Our Babies, Ourselves

I thought this article was very interesting. Raising a child is a lot of responsibility. It makes perfect sense that different cultures would have different ideas or methods about the 'right' way to raise their child. The first part of the article was my favorite. The two differing methods used by the mothers and how they were both appalled by the incompetency of the other mother. It really makes you think. Babies are not just found in one culture. People are not all raised the same, thus they will turn out differently.

I found the experiment when the child reaches out for the mother but then gives up and goes limp when the mother doesn't respond to be quite concerning. What are the long-term effects of infants who begin the first few months of their life with a mother who is suffering from postpartum depression? Does the un-availableness of their mothers effect the permanently for the rest of their lives? If so then doctors and even family and friends need to really watch for the early warning signs so that these infants get the best possible chance from the beginning.

I also found it interesting how the values and ideals of a culture can be seen in every aspect of that society. The West for example is known to strive for independence and individualism. This can be seen in the way Westerners raise their children. Some examples would be making the child sleep in its own room, weaning the infant off of breastfeeding and onto the bottle (so as to decrease the dependency of the child on their mother), and even handing over some of the care to someone other than the parents. All these methods, whether intentional or not, lead to the independence of the child.

I also found the varying lengths of sleeping for infants in different cultures. In the West we are taught to use our time wisely and not to 'waste the day'. Does even this thought trickle down into how we raise our children by not wanting them to sleep for too long (13 hours total vs. 15 hours in Dutch families). Do we use those two hours by make the child listen to classical music or watching baby Einstein videos to use that time more productively. Should we really be worried about our four month old not using their time efficiently? If so how young is too young? It would be interesting to compare developmentally if there is any big difference when comparing babies who get more time to sleep to babies that use that time for more mental activity.

Reading this article I realized that everything is subjective when it comes to why we do things the way we do them. Childrearing is no exception.