spoiling new babies

[nancy beyda]

From Nancy "You cannot spoil babies before the age of one, it's impossible to hold them too much, to respond to them too quickly, or to let them "manipulate" you. They simply aren't capable of doing it. The needs they feel are real needs, if they want to be held, they really need to be held, when they are frightened, they are truly frightened, and when they are hungry, they'll let you know right away. When babies needs are met at the appropriate time, they work through them and move on. The most confident and independent young children are those whose parents respected and honored their need to cling on when they were younger. They outgrew those needs as they learned to experience the world and most especially their parents, as safe and predictable.
The ideas that young babies can manipulate us, tells so much about the culture that we live in. I remember the time, way back when I was pregnant with my first child - more than 19 years ago, when i went to hear my mother in law, an anthropologist, speak at a conference in Long Beach. She spent a number of years living with and studying a group of indigenous people in Ecuador. This group believed that machismo was transmitted to babies through their mother's milk and because of this, they nursed girl babies for a short time and boys for a much longer period. They didn't want the girls to become too "macho". The girls were weaned early, but gradually, the boys were nursed much longer, but weaned abruptly. These practices had profound effects on the culture. GIrl babies who were weaned were more vulnerable to disease and more likely to die. The boys, who were nursed for a long time, then cut off suddenly, became angry and aggressive - in short they became more "macho". So these parenting practices had far reaching implications for this tribe.
Because of what I learned that day, I felt able to really question some of the parenting practices that were being pushed on me when I had a newborn. I'm so thankful for the gift I was given of being able to question accepted practices and to do things differently - to follow my heart and not be afraid that I was doing things differently.
We live in a world full of people who have so many different addictions, from food, to alcohol, to gambling, sex and on and on. We're encouraged to give babies substitutes for human contact, pacifiers, blankets, swings, and we end up with adults who also look outside themselves to fulfill basic human needs. It's only by looking more deeply into the source of these behaviors and by questioning the way we've been taught to parent, that we can begin to heal our children and to heal this planet.