The medicalisation of birthing and child rearing mid last century signaled a violent departure from what was, by comparison, more instinctive infant parenting.
My own mother was told she would ’spoil’ me if she didn’t leave me, at six weeks of age, to cry myself to sleep for days on end, until I was ‘trained’ to fall asleep on my own. Divorced from her own essential nature by the culture she was born into, my mother had no option but to ‘do what the doctor said’. Giving birth for her involved induction, stirrups, drugs, episiotomy and post birth separation. Why on earth would she trust her own instinct after all this? My birth and infancy experience was stored in my body, as it is in every one’s. It has taken many years to unravel the damage done in these first few weeks of life.
As a child, I was fascinated with native people of the world. What did they eat, how did they live without assistance in the wild? Were they more ‘natural’ than me? What was my nature? Most of my adult life I have concerned myself with creating a more natural, connected experience of living. My first birthing experience showed me how very far from ‘natural’ I was. Although I was determined to birth at home, after 2 days of labour, finally I went to hospital. Without the help of the drugs and the staff, both myself and my son would not be alive. I was devastated, shocked that I could not do what millions of women had done before me and determined to find out why. Miraculously, this book appeared in my life.
Jean Liedloff’s “The Continuum Concept” articulates the natural principles upon which Attachment Parenting was founded. For a total of two-and-a-half years, Liedloff lived in the South American jungle with the Yequana Indians. She observed that these indigenous people were the happiest people she had ever seen. The children were emotionally secure, obedient, and well behaved; they almost never cried or fought with each other. She also noted, the mothers maintained nearly 24-hour bodily contact with their infants as they went about their daily tasks. From this strong base of security, the children grew up to be independent, centered, and serene.
According to Liedloff, in order to achieve optimal development, human beings especially babies require the kind of experience to which their species adapted during the long process of their evolution. For infants, these include such experiences as:
- being placed immediately in the mother’s arms at birth, and from then on carried constantly in arms or strapped to someone until crawling on his/her own impulse, usually at six to eight months;
- co-sleeping in the parents’ bed, in constant physical contact, until leaving of their own volition (often about two years);
- breastfeeding “on cue”
- having caregivers immediately respond to body signals (squirming, crying, etc.), without judgment, displeasure, or invalidation of the child’s needs, yet showing no undue concern nor making the child the constant center of attention;
- sensing (and fulfilling) elders’ expectations that he or she is innately social and cooperative and has strong self-preservation instincts, and that he or she is welcome and worthy. Intriguingly the point about children’s self preservation instincts was made by Liedloff’s observation that parents never showed concern when their child was in ‘danger’ eg. playing with knives, toddling near open pits, instead they trusted they would be safe and they were.
How different from most infant’s and children’s experience is this?
Liedloff suggests that when certain evolutionary expectations are not met as infants and toddlers, compensation for these needs will be sought, by alternate means, throughout life resulting in many forms of mental and social disorders. Deprivation of the “in-arms” phase and mistrust of the deeply social nature of our species produces anti-self and consequent antisocial feelings. The result is the “pandemic pathology called normal.”
A beautifully written and inspiring account of her unique experience, Continuum Concept is part of the social movement to ‘return to the wisdom of the Ancients’ that Nourished Magazine champions. My only criticism is one of context. While Liedloff’s ideas are magnificently structured and oh so logical, they are near impossible to implement in our current culture. Living in nuclear families in civilised confinement - three bedroom homes with high fences - trying to care for our children the way the Yequana do is a ridiculousness. Young women of fertile age in the Yequana have a solid sisterhood, with whom they have grown up, gone through spiritual initiations and helped birth (perhaps assisted 15 births by the time it is their turn). They have carried babies since 6 years old. When they birth they’re not alone nor with strangers. Every adult parents every child. No mother is ever alone. How far from the modern mother’s experience is this?
I have often heard that while Jean’s book was inspiring, it also created deep disappointment within many a reader over their own ability to serve their children in the way the Yequana do. Without a strong community living in intimate quarters, is it possible to parent children this way? I would have liked to have seen Jean address this issue. Thirty years since publishing the book, the Liedloff Society for the Continuum Concept continues and supports Liedloff’s work. Their forum may have some answers to this quandry.
About the Author...
Joanne Hay, Editor of Nourished Magazine, Chief Nourisher and Mother of three is very grateful to live in Byron Bay and be able to share all she has learned about Nourishment. She has trained as an Acupuncturist (unfinished), Kinesiologist (finished) and parent (never finished). She serves the Weston A Price Foundation as a chapter leader. She loves sauerkraut, kangaroo tail stew, home made ice cream, her husband Wes and her kids Isaiah, Brynn and Ronin (in no particular order…well maybe ice cream first).
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