affected parties

There’s a lot of hubbub in the news about the sexism of a kiwi politician and the idea of maternity leave and laziness (ha!) when a female MP took her allocated leave in order to spend time with her new baby.

The previous week there was reportage (arguably not enough) about our Associate Minister for Education, David “I have never worked in education nor raised any children” Seymour and his push toward employing untrained workers in early childhood centre nurseries. 

As is typical, these stories about babies were totally blind to considerations of the infants’ subjective experiences and the implications of these stories upon them, and their development. 

Meanwhile, this week, an ol’ early childhood colleague of mine who is doing some relieving in local centres told me about a typical day in the places she’s supporting. Babies, little babies, all of twelve weeks old: crying and longing for comfort. Not enough arms or empathy to contain their biologically appropriate requests for human reassurance. These stories are untold.

This is a story of cortisol: the stress hormone which can be corrosive to the rapidly developing brain of an infant. Harm occurs if the exposures to cortisol are repeated, and/or not “buffered” by an attuned caregiver. Neuroscientific evidence points to synchronous caregiving patterns (we might recognise it as good enough parenting, or high quality ECE caregiving) as functioning like a styrofoam package around a delicate ornament when it comes to life’s bumps and shocks. 

This is a story of repetitive patterns and developmental trajectories. Brain development depends upon warm, attuned, reciprocal relationships for babies. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the future of our country and our species depends upon supporting optimal development of today’s babies, enabling them to develop their brains and bodies fully, capable of making wise decisions. 

Getting it right in the first 1000 days is the fence at the top of the cliff.

You know the cliff, the one with all the ambulances at the bottom of it. 

People who understand how infants’ brains grow have a sense of the return on investment for prioritising mothers and babies early in the piece. They would ensure any discussions of maternity leave would represent this viewpoint. 

Those who have worked with babies in group care (Holla!) understand how it is only high quality care that can meet the complex relational needs of all the babies and families they work with, and that high quality early childhood education relies on well-trained teachers. Again, any reporting of the story is incomplete without a consideration of a baby’s-eye-view of the implications of any policy decision. 

All that said: I’m not keen to beat up on journalists or journalism, either. Why?
1) I’m a lover, not a fighter

2) they are also understaffed, being ripped off by big, overseas tech companies that rob them and steal their data just like they do all of us. 

Anyway: I’m just doing my job over here. That is to BANG the drum, for babies.