Friday 6th June 2008 Instinct and all that

The kids are in bed and Mum is reading and I am, well, here. Looking at a keyboard.
Mum went to an ABA meeting yesterday. ABA? What's that? Glad you asked. It's about baby's and milk. Straight from Mum. You know. Those bits. Anyway, the ladies meet around once a month or so. Yesterdays topic of discussion was Instinctive Mothering. The question was: Is mothering instinctive? We had been looking forward to the meeting all week. Turns out is was a bit of a fizzer. Sad really. After all, some of these lady's a struggling to keep the whole breast (oops, did I say that word?) going. Some aren't doing it easy. Baby's, especially newborns are demanding and draining.
So, the question at hand is: Is mothering instinctive? I think it is. First, what is instinct? Instinct is the inherent disposition of a living organism to a particular behaviour.
Now I said I believe mothering is instinctive. I have watched my wifey with two of our children and watch her correctly diagnose crying babies of other mothers. Not withstanding that Michele was formular fed, Stephanie knew what to do and when to do it without having to be told. She had held a baby once before. That was a 2 week old and she didn't do very well at that. Apart from that she had never been within a bulls roar of a baby. And yet when Michele was born, she knew what to do and when to do it. She was exactly the same with Cathy, only Cathy was breast fed.
This is what I believe. I can't prove it, but I believe it. I believe that God, when He created all animals, and we physically are animals, (some never change but that's another story) placed within us certain knowledge which we have access to when we need it. Humans are unique in that we can worship God by act of our free will. We can choose to love or choose not to love Him. But certain other things we have no choice over at all. The sexual act once entered into cannot be stopped. A baby is born with an instinctive reflex, or is pre-programmed if you will, to suck and cry for attention. When it cries it invokes in its mother certain pre-programmed responses. She can no more deny those responses that she can stop a building from falling over. She can suppress them, or she can mentally deny them, but she can't entirely stop them.
I also believe that women are "wired" to know what is wrong with a baby. Example. The other day we were out with a friend who has a 10 month old who is a bit of a handful at times. The child got cranky and obviously had a need that should have been met but that wasn't. I knew there was a problem with the child but not what the problem was. I asked Stephanie what the problem was. her response? Feed the child and get it some rest straight away. The mother of the child should have also known this but because she didn't trust/have confidence in our instinct/inner knowledge, didn't know what to do.
Why? I believe because our society places pressure on mothers to believe the experts and that a mother really doesn't know best. Why? Because the experts have the latest research to back them up. Well they have, haven't they? Well, yes in part. They do have research. But look at this. Katherine A. Dettwyler castes doubts on how effective some of the research is.
Before I chuff of to do other things. I was listening to 3AW on my way home from work yesterday. I don't normally listen to talk back radio with the bunch of shock jocks that inhabit that part of radio land. But yesterday was the exception. Neil Mitchell was doing his best to do what ever it is he does, well. This is what he had to say.
"What you do is your business. But when it impacts upon me, it is then my business".
He gave the following example. Oh, and before I go too far, the hot topic in Melbourne just now is the 2 am lockout for nightclubs in Melbourne.
Back to Neil's example. It is your business whether you smoke or not. However, should you choose to smoke, and you then blow your cigarette smoke in my face, then it becomes my business. And he is correct.
Your business is your business until it starts to affect me; then it is my business.