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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 35. No. 12. 7 June 1972

Are Children Private Property?

page 6

Are Children Private Property?

The most common cause of infant mortality in the U.S. is parental baby bashing. In the U.S.S.R. neurosis is considered the most frequent disease of childhood- "precipitated by a badly organised environment and frequently also by faulty upbringing." The headlines of an article by J. Ritchie for Thursday(24,4,72)says that "New Zealand mothers are hopeless mums". There seems to be quite a lot of indication that child-adult relationships as defined in these countries are stressful situations.

These countries are competitive societies where there is a polarisation of the stronger and the weaker. Existence in such a society is risky for the weak and children are definitely in this category. Quite often children are in such a weak position that they are largely dependent on one other human being for all their needs. In their experience mother has always been the only one to provide them with their primary and secondary needs so that one can say that in a truly Pavlovian fashion the children have been conditioned to their mother. The bitter isolation of the children becomes apparent when mother "absconds". What psychologists call maternal deprivation is caused by investing all a childs needs in a physical and social sense into one person and a subsequent separation of this person from the child.

Maternal deprivation is not only one of the bad effects of a competitive society it also reveals the quality of the child-parent relationship.

Many parents feel irritated and frustrated by the job of child-rearing that has become a full-time energy and soul-consuming obsession instead of a way of helping a child to get through childhood with a minimum of pain for the parent as well as for the child. Therefore in "normal" human development these parents hardly ever shy back from threatening withdrawal of love in the form of sending away or spanking. John Bowlby describes the guilt-feelings of some children who were separated from their mothers and suffered maternal deprivation. "I will be a good girl - don't send me- (p.31) cries a little girl who has to go into hospital. Another example is given in "Brief Separations" where a boy has soiled his pants in the institution- "You are not going to spank me, are you Daddy?"

[unclear: Ther] term "maternal deprivation" has been used asa bogeyman for several decades to prevent this chance happening. It came into fashion just after the second world-war in order to get mothers to retreat back into the homes after their all-out participation in the war effort when the ranks of the unemployed were swelled by the returning troops. Betty Friedan in the Feminine Mystique commented, "How many women realize even now that the babies in those publicized cases, who withered away from 'ack of maternal affection, were not the children of educated middle class mothers who left them in others' care certain hours of the day to practice a profession or write a poem or fight a political battle - but truly abandoned children-foundlings often deserted at birth by unwed mothers and drunken fathers, children who had never had a home or tender loving care." Unfortunately it was exactly the women who were potentially capable of practising professions, writing poems and fighting political battles who were most susceptible to the propaganda - battery of the news-media and paediatricians. Because their husbands received family-sized wages they could afford to be so, sensitive. The myth that a prior middle class child-rearing was better than lower class child-rearing or negro child rearing or Maori child rearing got an enormous boost because look how much more effort and attention went into a child. As middle class parents are more educated they feel more guilty. When the baby comes home from the hospital it starts to cry - in the morning in the afternoon, at night - sometimes solid for three months. Food doesn't help, friendliness doesn't help, clean nappy doesn't help, burping doesn't help, shaking, yelling and smothering don't help either.

If you haven't got far in this world perhaps you are more realistic in accepting that your importance as a parent is rather limited and that the baby will have to make do with you.

The baby is "naughty" claim is made by parents who fondly hope they are better than their child. Scientifically speaking, the concept of "naughtiness" simply has not got a hope. It implies two sets of values — one of them inherently superior, the other inherently inferior; a strongly developed consciousness of one's own and someone else's set of values, and malicious intent. Surely, only the parents are capable of such manoeuvering.

We cry because we are unhappy or lonely or scared and that is why we don't want a baby to cry because it has no right to be unhappy and lonely and scared, so far that baby has mainly meant quarrels, pain and money, and after all this sacrifice it cries, wallowing in loneliness and wet and yellow nappies, accusing the parents' impotence to help.

The father is usually the one who is most "educated"; the one most under the illusion that he has got everything under control. He is cunning at predicting the behaviour of the system, at knowing the mind of the lecturer, at playing the games of the exam. Some nights before the end of the first month, in the dangerous hours between 1,2 and 5, he will stand by the cot shaking, hissing and shouting.

The mother at the edge herself jumps at the chance to release her frustration in shrieking — "Don't, it's only a baby" struggling to hold him back or snatching the baby away - "keep you hands off my baby".

The utter helplessness of a baby is infuriating. Maybe the baby doesn't like the happy family set-up and wants to go back to the womb. Maybe he is bored to death in his little cot where he lies with no control over his movements, and his voice is the only tool he can use for impact on his environment. Maybe he is scared in a world that he doesn't know the patterns of, and that doesn't make sense to him.

Whatever his appeal is, the parents will lose their cool and get to know the Plunket nurse and Dr Spock as well as the junkie knows the court and the psychiatrist. The helping hand offered by the serving professions however, never strikes at the core because they only give ad hoc advice on how to sterilise a bottle and when to put the baby to sleep in a separate room.

But what is the use of sterilizing a bottle if a whole world of shit is going to be shoved down a child's throat? What is the point of prohibiting a child to watch sex if it has already grasped that it is power rather than love that prevails in families, schools, clubs, countries and therefore sex as well? Young children are painfully perceptive and this is not good for society. So society gives the parents roles in an ugly charade, and with the help of Kate Harcourt and Walt Disney the child is mystified and alienated from his improper perceptiveness, which is channeled into the subconscious. On a conscious level only the instated tricks of an absurd world remain at the disposal of a child made silly, stupid and sadomasochistic.

In 1846 the New Zealand government made it clear by means of the Destitute Persons Act that the family and not the state is responsible for its dependent members. Many inroads have been made since, but parental love is still treated by society as the cheapest commodity for producing new labourers and soldiers to guarantee the continuation of the system.

This state of affairs is neither natural nor desirable. If you resent your role as a parent don't be confused into resenting your child. He is the dearest thermometer you can read your involvement with shit and power from. And when you read him, who knows, you will start doing something about it. Next time he cries you may even feel some solidarity with him.

Recommended reading;

David Cooper - The Death of The Family - a sound theory for everyone who thinks about starting a commune.

Bruno Bettelheim - Children of the Dream - gives some evaluation on changes in personality structure as a consequence of Kibbutz childrearing.

A.S.Neill - Summerhill - the case of self-regulation for children.

Shulamith Firestone - Dialects of Sex - some good chapters on the ways in which children are used.