BECOMING A PARENT – ANOTHER WAY TO SEE AND PREPARE FOR THE GIFT OF LIFE
The Miracle of Attachment
By Danièle Starenkyj ©2015 www.publicationsorion.com
I remember my mother, as I reached out to pet a newborn kitten, sternly warning me not to touch it for fear that our cat would reject it, refuse to let it nurse, and even—was it possible?—kill it.
I never forgot my farmer neighbor struggling with a stubborn cow that wouldn't nurse her newborn calf. I was in his barn and witnessed his persistent attempts to get her calf to udder. He spoke softly to his cow, stroked her neck, showed her her calf, and rubbed it against his muzzle. He tried about ten times, and then, triumphantly, she stopped kicking her calf, stood still, and let him suckle. "Well, I've had the black one. I know her. She's difficult with her calves, but I've never let her do it. After all, she's the best mother in the herd."
Today, we finally accept the reality, at the time of human birth as well, of a sensitive period of a few hours during which the mother – she felt her baby slip out of her body, she immediately took him in her arms, and she had time to caress him, to capture his gaze already eager for hers, she put him to the breast, then she had the privilege of falling asleep peacefully with him – begins to feel for this little being powerful feelings of love. This extraordinary phenomenon is that of attachment1.
In our Western civilization, by the 1950s, it had become routine to separate mother from child at the first cry—this is how a whole generation of mothers were taught not to respond to their babies' cries. There were good reasons for this: Mom needed to rest, and baby needed to learn quickly to stick to a fixed bottle-feeding schedule. (This was also the time when it was claimed that Dad would not be able to bear to be present at the birth of his child.) This strictness was justified by the myth of spontaneous or instinctive parental love. (Yet... cats, cows?)
After ten days in the nursery, the parents were given their baby like a precious bundle—along with a series of bottles and the best growth powder. But for many of them, the attachment had not taken place. Many mothers experienced this forced separation as a loss of their baby, and entered into a process similar, though not identical, to mourning. Sometimes the psychological detachment can go so far that the mother will have great difficulty accepting her baby as a part of herself again. She will tend to treat it as a foreign body, and will perceive its needs for love, food, and tenderness as demands that counteract her own needs.
This is extremely serious: the delicate plant of maternal and paternal love takes root during the sensitive period of the hour immediately following birth. Today, a couple expecting a child they want to love powerfully adds to their list of preparations the informed choice of the birthplace. They make sure that the doctor or midwife is "baby-friendly," which means, very precisely, that they understand and respect this sensitive period of the few hours after birth.
The child must be born, and some births are easy, others are difficult. Parental love must be born, and the birth of parental love can be delicate, sometimes laborious, but never impossible, even if delayed. 2
I encourage you to incorporate the three pillars of attachment 3 into your daily actions, which are eye contact – looking your child in the eyes, diving into their gaze and reading their deep need for their parents; physical contact – caresses and cuddles are the human equivalent of licking in mammals; concentrated attention – the child we have brought into the world has the right to feel that for us, they are a person in their own right, worthy of our concern and deserving of our listening without distraction.
A strong attachment of parents to the child and of the child to the parents will register happiness in the developing brain. It is a miracle that we have earned by respecting the way nature intended things4, and it is within the reach of all of you, people of good will!
1. Starenkyj D., Becoming a Parent – Effective Preparation for Pregnancy, 0rion 2014.
2. Starenkyj D., Becoming a Parent – Mothering and Fathering, Orion, 2014.
3. Campbell R., How to Really Love Your Child, Orion, 2012.
4. Starenkyj D., Becoming a Parent – The Ecology of Life, Orion, 2014.
Photo credit: Marïphotographie
Leave a comment