Back of cover (for two-sided printing) MOTHERING DENIED How our culture harms women, infants, and society Dr Peter Cook MB, ChB, MRCPsych, FRANZCP, DCH Foreword by Steve Biddulph First published in 2008 by Peter S. Cook 62 Greycliffe Street, (Sydney), Australia, 2096 www.members.optusnet.com.au/pcook62 Copyright © 2008, Peter S. Cook. All rights reserved. Last updated December 5, 2008 ISBN 978-0-646-50366-0 Distribution Permission Statement 1. This book may be updated, as on the website of the copyright owner or his heirs, currently www.members.optusnet.com.au/pcook62. The text may be reproduced, forwarded, and/or distributed in electronic form in full, or in part, and multiple copies may be made for educational or other purposes, provided that the author’s copyright is reproduced, with the date of the version being used. 2. The book may be not be published in printed form, or in any edited form, whether for profit or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the author or his heirs. Cartoon: Thoughts of a baby lying in a child care centre, © 1995 by Michael Leunig, used with permission. (p. vi) What Peter Cook has to say in this most thoughtful volume will not prove widely popular and certainly not politically correct. But that is not to say that he is mistaken or even misguided. Unlike many, Peter Cook acknowledges, even heralds, evidence that underscores the fact that for many infants and women life does not provide what they want—and perhaps even what nature planned for them. Not all will agree with Peter Cook’s analysis, but that is not a reason to ignore it. Open minds will most certainly be enriched. As for closed minds…. Professor Jay Belsky Director, Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues Birkbeck University of London At the beginning of this new millennium, Peter Cook presents much evidence that there is a natural, ‘best fit’ pattern of human mothering. He also asks his readers to consider some ways in which significant departures from this pattern can harm infants, women, and society, and contribute to emotional, behavioural, and health problems. An increase in conduct disorders and aggression in young people, and changes in societal behaviour, have been the shared experience of many professionals dealing with such problems. A mother has a relationship with her child which no one else can share. At birth the total growth of the child’s body and brain has been the result of environment supplied by the mother. The rapid growth of the brain and body of the infant, and the acquisition of communication skills, are also largely the result of the intimate interactions of mother and child. Fathers play an increasingly significant part in the infant’s life, with the expanding ability of the child to communicate and learn through new experiences, usually mediated through play with the father and other family members in a safe and supportive environment. I urge everyone with a social conscience to heed Peter Cook’s sage words about early childhood. Failure to do so can only result in further damage to the young and the fabric of our society. Forrester Cockburn Emeritus Professor of Child Health University of Glasgow, Scotland Peter Cook is a doctor who has specialised in psychiatry and has been working in the field of child and family mental health for decades. In this book he has created something of great value. He summarises much research, making it accessible to those who wish to know more, as he draws on over half a century of thinking and learning about human infants and their mothers and fathers. I’d like to say read and enjoy, but it’s more a case of read and weep. Or better still, read this body of work to find confirmation and a spur to put love back at the top of the list for building a human race that is still here in a century’s time; because if we don’t learn to love our babies, our earth, and each other, very fast, we will disappear. It has already begun, and there isn’t a moment to lose. Steve Biddulph Psychologist, and author of Raising Babies The pervasive triumph of consumerism will be damaging us for generations to come. We now have a world where many new mothers and fathers see no choice but to work, even for a minimum wage, while their baby is cared for by someone else—anyone else. The movement for women’s liberation, rightly aggrieved by unfair patriarchy, and seeking emancipation and equality with men, chose to deny the fundamental importance of mothering, equating it with fathering, parenting or ‘caregiving’. When will the logic and evidence marshalled by Peter Cook in this book have its influence on the world of new babies? Not until all of us opt for a way of life beyond the envy and greed of consumerism, and revalue the many things that matter most for human wellbeing. As I said in 1996 of his Early Child Care: Infants and Nations at Risk, “This small book should be dropped like leaflets all over the country to get past the ubiquitous network of the now-entrenched daycare propagandists, to reach the parents who have never heard the whole story.” Elliott Barker MD Forensic psychiatrist, editor of Empathic Parenting Founder, Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children About the Author Peter S. Cook was born in Japan, spending his early years there and in the UK before going to live in New Zealand. Having qualified in medicine at Otago University, Dunedin, in 1950, he studied adult and child psychiatry in London, mostly at the Maudsley Hospital and the University of London Institute of Psychiatry from 1952 to 1956. He gained the Diploma of Psychological Medicine in 1955 and the Diploma of Child Health in 1956. He is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK and a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. He practiced adult and child psychiatry in Christchurch, New Zealand, from 1957 until 1964, and then worked in Sydney, Australia, at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, becoming Director of the Department of Psychiatry. In 1974 he became a senior consultant in child psychiatry with the New South Wales Department of Health at the Queenscliff Health Centre in Sydney, and was adviser on child mental health to the Regional Director of the Northern Metropolitan Health Region. From 1982 he was in private practice until his retirement. His many publications have been mainly concerned with primary prevention in child and family mental health, and also with conservation, environmental sustainability, and related issues. Creativity, Women, and Parenting For most of the past century, concepts of intelligence have been dominated by the attributes that psychologists identify and measure in tests. However, this view ignores the very different and crucial qualities involved in emotional intelligence and creativity. These are important in parenting and can be actively developed by the parenting experience. The dormant creativity of many adults is awakened through imaginative interaction with their children. Many characteristics typical of creative people are readily evoked in parenting—for example, humour, playfulness, curiosity, flexibility, high intrinsic motivation, sensitivity, spontaneity, tolerance of incongruity, and experiencing deep emotion. Life with young children provides continuous opportunities for identifying problems and solving them creatively. Since young children are often unable to indicate their purposes or problems clearly, the parent’s challenge is to clarify the problems experienced by the child and negotiate solutions. The value of love and dedication in parenting is universally recognised. If we also placed a high value on the emotional intelligence and creativity involved in sensitive parenting, the social status accorded this role would rise. The insight and skills required for managing emotions and relationships are increasingly valued in the workplace. Men and women who use their interpersonal skills in the public arena are applauded. Yet those who use such skills in the private world of parenting are so lacking in status that they may wonder how to explain this period of their lives in their CVs. Parenting is currently in a state of flux where, more than ever before, each individual chooses whether to become a parent, and then what sort of parent to become. It is a special opportunity for personal development wherein you can become a creative artist, choreographing your own dance in partnership with your child. Jenny Cullen Foreword Every era in human history has naturally assumed itself to be the most modern, progressive, and advanced. There is no deeper myth in our history than the myth of progress, the idea that things get better. It may well be our most dearly-held illusion. Just recently, with the growth of technologies that can look inside the living brain, and video- cameras that can watch the tiny movements and gestures of mothers and infants, we have realized that in our basic assumptions of Western industrial life, we were terribly wrong about something very important. We thought that minding babies was a casual, inconsequential thing that could be left to underpaid teenagers, or done in bulk with one person to five babies or ten toddlers, without any problem. It now appears that mother-baby interaction, in the first year especially, is the very foundation of human emotions and intelligence. In the most essential terms, love grows the brain. The capacities for what make us most human—empathy, co-operation, intimacy, the fine timing and sensitivity that makes a human being charismatic, loving, and self-assured— are passed from mother to baby, especially if that mother is herself possessed of these qualities, and supported and cared for, so that she can bring herself to enjoy and focus on the task.