XC - Quarter 4 - Babies

I do not think any culture had a better way of parenting than the others; they all had their good methods and bad methods. My thought on the baby in Namibia is that there were minimal interaction between the baby and the parent, especially right after birth. The baby was left on the bed and it also happened when the baby knew how to crawl; the parent gave more attention towards the beginning and a little more when the baby started to understand the parents. In the beginning when the baby was first born, the mother breastfed the baby and when the baby started to crawl, she waited around for the baby to go to them to feed themselves when they are hungry. After the baby knew how to crawl, the mother allowed the baby to interact with others and learn to discover new things themselves. I guess this could be a good thing; the baby would be able to rely on himself and not have to depend on the parent too much. The good things were that the baby was breastfed and there was a point when the parent treated the baby like an adult; she spoke to him with a stern voice and punished him for what he did. In their society, I guess they treated babies like adults so they can mature faster so the baby in the movie was treated like one. The baby was also taught things like balancing a can on his head when the parent felt it was time for him to learn the things that their society thought was necessary.

I thought that the baby in Mongolia was neglected a little too much; he was tied up, left on the bed, and really did not have much to play with. All the baby got after birth was getting breastfed but the mother also tried to force the baby to drink milk; she even squirted milk at him. Although some may argue that babies should drink milk at specified times, I did not think the mother had the patience to allow the baby to drink the milk for himself rather than squirting milk at him. When the baby did something wrong, like the time he spilled the water, he was scold at and spanked on the butt. It seems like discipline were taught by raising voices and spanking but the mother also did not show sympathy; she walked away when the baby went near her. I feel like the movie portrayed this baby to be the slowest to learn how to walk and I think this was caused by the mother's negligence. Then again, the movie also showed that he did not give up trying to get the paper towel while the movie kept going back to the Japanese baby.

While these two babies were often neglected, I feel that the Japanese baby had too much attention after birth. It was either because the mother and the father attended the baby too many time but this baby gave up more easily when she could not figure stuff out. I think the baby was also a little neglected when she was at the dinner table; the mother was busy and left her alone. As the baby got older, the parents left the baby at a daycare center while they went to do their own thing. The father was talking on the phone while using toys to entertain his baby and I think this distances himself from the baby.The good things that this parent did was taking her to interacting lessons and taking her to the park to interact with others. And although she was at the park, the parents were not in the camera half the time so they might or might not have been there to supervise.

The main thing I did not like about the baby in San Francisco was the fact that the baby was all wired up and was packed like a present. The other thing was when he was left on the door bouncing while his mother was cooking something. Based on an article I read online, it said that parents should allow their baby to watch everything they do. The mother should have held her baby so she can connect better with her baby while she was cooking. Other than that, I think the parents did a pretty good job taking her to lessons and allowing her to do things herself. The father allowed her to peel her own banana and take a bite of the nasty part, so she can learn to not eat that part the next time.

I noticed that many societies want their babies to first learn the word "mom." In the movie, the father was no where to be seen in Namibia and in Mongolia; they were rarely seen in San Francisco and in Japan. Since the mother took most of the time raising the baby, they feel that it is right for them to have their baby learn the word "mom" first. This way, they know that they matter to the baby's existence and that ten months of pregnancy mattered. And even though the babies could have been just making sounds, the moms like to perceive these sounds as "mom."