Infant Mental Health Awareness Week 7-13 June 2021 Part 5

Babies are Humans! or An IBCLC lactation consultant, breastfeeding counsellor and mother’s free associations around Infant Mental Health Awareness Week

Think history, think geography

Two books are amongst my favourites when it comes to looking at who we are, where we come from and how being a human and a parent can be done in ‘other ways’. They both approach baby and child care from an anthropological point of view and we get a rich insight into many other cultures around the world, to help us see the ‘bigger picture’.

They are:The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff and Our babies, Ourselves by Meredith F. Small.

The recommendation on the back cover of the former reads:

“After spending two and a half years deep in the South American jungle living with Stone Age Indians, Jean Liedloff found that her experiences demolished her Western preconceptions of how we should live. What she discovered about their way of life led her to alter her view of what constitutes our basic human nature and to develop a radical new theory on how we should bring up our children. In The Continuum Concept she shows how we have lost much of our natural well-being through Western materialism, and suggests practical ways to regain it, for our children and for ourselves.”

To give you a flavour of the tone, I will quote from the chapter discussing our babies ‘growing up’:

“Among the Yequana the attitude of the mother or caretaker of a baby is relaxed, attentive to some other occupation than baby-minding but receptive at all times to a visit from the crawling or creeping adventurer. She does not stop her cooking or other work unless her full attention is actually required. She does not throw her arms open to the little seeker for reassurance but, in her calm way, allows him the freedom of her person, or an arm-supported ride on her hip if she is moving about. She does not initiate the contacts nor contribute to them except in a passive way. It is the baby who seeks her out and shows her by his behaviour what he wants. She complies fully and willingly but does not add anything more. He is the active, she the passive agent in all their dealings; he comes to her to sleep when he is tired, to be fed when he is hungry. His explorations of the wide world are counterpointed and reinforced by his resort to her and by his sense of her constancy while he is away.He neither demands nor receives her full attention, for he has no store of longings, no ancient hungers, to gnaw at his devotion to the here and now. Consistent with the economical character of nature, he wants no more than he needs.” (*13)

What a fascinatingly different attitude between parent and child! So the child being the centre of their universe and the future is not mistaken by giving up all else and giving 100% attention to the youngster. Quite the contrary: by bringing the little one into the adult life, by way of designing contraptions for them to be tied onto the mother’s body, the parent can then happily go about their day WHILE comforting and seeing to their offsprings demands, wants, which by the way equal their needs, according to Liedloff’s definition.

Another snapshot that may be worth lingering over, and perhaps considering how it can be translated into 21st century living in the Western world… because surely it can, at least in part?

How Do Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm (*15) is one of those books that completely took my breath away and made me not want to put it down!The idea behind the book comes from the well travelled author’s experience from various parts of the world.

Some examples from the chapter titles of the book:

-How the French Teach Their Children to Love Healthy Food

-How Aka Pygmies Are the Best Fathers-How Tibetans Cherish Pregnancy

-How the Chinese Potty Train Early-How Kenyan Live without Pushchairs

-How the Japanese Let Their Children Fight

And more.

I find reading these child rearing practices stretches my horizons, makes me rise above the tiny surroundings of suburban London living and even the world of the famous world wide web, which is supposed to do just that! But does it really?

The way we choose where our information comes from, the way we choose our friends and the groups we belong to, what we notice and believe and what we doubt are well and truly biased and don’t necessarily give an accurate representation of the world. It is actually called confirmation bias, and is described in detail in another one of Amy Brown’s books: Informed is Best (is there anything this woman CAN’T write brilliant books about?!). Naturally. We live in a culture and various subcultures, so it can’t be helped. However, it’s worth spending some time diving into how various things to do with child-rearing CAN be done differently, and perhaps be reassured: ‘if it doesn’t do THEM any harm’…

“Despite their late nights, families in Buenos Aires seem to make up at least some sleep in the morning. I’m constantly blown away when friends tell me that their toddlers usually snooze until nine or ten o’clock in the morning and complain when little ones wake up at an outrageous seven thirty. Society doesn’t get moving until around eight, long after many Westerners would have already hit the gym, showered, and made their way to work.” (*15)

We can get really and truly tied up, sometimes completely debilitated by our own, our neighbours’, friends’, families’ and local communities’ but also our perceived peer groups’s (virtual or real) judgement. We want to belong. We want to be accepted. We’re anxious to try things differently. And indeed, those of you who have more than one child might agree with me: things can look quite different the second time around. Or even just a little bit further into your journey first time.

Ramona Mercer’s Maternal Role Attainment Theory from Josephine Ann Necor

I would like to encourage you to open your eyes. Be curious. Look around you. Try different things. Read different books until you find the one that sits well with you. Be brave to experiment: with different breastfeeding positions (I promise you there are hundreds!), with getting your baby down at various times of the night, with giving different foods in different ways, with finding different types of stimulation or calming techniques. Look around the world for inspiration, through time and space. Different things work at different ages, with different children (even if they are siblings!). Watch them. They will lead you. Feel into your body. It will guide you.Parenthood is one of the biggest challenges in life.But if you stick with it, and try and get through the hard bits, the reward in between is always immense! You are literally shaping the future!You love your child. And that is the foundation of all of this hard work. So I would like to end on a meme borrowed from La Leche League, which equally applies to father and parents, no matter how you identify:

“Your baby loves you and needs you. Hold him close. He doesn’t need a perfect mother – just you.”