Angelina Jolie, Paris Hilton, other new mothers and mothers-to-be, hear ye!!!
Alice Aspen March
July 21, 2008
Angelina Jolie, Paris Hilton, other new mothers and want-to-be mothers, hear ye!!!
Mothering is not an easy job! It doesn´t come with any guarantees or set hours. Babies are a full time job; they´re messy, inconvenient at times, unpredictable, demanding of our energy, and I am describing just those are who are born in tact, with little or no physical problems.
Often, full-time mothers are looked at with suspicion and lack of high regard. We need to change that attitude. Children are babies for a very short time, as they´re really adults in training. We role model all the time for them. We teach them our values, our needs and our personal traits; we teach them how to communicate, how to respond and how to react.
The kind of attention we give our kids lives with them forever. Their nervous systems are imprinted by what they hear, how they´re touched and what they see. In fact, the kind of attention that we got in our childhoods lives with them forever. It´s an intergenerational deal. That´s very important to understand. I know this for myself, and for two decades I have traveled the world collecting stories, speaking and writing about TheAttentionFactor®. In other words, mothering ought to be thought of as one of the most precious jobs around. Mothers are creating our most precious natural resource, and they need support and lessons to learn how to do it with consciousness and care. Of course, never count fathers out, as they impact on their kids mightingly. Some, today, are assuming more and more family and parenting responsibilities. There are even men who stay at home, while their wives or partners work.
Research shows that more time is spent learning how to take care of animals, birds, and fish than on children and that more money is spent on food for pets than on children. Someone told me recently that dogs are today´s kids!!!
Two years ago I was called an elder by a prominent African healer, who suggested to his audience, "Best you listen to her!" I am the mother of three adult sons and the grandmother of three kids over 16. I now feel a need to share what I know and have seen. I think what has pushed me to sound off at this moment is reading recently about the group of teens who have decided to get pregnant as a group.
Simply, teens are not prepared enough emotionally nor experienced enough nor old enough to be mothers. Some say they want to have babies, so someone will love them. Does this simply mean that they have never felt loved?
Attention. Our lives from beginning to end are all about attention: how we get it, who gives it to us, what kind we get and what kind we give. There is sufficient measurable research now to say that infants and toddlers need their mothers´ attention more than they need toys and stuff. It is not enough to decide that you can have a baby, because you have decided that you know how to take care of dogs.
I´ve done reams of research, filled abundant shelves with books and magazine articles I´ve collected over the years, arranged cabinet drawers full of all kinds of family and parenting materials. The Los Angeles Times ran this article, which I find very important and telling:
"June 27, 2006 on-line publication (with 30 some pages of references) of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: "It´s attention and play with adoring adults that stimulates brain development. The kind of attention that kids get from parents, grandparents and others who love them makes the difference according to four researchers representing the fields of neurobiology, psychiatry, sociology and economics. These four professors from Brandeis and Stanford called attention the greatest gift kids can get, not toys and more toys. Further research showed that choosing certain special educational toys does not guarantee a future good job and a happy life."
What does to adore mean? I have decided that to adore means that when you´re with someone, you´re present to them and their needs. You are not on your cell phone or texting or listening to your Ipod. I do not think it´s adoring behavior to wheel a carriage down a street, while speaking on a cell phone or walking with others, chatting away in a language that is not familiar to the little person being wheeled. I do not feel it is adoring to be so busy and absorbed with abundant distractions that your kids feel that you´re not there for them. And, believe me, they know.
I shall never forget the night my first granddaughter was born. My husband and I were at a dinner party where we were all engaged in a very lively conversation about a movie. The phone rang, I answered it and my son told me about his daughter´s arrival. When I returned to the table to tell the rest of the dinner guests, the old conversation immediately stopped, and every person at the table told the story of how they felt as a child when their siblings arrived home. They all told of how their lives changed abruptly, even though their parents had told them that they would love the new sibling, etc. The reality of the situation was that their position in the family had immediately changed, they got less attention than before, and often, they wanted the new baby sent back, and a life-long competition began.
Creating a healthy, functional family is often exhausting, debilitating, boring and challenging. It´s probably getting harder by the day due to our faster way of living, more and more technological distractions and the economics of our times. When babies arrive, all they want and need is attention. It´s really very simple. They need others to do everything for them. They have been energetically attached to their mothers and that attachment has made them feel comfortable, safe and secure. They already know their mothers´ voices in utero and have felt their mothers´ emotions before birth. They know the tone of voices, whether they are soft or harsh. They recognize music and people´s reading aloud to them. There´s sufficient research to verify all this.
Mothers today are torn between working and raising a family. Some attempt to do both and wear themselves out in the process. They have to hire substitute mothers. Nannies are very different than mothers. Fortunately some have gone through trainings to qualify them to be professional nannies. However, Nannies carry very different energetic fields and childhood experiences than mothers. Research shows that a baby´s developmental need for intense, positive, all encompassing attention lasts until they are approximately
2 ˝ years old. That is the time when they can begin to distinguish for themselves who gives them the kind they need, and who doesn´t. In the 1920´s Harry Harlow, a social scientist, proved that when that baby monkeys were deprived of their mothers´ attention, they became anti-social, withered away and ultimately died. Orphanages have provided us further research, and the recent 40,000 Romanian orphan situation definitely showed the world the damage done to kids who had no mothering.
Mothering, as a "job" is undervalued, under recognized and certainly under paid. Mothers and fathers are seeding the future of our world, the future of how man treats his fellow man, how we create peace in our world, how we treat our planet. I have learned that moments are really what count in our lives. Let´s learn to expand the moments for our kids, when they can feel safe, comfortable, supported and truly loved by consciously gi
Mothering is not an easy job! It doesn´t come with any guarantees or set hours. Babies are a full time job; they´re messy, inconvenient at times, unpredictable, demanding of our energy, and I am describing just those are who are born in tact, with little or no physical problems.
Often, full-time mothers are looked at with suspicion and lack of high regard. We need to change that attitude. Children are babies for a very short time, as they´re really adults in training. We role model all the time for them. We teach them our values, our needs and our personal traits; we teach them how to communicate, how to respond and how to react.
The kind of attention we give our kids lives with them forever. Their nervous systems are imprinted by what they hear, how they´re touched and what they see. In fact, the kind of attention that we got in our childhoods lives with them forever. It´s an intergenerational deal. That´s very important to understand. I know this for myself, and for two decades I have traveled the world collecting stories, speaking and writing about TheAttentionFactor®. In other words, mothering ought to be thought of as one of the most precious jobs around. Mothers are creating our most precious natural resource, and they need support and lessons to learn how to do it with consciousness and care. Of course, never count fathers out, as they impact on their kids mightingly. Some, today, are assuming more and more family and parenting responsibilities. There are even men who stay at home, while their wives or partners work.
Research shows that more time is spent learning how to take care of animals, birds, and fish than on children and that more money is spent on food for pets than on children. Someone told me recently that dogs are today´s kids!!!
Two years ago I was called an elder by a prominent African healer, who suggested to his audience, "Best you listen to her!" I am the mother of three adult sons and the grandmother of three kids over 16. I now feel a need to share what I know and have seen. I think what has pushed me to sound off at this moment is reading recently about the group of teens who have decided to get pregnant as a group.
Simply, teens are not prepared enough emotionally nor experienced enough nor old enough to be mothers. Some say they want to have babies, so someone will love them. Does this simply mean that they have never felt loved?
Attention. Our lives from beginning to end are all about attention: how we get it, who gives it to us, what kind we get and what kind we give. There is sufficient measurable research now to say that infants and toddlers need their mothers´ attention more than they need toys and stuff. It is not enough to decide that you can have a baby, because you have decided that you know how to take care of dogs.
I´ve done reams of research, filled abundant shelves with books and magazine articles I´ve collected over the years, arranged cabinet drawers full of all kinds of family and parenting materials. The Los Angeles Times ran this article, which I find very important and telling:
"June 27, 2006 on-line publication (with 30 some pages of references) of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: "It´s attention and play with adoring adults that stimulates brain development. The kind of attention that kids get from parents, grandparents and others who love them makes the difference according to four researchers representing the fields of neurobiology, psychiatry, sociology and economics. These four professors from Brandeis and Stanford called attention the greatest gift kids can get, not toys and more toys. Further research showed that choosing certain special educational toys does not guarantee a future good job and a happy life."
What does to adore mean? I have decided that to adore means that when you´re with someone, you´re present to them and their needs. You are not on your cell phone or texting or listening to your Ipod. I do not think it´s adoring behavior to wheel a carriage down a street, while speaking on a cell phone or walking with others, chatting away in a language that is not familiar to the little person being wheeled. I do not feel it is adoring to be so busy and absorbed with abundant distractions that your kids feel that you´re not there for them. And, believe me, they know.
I shall never forget the night my first granddaughter was born. My husband and I were at a dinner party where we were all engaged in a very lively conversation about a movie. The phone rang, I answered it and my son told me about his daughter´s arrival. When I returned to the table to tell the rest of the dinner guests, the old conversation immediately stopped, and every person at the table told the story of how they felt as a child when their siblings arrived home. They all told of how their lives changed abruptly, even though their parents had told them that they would love the new sibling, etc. The reality of the situation was that their position in the family had immediately changed, they got less attention than before, and often, they wanted the new baby sent back, and a life-long competition began.
Creating a healthy, functional family is often exhausting, debilitating, boring and challenging. It´s probably getting harder by the day due to our faster way of living, more and more technological distractions and the economics of our times. When babies arrive, all they want and need is attention. It´s really very simple. They need others to do everything for them. They have been energetically attached to their mothers and that attachment has made them feel comfortable, safe and secure. They already know their mothers´ voices in utero and have felt their mothers´ emotions before birth. They know the tone of voices, whether they are soft or harsh. They recognize music and people´s reading aloud to them. There´s sufficient research to verify all this.
Mothers today are torn between working and raising a family. Some attempt to do both and wear themselves out in the process. They have to hire substitute mothers. Nannies are very different than mothers. Fortunately some have gone through trainings to qualify them to be professional nannies. However, Nannies carry very different energetic fields and childhood experiences than mothers. Research shows that a baby´s developmental need for intense, positive, all encompassing attention lasts until they are approximately
2 ˝ years old. That is the time when they can begin to distinguish for themselves who gives them the kind they need, and who doesn´t. In the 1920´s Harry Harlow, a social scientist, proved that when that baby monkeys were deprived of their mothers´ attention, they became anti-social, withered away and ultimately died. Orphanages have provided us further research, and the recent 40,000 Romanian orphan situation definitely showed the world the damage done to kids who had no mothering.
Mothering, as a "job" is undervalued, under recognized and certainly under paid. Mothers and fathers are seeding the future of our world, the future of how man treats his fellow man, how we create peace in our world, how we treat our planet. I have learned that moments are really what count in our lives. Let´s learn to expand the moments for our kids, when they can feel safe, comfortable, supported and truly loved by consciously gi
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