Nothing discourages me to promote babywearing more than the look of disgust on people's faces at the mention of carrying their babies. We are talking about people who feel babies shall be 'trained' from 'young' to be independent. We are talking about people who feel like carrying their babies will only result in clingy babies... How and what can we do in these situations other than to just keep the babywearing love to ourselves and queitly hope in our hearts that it will make sense to them one day, hopefully in time, that loving their baby (and, carrying them) does not mean spoiling them and certainly will not result in clingy babies.
Looking at my own almost-3 Arthur, he is much more confident than many kids his age. Indeed, he is much more independent and confident than his school-going cousins. Having worn him EVERYDAY since he was 10 months old til the time he found his legs at 18 months, Arthur was never really a clingy boy.
Indeed, ask anyone who knows him (well or not), you can find that he is very sociable and well, shall I say, entertaining, at times ;)
Before you feel disgusted at the thought of babywearing or even breastfeeding, think again... wouldn't you feel more confortable, happy and more trustworthy shall you have someone hold you close when you needed a hug? Would you really prefer to cry by yourself, in a corner of the room, so you can train yourself up to be more self-dependent?
Bear in mind, what you are 'training' your child today goes a long way. How are you 'training' them to be independent? If it is through encouragement that they should suppress their feelings and not show it... how else do they take care of stress? The world is, after all, getting more stressful by the day and before you know it, Stress Management could very well be a pre-school subject one day.
2 comments:
Oh this is sad...I didn't know people actually feels disgusted with babywearing!
Loads of mothers, grandmothers and fathers 'wear' their babies in China simply because it's practical.
I was not a 100% babywearer but experienced its miracle when I was travelling.
As I have a sarong sling, I'll probably have to get a hang of it since I'll also have a 4 year old to hold on to!
i agreed indeed jess... teachers at zahraa's nursery even told me that zahraa is a very independant girl and seems to be mature more than her age. and yes.. being wear all the time doesnt make her clingy at all... she walks early, and now she is the lil explorer and we are so proud of her.. no matter what people say, we will still wear her as long as i could manage to carry her weight.. i am lucky she is not a heavy girl
Post a Comment