Posted on 08/07/2018 11:29:05 AM PDT by fwdude
A leading psychotherapist in New York City in the last 25 years has warned that mothers who return to work too soon after having babies are damaging their children’s mental health.
In a video for the New York Post, Erica Komisar revealed how she’s seen an ‘epidemic level of mental disorders in very young children,’ which she puts down to the “devaluing of mothering in society.”
The author of Being There, Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters explained that babies experience a rush of cortisol and a great deal of stress when they’re away from their mothers.
She argued that when working women return from work in the evenings they spend as little as 90 minutes with their babies before they put them to bed — and then find that they are unable to sleep through the night because they’re craving their mothers’ attention.
“Our society tells women go back to work, do what you want, they’ll be ok,” she explained. “But they’re not OK.”
“I was seeing it in my parent guidance practice. I was actually seeing an epidemic level of mental disorders in very young children who were being diagnosed and medicated at an earlier and earlier age.”
“I started looking at the research which backed up what I was seeing in my practice, which is that the absence of mothers on a daily basis in children’s lives was impacting their mental health.”
Referencing research that’s been done since the ‘60s, she said the only thing that reduces stress for babies is when their mothers return from work.
“I still say daycare is my least favorite option,” she said. “You’re taking a very young baby and exposing them to a great deal of stimulation and a great deal of fear.”
“When you take them out of their immediate environment and put them in a group with a lot of stimulation and a lot of people that’s not the natural environment for babies.”
“When we give mothers the option of being home in the first three years we increase the emotional security and reduce mental disorders.”
“On a societal level we need to recognize mothers’ work is valuable work. We emphasize material success and professional achievement, but there is no more valuable or more important work.”
Even though there is a high appreciation of mothers’ work in the homeschool movement, the voice of Erica Komisar, who is a psychotherapist outside the homeschool movement, reinforces the value of mothers’ presence in the lives of their children in their early childhood. She is a voice from the secular world confirming the same warnings that Christian homeschool leaders as Mary Pride have given for decades.
With information from DailyMail.
The US Bureau of Census relates:
1300 new stepfamilies are forming every day.
Over 50% of US families are remarried or re-coupled.
The average marriage in America lasts only seven years.
One out of two marriages ends in divorce.
75% remarry
66% of those living together or remarried break up, when children are involved.
80% of remarried, or re-coupled, partners with children both have careers.
50% of the 60 million children under the age of 13 are currently living with one biological parent and that parent’s current partner.
Fixed it. Daddy didn't carry the baby in his womb and Daddy didn't create the biological tie that only biological infants and mothers can possibly experience. Singing to mommy's belly bump is not the same.
An involved Dad is essential to the mom and greatly superior to any other male interacting with the infant, but he is no substitute for the biological mom. The dad's best role is supporting the mom until the infant is gradually weaned and is toddling around. Dad's role and attachmeng grows over the months and years.
To an infant, there is no substitute for the individual in whose womb the infant grew and whose breast milk and body scent are by far the most natural place to attach.
IMHO, this article is correct and very important. I was lucky enough to have a stay at home Mom while I was small and it meant stability and security as I navigated those first few years. Motherhood is the Most Important Job there is, along with Fatherhood.
I, too, was raised in an Age and in a family of Christian values, where a nurturer was available throughout the day and night. Four kids, all within 8 years. All productively working, no drug problems or other destructive addictions, no arrests or convictions, all at least nominally Christian.
My parents were hardly perfect, but held a level of values which transcended their faults.
I have to relate the results to the environment.
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