I have created this blog on the spur of the moment after watching Andrew Denton interviewing the amazing and wonderful Jane Goodall on "Enough Rope" (ABC TV, Monday 18 June 2007, 9.30 pm to 10.30 pm). I first heard of Jane Goodall, in the late sixties and again encountered her in the early seventies when I began my studies in psychology at the University of Sydney. More recently, I rekindled my interest in her work in Africa afer reading a book about parenting in which the author claimed that research by primatologists demonstrated that our nearest relatives, the chimpanzees, were aggressive, warlike and genocidal and that this showed that these characteristics were hard-wired into our genes (both human and chimpanzee). They even practised infanticide, demonstrating that there could not be such a thing as a maternal instinct (http://conscious-families.blogspot.com/2006/03/attachment-parenting-my-personal.html). I was horrified (and mystified) by these assertions and immediately ordered several of Jane Goodall's books and satisfied myself that primate behaviour, including thast of chimpanzees, was a lot more complex than the author had made out. Watching and listening to Jane Goodall tonight I was touched by her reverance for all of creation as well as the planet and decided to create this blog. In this blog I will report anything that concerns non-human primates, such as chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutangs, in so far as descriptions of their behaviour may help us to understand our common heritage a little better. I hope you enjoy the material.
I have decided to paste the relevant section from my other blog here, as an introduction to the sort of ideas that will be presented here in the future:
A book that was published earlier this month (June 2005), not only claims that “attachment parenting” is a “new” approach, based on the most modern, cutting-edge “scientific” research but that the human race is on the verge of a “revolution” in child-rearing as a result (I have decided against naming the book, or its author, because what I wish to discuss are the ideas – which are held by many in the field – rather than a specific book). The further back we go in our history, we are told, the worse our parenting, indeed the history of child-rearing is replete with neglect and abuse and even abandonment and infanticide. This is as true for “primitive” or “traditional” or “modern hunter gatherer” societies, the author claims, as it is in our own, Western society. Indeed, the incidence of infanticide and other forms of abuse, neglect and abandonment is so universal that, it is claimed, the very idea of a “maternal instinct” is untenable. Not only are infanticide and other forms of child abuse universal we are told, but so is wide-scale destructiveness, war and even genocide. “Evil”, in the form of violence, cruelty, genocide and infanticide is part of our genetic makeup, says the author, with a clear evolutionary purpose. All of these traits are to be found in the animal kingdom, including chimpanzees, our closest genetic relative (we share 98% of our DNA with the common chimpanzee), according to the author.The fact that such a characterisation of the human condition could be written, in 2005, by someone claiming to champion the cause of “attachment parenting” is not only disheartening; it is simply bizarre. The fact that a book containing such irreverent, dangerous nonsense has been praised by several well-known authors in the “attachment parenting” community has finally brought home to me the dangers inherent in linking parenting and child-rearing (including “attachment parenting”) with science and with the institution of scientific research. This marriage between “attachment parenting” and science has always made me feel extremely uncomfortable, for several reasons. The main one is that the institution we call “science” and the rituals and practices associated with scientific research are inextricably bound up with modern society and its institutions. The kind of approach to children and parents that has received the label “attachment parenting”, on the other hand, is ANCIENT. It is the way human beings have cared for the young for more than 99% of our existence on the planet – and this was the main message of Jean Liedloff’s Continuum concept. It is not only part of our human heritage; it is part of our primate heritage; indeed, it is part of our mammalian heritage. If there were no “maternal instinct”, the human race would simply have died out, together with our mammalian relations. To say that mammals, including primates, including humans, have evolved some sort of a genetic predisposition to abandoning, neglecting, abusing and even killing the young of the species is simply too bizarre to treat seriously. Such a view depends on a highly-selective use of highly-selective observations, not of normal, natural mammalian behaviour, but of bizarre aberrations that occur when nature is interfered with. It would simply be tedious to go through the motions of demonstrating something that ought to be blindingly obvious. Primatologists who have spent years – sometimes decades – living with chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans, for example, paint a very different picture of their behaviour – while noting that the aberrations cited do, indeed, occur. Our closest relation is not the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodyte) but the bonobo, or pygmy chimpanzee (Pan paniscus). We actually share 99% of our DNA with the bonobo, the most peaceful and cooperative creature on the planet. And no wild monkey or ape mother has ever been observed to harm – and certainly not to kill – its baby, unless it has first been put into a highly artificial environment and treated inhumanely. In addition, anybody who has actually spent time living with indigenous people would find the above characterisation incredible. My own experience with Aboriginal people makes such a characterisation laughable. Finally, far from child-rearing improving over the course of human history – “evolving”, as it is claimed – it has been getting progressively worse, so that today we have 30% of babies being born via a caesarean section, virtually all the rest being born in hospitals, with medication and medical intervention (only 2% are born in birthing centres!!); these babies are vaccinated with far more vaccines than ever before, breastfeeding has become “a mother’s choice”, institutionalised “childcare” often begins in the first few weeks of a baby’s life and “controlled crying” and “behaviour modification” are as popular as ever. The result is an epidemic of ADHD, autism, aggression and depression, as well as severe psychiatric disturbances. Every one of the so-called “mental disorders” has been increasing over the past fifty years (there has been a ten-fold increase in the incidence of depression in children and a thirty-fold increase in the incidence of autism).Therefore, to link “attachment parenting” with some sort of mythical “progress” or “evolution” in human society and, in particular, to link it with advances in scientific research, is both mistaken and dangerous. The cornerstone of “attachment parenting” is not scientific evidence but TRUST – trust in babies and trust in parents, especially in the mother’s natural instincts to care for her young. These instincts do not operate in a vacuum, however, but need the support of the father and other people, so that mothers are not isolated in suburbia and given the impossible – and unprecedented – task of caring for their babies alone. The point is though, it is unhelpful to replace the harmful “expert” advice of a previous generation (“let them cry”; “wean them as soon as possible”, etc) with another set of equally rigid prescriptions called “attachment parenting”. Neither set of “experts” trusts mothers to do the mothering but wants to tell them how to do it properly. The reality is that, given the artificial world in which we live – the “modern world” – given the dysfunctional nature of our society, mothers, fathers and their babies simply have to come to some sort of a working arrangement, one that meets as many needs as possible – of the parents as well as the babies and young children. If mothers, instead of being subjected to the ill-informed advice of experts, were simply given the support they need – and valued for the invaluable, if unpaid, work that they perform – they are more likely to bond with their babies, to fall in love with their babies, to listen to their babies and, most important of all, listen to and hear their own inner voice. If they do that, they will be practising “attachment parenting” without realising that they are doing any such thing. It is the caring and nurturing that flow from this bond – this attachment – that defines “attachment parenting”, not a set of prescribed scientific principles. Andrew Reiner,27 June, 2005
Monday, 18 June 2007
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