got infected with rubella in Australia (276). “Contrary to popular belief, measles doesn’t cause blindness; it can cause photophobia, a temporary sensitivity to light, which is treated simply by pulling down the window shades and keeping the lights low” (278). “Australian scientists have also implicated measles vaccination with the risk of developing multiple sclerosis. They found that MS sufferers have a higher than normal proportion of the measles antigen in their blood” (279). A unvaccinated group of kids contracted measles at 2.4%, while a vaccinated group contracted it at 33.5% (279). 1-2% of vaccinated people develop arthritis and arthralgia. 50% of rubella vaccinated women get side effects, mostly mild but arthritis occurred in 10-15% (280). Of the kids who experienced serious shot reactions (paralysis, death, brain damage), 65% of the cases were following triple shots. About 60% of reactions (collapse, major convulsions, intense screaming) happened within three days, and all within 12 days. “During the period 1969-74, when 64 deaths resulted from whooping cough, 56 cases of severe brain damage followed whooping cough vaccination” (281). Giving triple shots can be deadly if the infant is deficient in vitamin C (281). “The cancer-producing effect of vaccinations has been demonstrated in animal studies” (283). Of all the vaccinations that existed at the time Airola wrote the book, he says the tetanus vaccine is the only one in which the benefits outweigh the risks (289).
Airola says that a child “should learn to obey simply because his father or mother said so” (195). He says that a three year old won’t know the difference between right and wrong, but will obey his parents because he wants the approval from those he loves (196). I know from experience that some toddlers love to disobey their parents, and they know the parents don’t like what they’re doing, but the kids do it anyway, either for fun, selfishness, or gaining attention. Even if a three year old can’t yet speak very well, they do understand what they’re being told to do or not do. When they’re told not to do something, and do it immediately after with a big grin on their face, you can tell that the child is pleased with itself for disobeying you and is challenging your authority. If you allow them to get away with it, they’ve just learned they can get away with disobeying you more in the future.
Airola recommends not having kids start school until age seven or eight; he says they will be eager to learn at this time (197). I’m doubtful that will be the case in our modern age when they’re already been spoiled by electronic screens by that age. Children are eager to learn from ages younger than that; they just don’t like having to sit for long periods of time because their attention spans are short. I looked up online the countries with the best education rates. Currently it’s Germany, Denmark, and Finland, and all of these countries have school start at age six. Airola says that kids who start school too early start to hate learning (197). But I think this will be the case for any student no matter when they start, as long as they are forced to learn things they don’t want to learn. American kids often go into school eager to learn in kindergarten, but by third grade they hate school. If school were started at age 7 or 8 as he recommends, I think they’d still end up hating school in 1-3 years.
Airola quotes a poem by Dorothy Law Nolte which has lines that I disagree with:
“If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith”
No, plenty of children live with all of that today, and they turn out spoiled, ungrateful, and selfish. Tolerating bad behavior leads to more bad behavior. Praising a child no matter what they do or produce just gives the child an inflated ego, which will set him up for a bigger fall when he enters the real world and doesn’t get the same praise from his peers, teacher, or boss. Parents tend to treat their child’s artwork like it’s a masterpiece, but in school most kids will learn that their art is not the best in the class, therefore they will be disappointed and feel like their parents can’t be trusted. Patience is learned by having to wait, and either being rewarded for waiting patiently or suffering consequences if not waiting patiently. Appreciation is learned by having little. Faith is learned by being taught religion; it has nothing to do with security. The most religious people in the world are people growing up in poverty.
Airola says that acne is caused by excessive sebum production, which is caused by sexually maturing too quickly (250).
Airola included a letter written to him by a child of unstated age. She complimented his writing as informative, but she disagreed with him about this being a promiscuous age. She said “if two consenting adults perform the act of sexual intercourse, is it really promiscuity? What is more natural than sexual intercourse? Does it really make any difference if two people are married to one another or not?” (205)
I would have answered those questions like this: “Yes, sex is natural. But just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s good. Animals in the wild live naturally and have sex whenever they wish and with whomever they wish. But is this best for humans? Not when the human woman ends up pregnant and has to take care of many children resulting from her promiscuity for 18 years (wild animals don’t take care of their offspring that long), which is expensive and stressful (wild animals don’t have to worry about money). Not when the humans get STDs and spread them around to all their partners, which decreases their health (wild animals have short lifespans). As for marriage, I don’t think that matters, but what I do think matters is the couple being committed to staying together, as this results in the best environment for the children. It’s also more costly to live separately than to live together.”
Airola answered her letter in a disappointing way which was all too familiar to me from the people I’ve argued with online. He called her question naive (206) and said “There is a severe lack of logic in several of your conclusions and statements” (205-206). Him attacking her intelligence was totally unnecessary and distracts from the topic at hand. He puts her down as naive and stupid instead of just keeping his emotional opinions out of it and answering her questions in a calm, rational manner. Very disappointing to see a doctor doing this, but I suppose even the highly educated people of the world are often guilty of arrogance. Maybe they feel that by being questioned, it’s attacking their own intelligence, and they feel that they must defend themselves with “no, YOU’RE the stupid one!” IMO, it shows weakness. If you’re confident your opinion is correct, then you can back it up with logic and facts, not resort to insults.
I also disagree with Airola when he says that promiscuity in children is caused by viewing their parents negatively (208), therefore he places the blame on the parents for not treating their children better. Our modern age is full of parents who spoil their kids rotten, and the kids still end up promiscuous. To me, the cause is obvious. Promiscuity is encouraged in the media and by school peers. These sources are more important to the child of age 8+ than parental approval. Keep kids away from media and school, and they won’t be promiscuous. (And I suppose parents should also not sleep around so that their kids don’t imitate it, but I’m guessing most parents today aren’t sleeping around in front of their kids, so parental influence is not as much of a cause of promiscuity as media and school which almost all kids get exposed to.) Airola later names media and peer pressure as a cause in the next paragraph.
I have an explanation for the promiscuous kids who view their parents as “dominant, forceful, hateful, threatening, firm, aggressive, and distant” (208). The kids want attention, and they aren’t getting it from distant parents. Kids who are promiscuous tend to be trouble makers in other areas of life too, and naturally this would cause their parents to make threats. A parent has no need to make threats to a child who is behaving well. And if a good child is being treated aggressively and hatefully, that would cause the child to be shy and nervous, not sleep around. (Just look at Stephen King’s Carrie!) So besides the distant description, I’d say it’s the child’s behavior which causes the adult behavior, not the other way around.
Airola blames child suicide, criminality, and running away from home on parental permissiveness and lack of clear authority and discipline in the home (209-210). I disagree. Kids run away from home when their parents are being too strict, not too permissive. Why would a kid who is allowed to do drugs and have sex run away when they can do it all at home? Suicide is caused by depression, and there are all sorts of reasons why a kid could be depressed, not all of them having anything to do with the parents. But if a kid is being raised by permissive parents, the kid wouldn’t be depressed over that. She’s more likely to be depressed by overly strict parents. Criminal behavior is more likely the cause of personality or school/media influence. Some kids already love to do what they know is wrong from their toddler years, no matter how much the parent scolds, punishes, or rewards good behavior; while other kids will naturally want to please their parents, and the first sign of parental disapproval causes instant and long lasting compliance (my mom being one of these). The baddies are cool in school, and other kids who may have been good previously conform to the baddies in order to be cool too. Parental permissiveness just makes it easier for the kid to commit crimes, but even strict parents can’t be on 24/7 watch to make sure the kid doesn’t skip school or sneak out at 1am.
February 28, 2008
LOVE this book! Every woman should read it.
May 1, 2015
This was my moms health bible while she was raising kids. Amazing, sound information about health. I even have my moms copy and cherish it.
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