Advice and Information

I'm not one of these women who has read every baby manual that is currently trendy, or that spends hours of free time agonising over parenting styles. Being mammals, I think the whole thing is alot more instinctive than we let ourselves have confidence in. I had a friend once who told me, "You should def get such and such book, great book to have by the cot and refer to when the baby starts to cry". I will not be refering to any manual when my baby starts to cry. Of course however, I do like to be informed, with correct information, from reliable research. I tire of smiling and nodding politely at everyone's opinion. I often think, wouldn't it be nice if people realised that mothers have a unique capability (given the oppurtunity for optimal attachment and bonding with their baby) of knowing and deciding what is best for thier child (and actually, I couldnt care less about what your cousin thinks everyone MUST do with their baby).

In saying all this however I have been reading this great book that makes me sigh with relief. It is called Mothering Denied- How our culture harms women, infants and society by Dr Peter Cook, who is a child psychiatrist. It looks at the infant/mother relationship from a biological, neuroscientific and evolutionary perspective and compares how it should be to how it is in our crazy western culture. How things like our capitalist motivation, christian heritage and feminist ideals impact on how we care for our children, and therefore how it affects their brain development. I myself am facsinated by neurosciences and think that a childs brain development is one of, if not THE most important considerations for me in raising our son, and I love it that this book discusses this with regards to everyday consequences. I love it that it looks at development through neurobiological 'glasses' and not through a behaviourist model that would have me creating some clone of who I thought was the right way to be.