Moral Landscapes

I enjoyed your article and the link you provided:

http://www.kaimh.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=159:ar...

Dear Darcia,
Thank you for this wonderful and much-needed article. You have done a great job pulling together all the research that demonstrates that babies and very young children need the constant responsiveness and reassurance of their caregiver(s). In our society, this is still frequently mistaken as "spoiling the child." We live in a world "obsessed" with creating independent individuals and demand it of children who simply don't have the brain structure yet to be that way.
As a clinician in private practice, I see the devastating effects of mis-attuned parenting every day. My patients usually don't remember this far back and frequently talk about their parents' insensitivity during teen years etc. but it is often quite clear that the "imprint" for inadequate nurturing was laid much earlier.
I also think you make an important point when you talk about the support parents need in order to be this type of responsive parent.
So true!!
As a society, we are not structured for parents to raise happy, healthy children and it's something that we must look at and change.
Sincerely,
Nadja Geipert aka PT's Eye of the Storm

Darcia, I think what you are seeing in the glazed over eyes of our babies is fear, PTSD. They are reeling from the treatment they received in the hospitals. If you could help push for babies to have natural births, to be breastfed, not circumcised or overmedicated (especially vaccinated), you would see a lot more very alert babies.

If you look on my Facebook page and see the babies of my Facebook friends who had their children at home, do not vaccinate nor circumcise, you will see a lot of very healthy, happy, emotionally present children. When a child is born in a hospital there is a VERY good chance he/she will be traumatized and forever after be 'distracted', dull, and in a state of fear that may never be addressed.

For the healing of fear, your suggestions are good, but what i would like to see is the trauma prevented altogether. i'm sure you would too. it's such a pity what is happening to our children. I have a new grand-nephew who has that somber, glassy-eyed look. I also saw photos of him with needles in his head. The birthing system as it is, is a form of socially sanctioned child abuse.

A related post is: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thinking-about-kids/201101/six-thing... (Six Things You Need To Do For Your Baby)

Darcia, this is amazing! Thank you for this wonderful piece. I'll definitely be passing this one around to friends and family :)

~Goali

Great article, glad to see it in a publication like Psychology Today. Refer people also to:

Schon and Silven's 2007 review: "Natural Parenting"

http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/ep05102183.pdf

and

Karr-Morse and Wiley's 1998 book "Ghosts from the Nursery" about the long term consequences of environmental damage to babies during gestation and the first two years of life.

http://www.amazon.com/Ghosts-Nursery-Tracing-Roots-Violence/dp/087113703...

I have noticed that very few people make eye contact with their babies, nor do they speak to them. I don't understand this phenomenon. In the 21st century we seem to be going backward when it comes to child rearing. Information is available 24/7. I think people research a new vehicle more than they research parenting information and child development.