Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2006, at 22:37:25
In reply to feeling triggered by my class today (childabuse ), posted by happyflower on September 28, 2006, at 18:02:05
I hear what you are talking about. I had trouble with some of my psychology classes too...
Sometimes I think it can be helpful to learn about that kind of stuff. It helps us see that our responses are understandable. Likely consequences.
A lot of the research on attachment has been contested. A lot of 'accepted' and 'not accepted' child rearing practices have been contested too.
> my mom used to say that I was spoiled when I was in the hospital after I was born. I was underweight, and had to stay their for a month until I gained enough weight and the nurses used to rock me at night and when I came home I would cry at night a lot, and it was of course according to her because I was spoiled. She had to "retrain" me (who really knows how she did that)
For a while... That was meant to be how you raised children. You had them on a schedule because you didn't want to 'spoil' them. If you put them down to sleep and they cried then you ignored them because you were supposed to put them on a schedule. For their own good. I don't know if you guys have plunket. It is an organisation that had leaflets and information on how to raise kids. I've read some of their old stuff. It was very schedule based and warned of the dangers of spoiling.
People are much more liberal now with their child raising practices. If they want to be picked up you pick them up. If they don't want to be toilet trained then you respect that they aren't ready yet.
That is a change in society... I'm not sure that that says she is sick... It might have been societies norm at the time... Or it might have been that that is how her mother told her she was to raise a kid... I don't know... I just know that the notion of 'spoiling' and 'retraining' used to be endorsed by the govt. literature over here, at any rate. And I'm sure that stuff filters down from other parts of the world...
It might also have been a point that...
Your time in hospital (and maybe the ward shifts if it was the same person...) meant that you attached to a nurse. They picked you up and you stopped crying. Your mother picked you up and... Maybe you didn't stop crying because you weren't so used to her.
Sometimes it is a combination of things (all of them out of our control).
I don't know.
Attachment is a funny notion... When the settlers started coming to NZ a lot of stuff was written on how maladaptive Maori (indigenous peoples) child raising practices were. In particular... Infants don't get to spend a great deal of time with their mothers instead they are usually cared for by older siblings and grandparents and the like. The infants didn't seem to have *one* attachment figure the way that western infants tend to. The settlers wrote this up as a form of child abuse.
Now... We learn about how the notion of attachment is a western notion and it is far from clear that it is a universal human drive / need. Sure it is important that our needs get met... But even psychoanalytic / attachment theorists tend to distinguish between meeting of needs and overindulgence of desires. Where do you draw the line?? Who knows...
I don't know.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:690011
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060926/msgs/690082.html