I saw a mother and a baby on the tram the other day. The baby was invisible in the stroller. A few minutes later the mother picked up her baby—not more than 3 months old. He could even hardly hold his neck. His mother pressed him against her chest, then lifted him up and took a good look at him—with sheer adoration—and then turned him around and propped him up in her lap. This happy and content baby, now sitting directly opposite from me, started staring at me. I stared back. He had big, serious, brown eyes and he held his gaze to which I caved in and started looking outside

What was so special about this scene? First of all, a tram is not a place where one takes a baby out of her stroller. If anything, I would want to keep my baby in the stroller, because it’s safer—what with all the people jostling in and out; and the tram turning, braking and accelerating abruptly… Second of all, the baby was totally calm when this mother picked him up. So why in the world would a mother deliberately pick a calm baby out of his stroller on a tram?

1. The mother does not realize the dangers of taking him out of the stroller, so she must be stupid.
2. No one has told the mother not to behave like this, so she must be uneducated.
3. The mother has not read enough books on how to travel safely with her baby, so she must be illiterate.

Then we went to Artis, the zoo in Amsterdam. There, among many other wondrous animals, we saw black spider monkeys. This one particular female was tending to her baby, playing with it, feeding it. This monkey mother—stupid, uneducated, illiterate—knew exactly what to do with her baby. Now, isn’t that a miracle?

Who taught this monkey ‘how to be a mother’ to a baby monkey? Silly question, isn’t it? The females of all species know exactly what to do with their offspring. But then, how come the females of the most intelligent beings on this planet are not so sure about how to be a ‘good’ mother?

There are so many mothers among us—especially in ‘developed/developing’ countries—who feel more and more insecure about how to handle their babies. There is a dizzying amount of parenting books waiting to be purchased to give the inside scoop on how to raise a baby. The ‘civilized systems’ do not help ease the feelings of insecurity and inadequacy—in fact, they can make it worse. A friend of mine in Australia—she is not Australian, though—wrote this to me in an email:

“I am not sure about how other people raise their children here in Australia. But I know the government encourages one of the parents to stay home with the child by providing some tax benefit. The only thing that bothers me is that I have to bring my son to a Nurse every couple weeks. They will check his hip (for dislocation), testicles, neck strength (they take his hands and pull him up from a lying down position to see if he can lift his own head, etc.). I thought babies couldn’t hold up their heads like that before they are 3 months old. They can hold their heads/neck in some way but this is very brutal to me. My son cried every time when they handled him this way. I hate these repeated tests very much. I don’t understand why they keep checking the same thing. Maybe I am over protective but sometimes, I just think western medicine/checking is very intrusive.”

Now why does she HAVE to bring her son to a Nurse for a checkup? She thinks it is brutal, the baby cries, so what is the benefit of such an action?

The sad fact is: there is no logical explanation for this practice. Every country has developed its own peculiar ways of following the growth and development of babies and children. Sometimes there are overlaps and sometimes there are unique practices—such as this example.

So what can a mother do? She can simply accept things as they are and go on with her life. In my friend’s case, she can’t accept it. She doesn’t understand why, so she blames herself for being ‘over-protective’. (But that’s simply not true, because she can’t ‘protect’ her baby from these interventions, which in turn renders her helpless and frustrated.  By the way, had I been in her place, I would simply not show up for these check-ups! And even then I would not think I was being ‘over-protective’…)

The mother on the tram (MT) made me think about my friend in Australia (FA). When MT pulled her son out of the stroller, she had no trace of a doubt on her face. In fact, she was behaving more or less like the monkey mother we saw at the zoo—just doing what felt natural to her. Why can’t FA do what feels natural to her?

FA’s frustration stems from a deeper underlying issue: The developed society where she resides in has placed certain mechanisms that prevent FA from getting in touch with her instincts. As harmless as it is, done under the guise of safety, concern, and health for our babies, the routine checkups of healthy babies and children act as a sinister blocker of our instinctual responses.

How many of you look forward to routine checkups at the pediatrician’s office (or at the consultatiebureau)? How many of you out there worry about whether your baby is the ‘right’ height or the ‘right’ weight? How many of you worry about whether your child is eating too little or too much? How many of you worry about whether the vaccinations are ‘good’ or ‘bad’? How many of you worry about whether you are doing a ‘good’ job as a parent raising your children or not?

If you said, ‘yes’ to the first question and ‘no’ to all the other questions, please accept my congratulations on being a SUPER PARENT. You can stop reading here and go on with your life

If you don’t qualify as a super parent, then I would like to take this opportunity to offer you a life-long membership at my NORMAL PARENT CLUB free of charge

I, as a normal parent, worry about many things concerning my precious children and dread going to routine checkups, because I don’t really think they are necessary. Some parents play the doctor game with their children to make them more sympathetic towards going to the doctor, but why do children regularly need to see a doctor if they are healthy? If anything, regular checkups should start when we turn 30, because then they could be used as a preventative measure for a wide range of health problems.

Yet, it has become so accepted and so ‘normal’ to take healthy children for ‘regular’ checkups that sometimes I have to grapple with feelings of guilt when I have to admit I have skipped several checkups—as if that would reflect on my parenting skills… Even though the doctors and the nurses are really nice and sweet, I still sweat over all the questions that will be asked, the ‘should-lists’ and ‘shouldn’t-lists’, and the age-appropriate safety hazard brochures that will be given to me. All these ‘harmless’ observations and interventions make me think about things that have never crossed my mind. I start worrying about new things that don’t even apply to our lives. My child and I get no benefit from these visits—except the accompanying relief that the next appointment is not in the near future, so what is the point?

In the realm of quantum physics, it is common knowledge that observation changes the outcome of an event. I believe this fact also applies to events in our realm (aren’t we after all an extension of the quantum realm?). Thus, the mere observation of the development of a healthy child undermines a mother’s instincts. Instead of letting the mother and child be; these observations shift the mother’s focus from her immediate emotional bond with her child to (a) historical accounts of how things have been and/or (b) hypothetical accounts of how things should be and/or how they can go wrong. Once the immediate emotional bond is severed this way, the mother has been thrown off course. She needs to make a conscious effort not to dwell on all that was discussed during the ‘regular’ checkup before she can establish her instinctual mothering bond with her child again.

These regular checkups are to ensure the child’s development is on track—as if a parent is not equipped to detect warning signs. Ironically, when dealing with children who are sick, the doctors are advised to trust a mother’s instinct.

So how can it be that mothers can be trusted with sick children but not with healthy children???

Why do I need an expert to tell me my healthy child is healthy, when that expert has to rely on my instinct when my child is sick??? (However, there are also many cases when doctors do NOT trust a mother’s instinct and label the mother as worrisome and paranoid. Another friend of mine nearly lost her daughter because of such doctors, who told her there was nothing wrong with her child, when in fact something was horribly wrong.)

So what can we do?

• Get in touch with our instincts and gut feelings.
• Accept that each child is unique and the ‘average’ child exists only statistically—on doctors’ charts. Every child has his/her own developmental path.
• Doctors don’t always have all the answers.
• We know and understand our children much more than we think.
• Have faith in our capability to be a parent. If we can give birth to a child, then we sure can help him grow up.
• We are not raising our children; we are only helping them adjust to this world.
• Have faith in our children.

At the zoo, there was this quote from J.H. Leopold on a wall:

Elke keer, dat ik in Artis ben geweest, begrijp ik de menschen zooveel beter. (=Every time I have been to Artis, I understand the humans so much better.)

I guess what he really wanted to say to us, mothers, was: Learn from the monkey mothers

-

Helpful Links:

1. Quantum theory demonstrated: Observation affects reality
2. Trust a mother’s instinct on sick children, GPs told
3. Mother’s instinct on sick children is right, doctors told