Mother and Babies
Yesterday in the early evening I noticed a bit of a commotion three streets away when I was returning to my hotel in downtown Auckland, New Zealand. There were ambulances and police cars surrounding a high hotel/apartment block.
This morning I learned that a Mother with her three month old baby in her arms had jumped from the 26th floor of The Auckland Harbour Oaks Hotel. They landed on the pool decking. They died.
News reports claim that people saw the mother in an extremely distressed state in the hotel/apartment lobby just minutes before. She was yelling and crying into a mobile phone. What a distressing story!
I sometimes check other countries for small town news. I always wonder what is happening outside of my small world. Of course, news which distresses us IS news so I don't find much good news but I do find out that tragedy strikes everywhere.
How many people around the world committed suicide when I was sleeping last night?
Three streets away from me even before the night had begun one woman did take her own life and she took her three month old baby with her. The woman was Mexican and her husband arrived from another part of New Zealand this morning. The family were here in Auckland on business and the husband had been working for a very short time in another part of New Zealand. People will gossip about it today and forget about it by tomorrow.
To me it is a colossal tragedy. Every woman who has ever grown the amount of love one can have for a three month old baby will barely be able to understand just how a woman could leap off a balcony and take her baby with her.
I too am staying on the 26th floor of my hotel. I went out onto the balcony to see what it would be like to jump. It is a LONG way down. One could not survive of course. My rational mind could not conceive of doing such a thing and yet I had to deal with the fact that this poor lovely lady had done just that. It horrified me and I have been thinking a lot of this Mother and baby and her family they left behind.
Mothers are unsupported in our world. We as women and the whole community are not passing on our parenting knowledge in a natural way, that is, just by 'being' a parent, by being a Mother. There is just no time and it is a result of the choices we make. Indeed for most Mothers they say it is the choice they are forced to make. So now we must take responsibility and educate our girls at least. We must find other ways. Along with this, we must educate our boys about their responsibilities as a parent in the future.
What is the use of 'suicide prevention strategies' at this fraught time? In Australia after such a tragedy the prevention authorities would definitely start barring up windows when such a tragedy occurs. Every high rise building in the area would be forbidden to have a window that opens above the first three floors. These kinds of 'preventative' responses will never stop a distressed young Mother from feeling overwhelmed in her situation and wanting to end it all. The real effective prevention strategies are needed when our future parents are still children. They need to learn the truth of what it is like to become a parent rather than dreaming in their young adult years of having a cute little baby – very romantic.
I think of that woman now dead. I think of her as a schoolgirl. How much had she learned about Mothering? How much was she thinking about difficulties that may arise when she finally became a Mother?
Until our Education facilities begin offering the much needed programmes about some of the important realities of their lives ahead young people will leave their many years of being educated with no understanding that one day, no matter how well they are educated, they will face the daunting task of becoming a parent. Women are very vulnerable. They will become pregnant. The man will not. The woman will be left with a baby. The man will not. Maybe the man and woman will both want and love a baby, -not always.
Girls very much need early education about becoming a Mother but they don't know it and they certainly don't want it. In their fantasies they definitely know the joys. In their fantasies they never think about the difficulties. They will never entertain the fantasy that one day they may feel so desperate they could take a fantasy jump from a fantasy high rise building with their fantasy baby and bounce and have a fantasy death and kill their fantasy longed for baby at the same time as they leave this world.
It happened here last night and my heart weeps.
I want some questions answered but this was a private matter and we will never find out what problems had caused such a tragic incident.. Even though there was a public display of this woman's emotional distress in the hotel foyer- even though there was a public leap from a high rise building with babe in arms - even though the bodies and blood were publicly splattered around a swimming pool - it is unlikely the truth will ever be known by us who are not connected to that particular family, the police or the coroner. We care but nothing can be done.
My questions will never be answered so I am left to surmise.
Maybe the Mother was freaking out about surrendering to her baby's needs and was ill equipped to handle the whole situation (post natal depression). Maybe the yelling into a cell phone was her screaming at her husband who was a long way away in the Wairarapa district on a job. Who will ever know? Her family and particular authorities will and we won't.
How many young women will learn from this tragic story? Probably none. Most will think she was crazed, a mad woman! Not so!
Mothers are unsupported in our world. We as women and the whole community are not passing on our parenting knowledge in a natural way, that is, just by being a parent. So now we must take responsibility and educate our girls at least. Along with this we must educate our boys about their responsibilities joys and hardships of being a parent in the future.
She, this poor woman, is you, potentially, and you cannot believe that. No, to us, she is just an unfortunate person with an unfortunate baby and an unfortunate husband and family... or a 'crazy'!
This is just not true.
She had been a young female expecting to meet a man. She did - expecting to make a baby- she did - maybe wanting to travel. She did.
Killing one's baby is not loving ones baby no matter how distressed one may get.
Would we call this poor Mother a killer? No.
Us Mothers know the stresses of being a Mother in this bold new world. Let us teach our young girls that being born female can make us predisposed to emotionality and we can act in regrettable ways because of that. Very rarely is a Mother a killer of her own offspring. Infanticide involving a single Mother in a country with no recent cultural history regarding the killing of offspring is rare.
What is not so rare is the incidence of 'difficulty and failure to cope with new Motherhood' and the drastic results for women, their babies, their husbands and partners and the whole family and community.
Why can't we teach our daughters and sons about this throughout the many years of growing and learning in modern education facilities where, in some Western countries at least attendance is not only compulsory but much wanted also?
Imagine learning as a young schoolgirl that when you have a baby, along with all of the joys of nursing and loving a new baby there will most likely be quite major stresses that will need to be overcome.
We can teach our girls that for many and varied reasons as new Mothers they may experience all, or a combination of such things as becoming extraordinarily tired and lacking in energy - or feeling a great lack of confidence in their Mothering. They may look around and see everybody else doing very well whilst they themselves feel like a complete failure. Through lack of confidence they may need constant assurance like never before. They may feel completely inadequate at times. They will definitely feel isolated and for some that will be the very first time in their lives. Isolated is one thing but feeling isolated and having a needy totally dependent tiny human being to tend to is quite another. When they were young, failing in an exam was dramatic, drastic! But the feeling of failing with one's own needy infant baby is devastating and support is needed. When I was teaching ante natal classes for many years the focus was naturally on the pregnancy and birth. When I came to the very short section on parenting and post birth realities people would become a little bored. When we are pregnant the main focus as we see our bellies grow is on how are we going to get our babies through into the world. It is not an optimum time to be learning about parenting, learning all of the required focus and skills. We must incorporate the learning and knowledge in our vast educational systems especially focussing on the development of a child and a child's mind. Along with that young people can learn about themselves.
Girls can be taught that at these points resentment toward the baby may arise because the things they once enjoyed do no excite them any more and their baby takes up all of their time. They may lose their appetite or they may turn to food and go crazy with eating which will cause them to gain weight rather than take off all the pregnancy weight gain they are so eager to lose. We could tell them they may resent or even fear being alone at times or then there is the possibility of generating the exact opposite. They will avoid being with others where they are afraid they will expose the dreadful truth that they are not coping with new Motherhood. They will feel very sad for their baby at this point because they know the lack of nurturance is affecting their baby whom they adore. Their self esteem could plummet. They may experience post baby - short term memory loss, something that had never ever happened to them before pregnancy or birth. They will find their sleep patterns will change and sleep deprivation could become the norm. They may long to feel close to their baby but no such feeling arises. They could feel resentful of their situation because they have no energy or time to spend relaxing with their partner, family or friends.
Many different emotions could be and probably will be experienced during this time. They may have times of feeling low. Low moods may become the norm also for a while. They may get angry and frustrated like never before or they may just feel numb. They will definitely feel sad at some point. Sadness is about loss. What will they actually lose that could make them feel such sadness? For one thing, they will lose the freedom they formerly had, a freedom never to return in the same way, EVER! Even when their child is thirty years old they will still feel a deep connection and a certain kind of responsibility for their child. At first that is a lot to cry about even though they will have no idea why they are crying. And then there will be the anger that will come at times. Anger comes from 'not getting what you want and feeling that you are being taken from'. That is what causes anger. So here is the optimal situation, if ever there was one.
Imagine teaching our girls that combinations of these feelings may come and go for at least a few months after giving birth but the worst scenario is that they could all come at once. Then we must teach them that major help and support will be needed.
When I have suggested teaching our beautiful future Mothers these facts as young women, people are horrified. They believe we would be putting terrible thoughts into our children's minds. They believe it is an unnecessary dissemination of information that will put too much fear into them. It would be too much for the girls. It could spoil their lives, their hopes, their dreams. When I respond with "Didn't you teach your children how to swim?" they become quite silent. They get my point. Women do, especially because many of them relate to those difficult early days, months and sometimes years of becoming a Mother, forced to give up so much to take on the responsibility of a new, most precious and completely dependent being who has come into their lives.
Very many women I have helped over the years have been shocked and horrified to find out that all their good intentions, fantasies and expectations as new Mothers turned out to produce the exact opposites as a result. These women had never heard one single story of the horrors and the difficulties that can arise pre and post birth and for many years to come. When something of this nature does happen they come to believe that they themselves must be crazy, faulty, deeply flawed human beings. So sad to see at the time when the baby needs their Mother to be feeling very much the opposite.
I always liked Erik H Erikson's quote (see below) inferring that us parents are at risk of becoming infantile ourselves when our children are born. In many ways this is true. We are thrown by association back into the realm of a 'needy child' and sometimes it is difficult to remain 'adult' about it.
Of course, although I have been addressing the situation of Mothers and babies here, as mentioned before, boys who will become Fathers require the same input and learning in their earlier years. We will only ever be able to encourage and educate these boys for long enough in their school years so let us focus on that. They are far less likely to be thinking about becoming a Father at that age and that is perfectly normal but they can be quite interested in the subject of parenthood generally. They do have parents after all.
Here are some great quotes from influential people. These are all, interestingly, from the mid 1990's. I believe that there has been some progress in some countries on the implementation of parenting education within particular schools' curricula. What is really needed is a programme which is integrated from the moment a child begins their formal education and continues right through to senior school. Why not? Objections and exemptions should be allowed but effectively the education would be compulsory just as with English, native language or mathematics.
For all of us 'educated' students, " Life itself is the final exam". That is a quote from Marilyn Swierk but in the education of our youth that is not regarded as very sexy. That is what friends of mine would say and they are right. That is very true but who wants to be sexy when our children are suffering from the mental torture of dissociation, autism with all of its many combinations of symptoms, so called Aspergers Syndrome, ADHD difficulties, learning inability and difficulties and many more mind and mental ailments due to the lack of healthy responsible, skilled parenting.
WHAT EXPERTS SAY
"At a time when the extended family has broken down, and more and more teenagers are parents, we are in dire need of parenting education. Being a parent is one of the most important jobs we have to do in our short time in this world. That's why parenting education must become part of our schools' curriculum. Every student, boys and girls, should know some of the basics about being a good parent and child development before they become a parent.'" Bill Cosby, Ph.D., Acceptance Message, National Parents' Day Coalition Awards Ceremony, July 1994
"It may well be that the nation cannot survive - as a decent place to live, as a world-class power or even as a democracy - with such high rates of children growing into adulthood unprepared to parent, unprepared to be productively employed and unprepared to share in mainstream aspirations" Douglas W. Nelson, Executive Director, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Time Magazine, 3 June 1996
"Is it not strange. . . . that one of the most important and difficult skills, raising children, goes untaught? Learning parenting skills is vital because the early experiences of children's lives impact their potential for learning and for mental health. We need to create better parents because neglected or abused children are especially prone to perpetuate this cycle when they become adults without resources for healthy parenting. . . . School-based Parenting Education programs can help to prevent future child abuse and work to build healthy children by developing an understanding of child development in future parents and by providing parenting skills such as empathy, listening, problem solving and critical thinking" The Congressional Record – House, Congressman Bob Filner, 24 May 2005.
'One of society's deep seated assumptions is that teaching a skill in school is the best way for a child to learn it. Isn't it strange that the most important and difficult task so many people face - raising children - goes untaught? By making both boys and girls aware of the importance and complexity of child rearing, classes could bring down teenage pregnancy rates, reduce the number of deadbeat dads, and promote caring, responsible mothering and fathering. Regardless of how much detail these boys and girls remember by the time they become parents, the class has imbued them with a deep sense of the reality of parenting, of the sacrifices and demands as well as the joys.'Myriam Miedzian, Ph.D., social philosopher, professor and author: Boys Will Be Boys; Breaking the Link Between Masculinity and Violence.
"With smaller and more isolated families, the opportunities to learn about the joys and responsibilities of parenthood at home have been reduced, and responsibility. . . has shifted primarily to schools. . . . The task force recommends a substantial expansion of efforts to educate young people about parenthood. . . . Education about parenthood can begin in elementary school; it should start no later than early adolescence.'" Carnegie Corporation of New York, Starting Points: Meeting the Needs of Our Youngest Children, April 1994.
"It is now possible for a person eighteen years of age to graduate from high school without ever having had to do a piece of work on which somebody else truly depended...without ever having cared for, or even held, a baby;... without ever having comforted or assisted another human being who really needed help.... No society can long sustain itself unless its members have learned the sensitivities, motivations, and skills involved in assisting and caring for other human beings." Urie Bronfenbrenner, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Human Development, Cornell University, The Ecology of Human Development.
"Given the latest findings on brain development, I'd . . . .make parent training a mandatory part of the high school curriculum, for boys and girls. This is particularly urgent in light of recent research findings that children's language, thinking and emotional health are largely formed before age 3 - long before they ever go near a school.'" William Raspberry, Washington Post columnist, September 1999 and June 1997
Oprah Winfrey: "I'm thinking there needs to be a universal unified teaching system in the schools to teach people how to parent.... What do you think of that idea.... in the schools, like in high school as a course that you take?"Vice President Al Gore: "I think it's a great idea. I think that parenting education is an idea whose time has come.... The curriculum in a school is always locally determined, but I am very much in favor of parenting education. For one thing, we all see... the continuing impact of generational patterns.'" The Oprah Winfrey Show, 11 September 2000.
"Parenting need to be inculcated early in life. Just as citizenship has been in the past and service learning is now being required in schools, departments of education have to start offering classes in valuing and preparing for parenting and family life. These should take place as early as middle school, and a secondary course should be required for a high school diploma. Too many of us have taken the role of parent for granted and used trial and error, and parenting on-the-run, as our process, often at the expense of the children. The more parents believe in the importance of their job, the more information they will seek." Jim R. Rogers, CFLE, Parent and Family Life Educator, still learning, Inc.
"Why do we require training and a license to drive a car but have so little regard for preparing students to be parents, workers, or family and community members? These skills are not innate and should be taught K-12 - and not as an add-on or elective. Life is the final exam!'" Marilyn Swierk, CFCS, CFLE, Vice President, American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences
"All students in elementary, middle and high school should learn about the stages of infant development and the effects on infants of differing kinds of caregiver behavior. By the time these students become parents the details may be forgotten, but the central messages of such courses are likely to endure: that prenatal care, attention and responsiveness to infant behavior are essential. Conveying those messages in elementary, secondary and high schools has the added benefit that future fathers as well as mothers will be exposed to them." Zero to Three National Center for Clinical Infant Programs, Heart Start; The Emotional Foundations of School Readiness.
"Our fervent wish for the future is that child abuse and neglect be eradicated. . . . More realistically, we hope that a heightened emphasis is placed on parenting education in our high schools so that young people will learn how to care for children and have accurate knowledge of what to expect in a child's natural development. Only when young parents have been thoroughly educated in the realities of child rearing and realize that each child is a precious gift from God will abuse, neglect, and abandonment be ended, perhaps forever." Sara O'Meara, Chairman/CEO and Yvonne Fedderson, President, Childhelp USA
"Schools must become the primary vehicle . . . for providing parenting training for children and adults. . . . Schools are in a key position to offer preparation for parenting and life skills development beginning with very young children in kindergarten through critical preteen and teenage years. . . . Development of these critical life skills would do much to prevent neglect in the current and next generation of parents.'"
James M. Gaudin, Jr., Ph.D., in Child Neglect: A Guide For Intervention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Administration on Children, Youth and Families National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect
"...if one has children of one's own, caring deeply and effectively is a lifelong commitment. We must educate for this commitment. . . . the study of children should be an important topic in secondary education, and. . . practice in caring for and teaching younger children should begin in the upper elementary grades. Surely the care of children should be a central topic in the education of all students". Nel Noddings, Ph.D., in The Challenge to Care in Schools
. . ." society must early prepare for parenthood in its children; and it must take care of the unavoidable remnants of infantility in its adults." Erik H. Erikson, M.D., Childhood and Society
This is a dream I have long had as a partial solution to our current problem for Mothers and Babies and all parents and their children.
In an extensive, well thought out, well administered course backed by counsellors and psychologists children and families 'at risk' in terms of the patterns of parenting within a family structure could be helped in the early formative years. Apart from learning what to expect in becoming a parent, children and adolescents would learn about what makes them feel the way they feel. If it is painful, troublesome or negative they would receive help to change that. Parents would need to be willing to take responsibility for their own inadequacies in their parenting without blame. That is, there should be no blame aimed at themselves or others. This would go some way to breaking down the inadequacies and frankly 'wrong' parenting that is being passed down from generation to generation, increasingly leaving us humans unable to give our children what they truly need and deserve as a human right.
Children, some of whom get themselves off to school as young children and return home to an adult - empty house, learn to 'cope' very early but how well equipped will they be when it comes time to cope with an even more intense situation when they become parents?
Their role models, a Mother, Father or any kind of care giver were very preoccupied with their money earning lifestyles in order to survive and never had time to just stop and teach by being... no time for affection - and these are the only people our children have to rely on for their future parenting roles and indeed their very lives.