After I finished reading this book I told to myself: ”I will never be ready to ever have a child of my own, it is too damn hard”. Although this book is supposed to be uplifting and helpful, I got left with a sense of fear and worry. Raising a child to be emotionally healthy and a good human being is hard. I guess this explains why we have quite the opposite in our society: inflicting trauma is so much easier.
I do not think that parents do emotional damage to their children on purpose. Some of them, who have psychological issues, do. But in general most adults think that they are doing the best job and really try their hardest when the tiny baby comes into the world. There is a simple truth that most parents are being blind to though: parenting starts before conception by solving your own trauma and preparing to deliver a new life into the world by purifying oneself at all the levels. “One does not become a parent at the birth of a baby, but rather at conception. The most important way to show love to your unborn baby is to provide a healthy physical and emotional environment. This means that it is best to eat a good diet, obtain plenty of rest, and refrain from consuming drugs that can harm your baby. It is also advisable to minimize stress and loud noises as much as possible during pregnancy. Maternal emotions can influence babies before birth”
Another detail that piqued my interest is about crying. Babies need to cry. If they are not allowed to cry while being held with love they will later develop tantrums and other issues. The truth is that adult men rarely cry and this is linked with depression and poorer mental health. It all starts in early childhood because, believe it or not, little boys are treated differently by their parents.
“Studies have shown that parents tend to treat their daughters differently from their sons, beginning at birth. Parents touch, cuddle, and talk to their infant daughters more than their sons. They also respond more promptly and sensitively to baby girls’ expressions of pain or discomfort, while ignoring those of boys. This could be one reason why girls tend to talk earlier than boys, and are generally more emotionally expressive. Little boys needs just as much cuddling and social interaction as girls. This will not make them weak or overly dependent.”
Aletha J. Solter
Crying is necessary and the rise of depression amongst men makes sense in the context of this new information.
“Men are more prone to stress-related illnesses than are women. Men also cry less than women. Dr. William Frey, who did the biochemical analysis of human tears, has suggested that this lack of crying in men may be one of the reasons that men are more prone to stress-related illnesses and live shorter lives than women, on the average”
Crying is cathartic and helps the body to eliminate through tears the stress hormons accumulated in the organism.
“Crying to release stress is probably as important for healthy development as eating, sleeping or being held”
Our modern society does not like babies or parents. We have built a system where being a parent is a sort of punishment: you receive less money, your new job is seen as demeaning and you are pretty much excluded. You hurry to get back to work out of the fear of being fired or left out. We expect a mother or a father to be able to care for a demanding baby 24 hours yet we ignore that we come from hunter gatherer tribes and a long time ago there was an entire village helping parents raise their children. Now we are so isolated and we blame if a mother complains that it is too hard and we ruthlessly judge her is she says she needs more help.
This kind of book is so important because it says the ugly truth: we have no idea about the most important job in the world yet we blame the current society and wash our hands of the very thing that we contribute the least to: helping adults become the best parents!
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