I don't remember anything about my early childhood, and mom never talks about what it was like when I was a baby, except to say I was a "good baby".... but I do remember feeling very abandoned and alone most of my life. When I had my first baby, I could not bear to hear him cry because it touched something deep inside me that was almost a sense of PANIC. It was as if I could remember being left alone to cry, and the feeling was terrifying. I started co-sleeping with him from the beginning, before I had ever heard of anyone doing it. It just seemed logical to me. Why let him cry for no reason???
I discovered my first baby sling at Penneys, a grey and white ticking striped thing that I never could get adjusted right... but I tried! LOL (I still remember our very first outing at the mall with my baby in his sling... and he pooped all over it! LOL) It just seemed to make sense to keep him in my arms rather than sticking him in a stroller. My babies were constantly in my arms (as much as they would let me!) I don't remember my mom ever holding me, and I just felt "hungry" to keep my babies in my arms. I know this sounds weird, but it was almost as if I was holding MYSELF, through my baby.
When my third child was about 6 months old I had to go live with my parents for awhile. They INSISTED that he had to go to sleep in his crib, by himself. To do this, they gave him a bottle and shut the door, and we all sat in the family room across the hall and listened to him cry himself to sleep. I know I should have done something, but at the time I was a mess (I was living there because of marital problems and I was a basket case! Mix that with overbearing parents and my baby didn't have a chance!
) So I got a first hand example of what it was like for me as a child, and that really freaked me out . Fortunately, God restored my marriage and I was able to go home after six months.
My next child was born at home, and my mom came to the birth. I remember her watching me holding him and she said "I just love the way you love your babies". It was almost as though she was surprised...as though it has never occurred to her that this should be NORMAL.
I was thinking about this subject lately and suddenly I remembered something about my mom.... she has very fine hair, and she always used to have me tease it in the back, because the back of her head is very flat. I never thought about it, but suddenly I wondered.... was it flat because she spent most of her time as a baby lying in a crib and not being held? Maybe, or maybe not.... but the thought persisted. I thought about everything my mom had ever told me about her parents... which wasn't much.... and what I remembered about Grandma. In grandma's house, children were to be seen and not heard. She would send me and my sister off to the bedroom to color, or outside to play while Mom visited with her, and when we got ready to leave, she would give us a big sloppy grandma kiss goodbye... but that was all. Mom told me about a time they went to visit some relatives, and she had to sit on the couch quietly the entire time without moving. Mom was never allowed to have a friend over to spend the night. They never celebrated Christmas (apparently just didn't see a reason to!) and in general it was a very quiet, cold household. I think my mom was even MORE starved for affection than I was, but because of her personality, it made her hard and calloused to the point that she did not even realize that she was SUPPOSED to feel certain things. She did try to overcompensate in some areas... Christmas was a HUGE affair at our house, and she still goes overboard with gifts at birthdays and Christmas.... because she REMEMBERS not getting any gifts when she was growing up. (she never even owned a stuffed toy or doll!)
I know that all of this is speculation, because my mom won't talk to me about it, and probably doesn't even know.... but I am pretty sure that my mom treated me the way she did because SHE had never experienced being loved and held and cuddled as a child, and honestly did not know that this is what you were SUPPOSED to do with babies. I don't know what happened to Grandma to make her the way she was... but I suspect that this is something that had been passed down for several generations. I have been studying late 18th century parenting in Europe, and this is totally consistant with what was "normal" parenting for the times. Grandma's parents immigrated here from Europe in the late 1800's, so they would have been exposed to this kind of teaching.
It makes me wonder, just how will my own parenting effect not only my children, but the generations after them??? My boys already know how to treat a baby. They know that breasts are for feeding babies, and that babies should nurse until they are at least 3 or 4.
Babies are for hugging and holding and loving on.
I plan to love on my grandbabies just as much as they will let me!
I hope that at least in this one area I have broken this "curse" that seems to have plagued my family for so many generations.
Stephanie
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