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Indeed, genes are important—but their importance is only realised through the influence of conscious parenting and the rich- ness of opportunities provided by the environment. Indeed, genes are important—but their importance is only in Romanian orphanages and poor-quality day-care centres realised through the influence of conscious parenting and the rich- stunted the children's growth and adversely affected their ness of opportunities provided by the environment. behaviour. Carlson, who studied 60 Romanian children from a few months to three years of age, measured their cortisol levels by Conscious Mothering and Fathering analysing samples of saliva. The more stressed a child was, as T used to close my public lectures with the admonition that we determined by the higher-than-normal levels of cortisol in its are personally responsible for everything in our lives. Such a clo- blood, the poorer the outcome for the child. (Holden, 1996) sure did not make me popular with the audiences. That responsi- Carlson and others have also done research on monkeys and bility was too much for many people to accept. After one lecture, rats, demonstrating crucial links between touch, the secretion of an older woman in the audience was so distressed by my conclu- the stress hormone cortisol and social development. Studies by sion that she brought her husband backstage and, in tears, vehe- James W. Prescott, former director of the National Institutes of mently contested my conclusion. She did not want any part of Health's Human Health and Child Development section, revealed some of the tragedies she had experienced. This woman con- that newborn monkeys deprived of physical contact with their vinced me that my summary conclusion had to be modified. I mothers or social contact with others, developed abnormal stress realised that I didn't want to contribute to foisting blame and guilt —_ profiles and became violent sociopaths. (Prescott, 1990) on any individual. As a society, we are too apt to wallow in guilt Prescott followed up these studies with an assessment of human or scapegoat others for our problems. As we gain insights overa _ cultures based on how they raise their children. He found that if a lifetime, we become better equipped to take charge of our lives. society physically held and loved its children and did not repress After some deliberation, this woman from the audience happily sexuality, that culture was peaceful. Peaceful cultures feature par- accepted the following resolution: you are personally responsible ents who maintain extensive physical contact with their children, for everything in your life, once you such as carrying their baby on their chest become aware that you are personally or back throughout the day. In con- responsible for everything in your life. trast, societies that deprive their One cannot be "guilty" of being a poor . infants, children and adolescents of parent unless one is already aware of Genes are important— extensive touch are inevitably violent the above-described information and but their importance 1s only in nature. One of the differences disregards it. Once you become aware . . etween populations is that many of of this information, you can begin to realised through the influence the children not receiving touch suffer apply it to reprogram your behaviour. of conscious parenting and from somatosensory affective disorder. And while we're on the subject of . wae This disorder is characterised by an myths about parenting, it is absolutely the richness of opportunities inability to physiologically suppress not true that you are the same parent provided by the environment. surging levels of stress hormones, a for all of your children. Your second recursor to violent episodes. child is not a clone of the first child. (Prescott, 1990, 1996) The same things are not happening in These findings provide insights into your world that happened when the first the violence that pervades the United child was born. I once thought that I was the same parent for my States. Rather than endorsing physical closeness, our current first child as I was for my very different second child. But when I medical and psychological practices often discourage it. From the analysed my parenting, I found that was not true. When my first unnatural intervention of medical doctors in the natural process of child was born, I was at the beginning of my graduate school birthing, for example, separating the neonate for extensive periods training, which was for me a difficult transition fraught with a from the parents into distant nurseries, to advising parents not to high workload accompanied by high insecurity. By the time my __ respond to their baby's cries for fear of spoiling them...such prac- second daughter was born, I was a more confident, more accom- tices, presumably based upon "science", undoubtedly contribute to plished research scientist ready to start my academic career. I had the violence in our civilisation. The research regarding touch—or more time and more psychic energy to parent my second child lack of it—and its relationship to violence is described in full at and to better parent my first daughter, who was by then a toddler. the website http://www. violence.de. Another myth I'd like to address is that infants need lots of But what about the Romanian children who came out of stimulation in the form of black-and-white flash cards or other deprived backgrounds and became what one researcher called "the learning tools marketed to parents to increase the intelligence of resilient wonders"? Why do some children thrive despite their their children. Michael Mendizza and Joseph Chilton Pearce's backgrounds? Because they have "better" genes? By now, you inspiring book Magical Parent, Magical Child makes it clear that know that I don't believe that. More likely, the birth parents of play, not programming, is the key to optimising the learning and these resilient wonders provided a more nurturing prenatal and performance of infants and children. (Mendizza and Pearce, perinatal environment as well as good nutrition at crucial points in 2001) Children need parents who can playfully foster the the child's development. curiosity, creativity and wonder accompanying their children into The lesson for adoptive parents is that they should not pretend the world. their children's lives began when they came into their new Obviously, what humans need is nurture in the form of love and surroundings. Their children may already have been programmed the ability to observe older humans going about their everyday by their birth parents with a belief that they are unwanted or lives. When babies in orphanages, for example, are kept in cribs unlovable. If more fortunate, they may have received, at some and only provided with food but not one-on-one smiles and hugs, crucial stage in their development, positive, life-affirming they develop long-lasting developmental problems. One study of — messages from their caretakers. If adoptive parents are not aware Romanian orphans by Mary Carlson, a neurobiologist at Harvard of pre- and perinatal programming, they may not be able to deal Medical School, concluded that the lack of touching and attention _ realistically with post-adoption issues. They may not realise that Genes are important— but their importance is only realised through the influence ~f£--.- aoa! of conscious parenting and the richness of opportunities provided by the environment. NEXUS = 33 FEBRUARY — MARCH 2006 www.nexusmagazine.com