Touch

 During these cold winter months, still in the throes of the pandemic, our usual ways of life are at least partly suspended. Especially for those of us who live alone, interaction with others has gotten curtailed, and touch is not much a part of our lives. Pets have become more important. I am so grateful to live with Shadow, my cat. She is all black except for a white patch under her chin, and she and I are at roughly the same time in our lives, late middle age. We limp around together (or I did until my recent surgery) and appreciate each other's presence. So when Shadow leaps up on my bed each morning to say hello, it is comforting to have her lie beside me while I pet her and she purrs.

There seems to be an instinctual physical closeness especially between mothers and their young. You see it in our mammal cousins. We've all watched a mother dog licking her puppies, with them tumbling around her. And the gentle care of mother cats with her fuzzy kittens. I did a little research on the internet, and there are many dramatic examples of mothers who take care of their young for very long periods of time. Baby elephants are born blind! And depend upon their mothers for food, guidance and protection. When the tiny elephant is born, the whole herd gathers around, caressing it with their trunks. It is a very physical relationship from the beginning. Baby orangutans are carried in their mother's bellies, not even breaking contact for several months. Kangaroos have a very short pregnancy, with the newborn only as big as a fly, and once born not coming out of it's mother's pouch for at least 10 months! Pandas constantly cradle their tiny offspring for the first three months, and whales nurse their young for over two years!

One would think that human instinct would be similar to all these nurturing examples. Yet somehow by the mid-1900's, psychologists and social workers in this country were warning parents to not "spoil" their children by cuddling or giving them too much attention. It was believed that the main function of the mother was to provide food for a child; physically and emotionally distancing from your children was encouraged. And even though new mothers were making the perfect food inside their bodies for their babies, mothers were encouraged to feed their babies cows milk from bottles instead. It became unconventional to actually nurse your baby with breast milk. This seems a bit crazy now, but I and many others were brought up with this philosophical backdrop. I remember hearing my mother criticizing a mother for cuddling her baby, spoiling it. And in my own midwestern family at least, there was no touch at all once we were out of diapers. It wasn't until I was in my twenties and hanging out with a group that hugged after our get-togethers that I learned to hug. This was such an important experience for me.  And it is interesting that I am now a massage therapist, touch being part of my work.

In response to the anti-bonding culture, Harry Harlow, an American psychologist, began in the 1970's to do experiments researching mother/child relationships, dependency needs and maternal separation. Harlow used rhesus monkeys in his experiments, and has received much criticism for how difficult these experiments were for the monkeys themselves. Even so, the results of his research have been far-reaching, demonstrating the importance of care-giving and companionship for social and cognitive development in babies. In the experiments, young monkeys were taken away from their mother and instead were offered two kinds of artificial "mothers". One kind was made of wire and wood, offering food. The other kind was made of soft fabric stretched over a frame, but no food. Some monkeys were offered access to both kinds of mother, and though they did go for food, they preferred by far the soft foodless mother. Some monkeys were kept with only the wire mother who had food but no cuddling softness, and they ended up being severely psychologically disturbed. Physical closeness and cuddling, even with a soft mother substitute, proved to provide the reassurance and security to keep normal development on track.

I know I've over-simplified the experiments of Harlow. You can look him up and get the whole picture if you're interested. For me the important thing is that partly due to his influence, our culture finally came to its senses and realized that instead of spoiling children, physical closeness and touching between mother and child was absolutely necessary for healthy development. Of course, all we would have had to do is watch animals. But in those days, we were trying to distance our species from others. We imagined ourselves at the top of the power triangle. Fortunately we are now a little less sure that we're truly at the top, and are finding there are other living things who can teach us some important lessons. For those of us who were raised in families that abided by the old philosophy of not spoiling children by too much attention, we have made our way without the reassurance and security that close touch would have given us in the beginning. But now we are living in a different social climate, and that has positive effects on us as well as our own children. When I was a young mother, I had never heard of Harry Harlow. But even so, I somehow knew that cuddling my children was not bad. I intentionally changed the pattern that I grew up with and enjoyed the closeness that the previous generation missed. So change can happen.