Children need their mums through the most formative youngest years, by Janet Albrechtsen.
[Jan] recalled that after her kids had grown into three remarkable young adults, a man asked whether she had spent a lot of time with them at home. When she said, yes, he said: “Well, it shows.”
We, the current crop of women, have a lot to show for ourselves. A stellar education, great jobs, careers that take us interesting places, enlightened men in our lives who parent more than their fathers did. …
There’s a lame joke about feminism being a great idea until something goes wrong with the car. Maybe feminism was a great idea until something went wrong with the kids. Women don’t need a man to fix a car. Not as a matter of strict biology, anyway, though I’m grateful to the blokes in greasy overalls at my local garage. But children, especially babies, do need their mothers.
Before feminists have conniptions and demand equality between the sexes and equal parenting, is it too much to check in on how children are going? To check the science and to be reminded of our biology?
Komisar … started noticing more absent mothers and motherhood being undervalued, along with boys being diagnosed with ADHD and an increase in depression diagnoses in young girls. Komisar also noticed more young children being diagnosed with “social disorders”, having trouble relating to others and lacking empathy. …But the science that literally strikes at the heart is Komisar’s discussion about oxytocin. This is a neurotransmitter known as the “love” or “trust” hormone. Komisar explains that mothers produce oxytocin when they give birth, breastfeed and are emotionally present with their babies. The more a mother engages with her baby through touching, gazing into newborn eyes and using sweet gaga talk, the more oxytocin she produces, and “the more oxytocin she produces, the more she bonds with her child”. …
The release of oxytocin in the baby’s brain from being nurtured becomes a buffer against the negative effects of stressful events. Elaborating to The Wall Street Journal, Komisar explains that “every time a mother comforts a baby in distress, she’s actually regulating that baby’s emotions from the outside in. After three years, the baby internalises that ability to regulate their emotions, but not until then.” It’s not the same with fathers because our magnificent biology means women produce more oxytocin than men. …
That’s no surprise in women’s studies departments that routinely deny women’s biology in a blind rage to expunge difference. … Curiosity has its limits, though, at least among the political class, where it has become virtually verboten to discuss how mothers promote wellbeing in a baby. … Plenty of women won’t like Komisar’s book because it unsettles the new normal where highly educated women work full time, long hours, carving out brilliant careers from a young age, and babies and young children are placed in daycare or have two nannies — the weekday one and one for the weekend.
hat-tip Stephen Neil
