| In the restaurant in Moscow, the groom from
the wedding came over and introduced himself. He picked up our
daughter and held her up for everyone to see. He gave an impromptu
speech to the wedding party about the cold war (ongoing at the
time), about politics and human relations, and how this (still
holding the baby up) was what was going to repair relations
between our two countries. Not politicians, not treaties, but
simply taking our children outside their own culture to meet other
people. He handed her to another person, and she was passed around
the room, from table to table.
Our frame of reference in this country is so
narrow that it's hard to talk about raising children in any
meaningful way. When we discuss breastfeeding in airports, the
debate focuses on whether other travelers should have to tolerate
hungry babies being fed in public, or whether that sort of
activity should be done in a bathroom. We cannot even conceive of
shifting the debate to whether or not nursing women should be
treated as diplomats. Nor can we conceive of a professional guard
force that makes faces at babies to make them laugh. I was reading
this week about the Sentinels at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers,
and found this on their organization's website: "Today, most
of the challenges faced by the Sentinels are tourists who want to
get a better picture or uncontrolled children (which generally is
very frightening for the parent when the Soldier challenges the
child)."
When we talk about dehumanization, we tend
to think about how it relates to the way our troops are trained to
view Iraqi citizens or how guards view prisoners, or how riot
police view protesters. We think in terms of a subject and object,
as if the dehumanization is something done to an object - when
it's actually the human relations and connections between two
people that are being destroyed.
From a very young age, we train our children
to break bonds with their parents. Children who sleep with their
parents are "spoiled"; parents who allow this to happen
"have no discipline". We are advised by professionals to
train or children to fall asleep in cribs, in their own rooms. We
are told how important it is not to give in to their
"demands" to sleep side by side with their parents. The
goal is to create self-reliant independent adults as quickly as
possible, and we begin this process almost as soon as a child is
born. In other cultures, children are wrapped or slung against
their parents' bodies as they go about their day. We use baby
strollers instead of slings, so that instead of feeling our
bodies, children feel the bumps of cement sidewalks through a
plastic or metal frame. We put them into plastic baby carriers,
holding our children at arm's length by a handle. I'm not
convinced that babies are supposed to come with carrying handles,
even if it is more convenient.
The great thing about using a sling is that
a baby feels the parent breathing, feels their heartbeat, and
moves when their body moves. They feel and share the rhythm of our
steps as we walk. As parents, we in turn do the same. When a child
in a sling shifts their weight, the parent naturally shifts to
maintain balance. Instead of fostering independence, it fosters
interdependence and human connection.
I look at photos of people marching in
support of Chavez, or of the people in Oaxaca rising up as one
entity against oppression, and I wonder why we can't do that here,
why the immigrants marched in our country with a common purpose
this year, but we as a nation couldn't or wouldn't rise up as one
when the government failed the people of the Gulf Coast.
Then I look at photos of us with our
children, and I think I get it.
|
