The incredible journey of our lives starts out literally in a breath taking way. From the very first moment that we are born into this world we are a combination of many things. We are of course a combination of both sides of our families. Your mouth a little like Aunt Jessie's on mom's side and ears as big as Uncle Ted's on dad's side. Fiery tempered like grandpa Smitty but good looking like grandma Sarah and so on. But there are other traits too, traits that we don't usually acknowledge.
We are born with DNA that spans back much further than we can imagine. DNA that goes back so far that in every new human there are genetic memories. What are these?
For example worms are not normally afraid of light but in a scientific experiment scientists gave a group of worms electric shocks when the lights went on. Of course they became fearful of any light, however the interesting thing is, their offspring were actually born afraid of light. Even tho this experiment was not done on them!
With humans one thing is we all come from days when there was lots of danger especially for newborns and children. So much so that if a mother were to put her infant down when he did not want and he cried, a predator would have an easy lunch or if a mother were to let her baby cry for any reason and not sooth him immediately it would attract some very unwanted attention, think lions! So mothers who invested 9 plus months carrying their baby during gestation were not likely to ignore their offspring. In fact survival depended on responding in a nurturing way to babies and children. Largely the nurtured survived and the not nurtured perished and on this went. So much so that offspring were born subconsciously expecting to be nurtured and they are still born expecting to be nurtured!
This expectation comes from the DNA where genetic memory is held. Have you ever witnessed a wild animal or even a bird not tend to their needy baby or even to an older offspring? Those that are lacking in this necessary parenting behavior have babies that do perish. So babies "know" what feels right and what does not. Since babies have been comforted since the beginning of at least mammal and bird life on earth, it does only good, huge amounts of good to comfort your baby. Putting your baby into a fear emotion by not comforting him will only create stress for him and yourself and can be the start of a mentality that tells him he is not cared for.
Some confused but perhaps well meaning "experts" may spread their words around confusing mothers and fathers but what has worked for our species since the beginning and works for other successful species since the beginning till now, will still work now and into the future.
On the other hand when we view our culture with it's pushing children away, weaning too early (for a hominid), and not holding our babies nearly enough plus our coming up with odd experiments like letting babies self sooth (this by the way is a experiment when you realize anything done that is abnormal for how to treat a helpless baby can bear very bad results), we view a culture with lots of anti survival things going on, like drug addition for example.
As many of you can see humans seem to be experiencing greater and greater amounts of deep depression and violent behavior. It seems that when we face an infant who is born to follow his developmental rights to be nursed, held and nurtured, and he gets only a fraction of this with well meaning parents that are following societies latest trends, we are shortchanging the infant and the grown human he is going to be.
By the time an infant in our society is 2 years old he will have experienced hundreds and hundreds of hours of crying instead of infants born in cultures where there is hardly a cry because these cultures and tribes parent from their heart and genetic memories instead from their heads.
When a human grows up with his first experiences (even though he most likely does not consciously remember them) telling him that he is not cared for enough to be consoled and nurtured, he grows up feeling insecure, angry and hurt and he gets use to these feelings. Many spend the rest of their lives with this sadness and anxiety or anger.
Of course here in our society there are times when your child can not have what he may want at that moment (like more sugar or more tv etc.) but as long as he is given what he needs from the very beginning and that he has feelings of being loved and nurtured he will also have feelings of being safe and that builds confidence and with confidence he will be able to make it through the challenges life may throw his way!
In essence you can never go wrong when you parent from your heart.
As the saying goes love is patient and love is kind!
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