This morning at the beach, I thought about a paradox that concerns many moms. The question is: why we keep the children without leaving them free swimsuit, how do you say, and we do not have the freedom to call their genitals with their name, or penis and vagina? We call upon all the body parts by their proper names: the elbow is his elbow, not the coccodrillino; the knee is the knee and not the ball! We call instead vagina pussy, butterfly, premium, chitarrina, ciccina, etc.; penis willy, Cucumber, pistolino, etc.. While at sea we find the genitals of our children, with these nicknames hide something. Say what?
Let's do a little exercise. While we're on baby-changing, dare to say aloud a simple sentence: Now wash the penis or vagina – in the case of a boy or of a girl. Immediately after listening to what moves inside us: closed stomach? We feel embarrassed? We have a feeling of dirt on him? If so, we are ashamed of having called the penis and the vagina by their proper names.
Shame is an emotion of the second degree, as they say in psychology, because it is not as instinctive fear - of First Instance - but transmitted. It means that we have "passed" when and what to feel shame. In this case, we called for many years the vagina and the penis pussy and penis – so we talked our parents, our grandfathers. The shame was transmitted through these endearments that really does nothing more than ridicule, reduce, detract from the intimacy of the child and the child until it in pieces. The penis and the vagina are parts of the body, such as the elbow and knee, but with education have assumed connotations "bad". And as all that is bad, name if nomina, you have to hide. So then hide a culture that knows how old and which has been inculcated without giving us the opportunity to choose whether to support it or not.
We have the specific task to be aware of the education that we impart to our children. In particular, I think it is essential to help them to appreciate their body without belittling or ridiculing, because only in this way in the future our children will be more likely to be men and women "in one piece", confident about themselves and their sexuality, respectful of their privacy and that of others. This paradox must be overturned: beach hide the genitals of children having to wear their swimsuit, every day we call freedom in the penis penis and vagina vagina.
For moms and dads advice shock therapy that will help: the reading of "The Vagina Monologues".
Jul 08
On the beach
Jun 01
The Primo Viaggio in Thailand Lanna!
Reach Alee, my husband, in Thailand was easier than I thought: my daughter eight months has made the journey with curiosity and sleeping most of the time. To hear all we could not have ever made to face "alone" trip 14 hours on the other side of the world: the child will be able to get to sleep? What do you do if he cries? AND IF WE DO NOT WANT TO BE A PLANE 12 HOURS? Indeed, I was very distressed, but then going about ...
The mothers who are traveling with a baby are entitled to the first row and the hostesses have even blocked a seat next to mine so I could move freely. In addition to a backpack full of diapers, onesies and bodysuits exchange, jars with jelly and my computer, I could count on the wing and on the pillow to breastfeed. Range and pillow have been fundamental since they allowed me and the baby to move and to keep some habits. Due to the pillow I nursed comfortably, while the band allowed me to change positions - stiracchiarmi, stretch your legs-and to move with Lanna close, For example when I went to the bathroom! Those concerns that I did sleep all night – 12 flight hours, the pitch dark in air, confusion in a city as Bangkok airport, change to Phuket – proved to be a new experience for my child to be observed between a nap and the other. I think the fear of the journey actually hiding something else ...
Before leaving I found myself face to face with the feeling of loneliness that often lives a mother in the presence of their child. While this sentiment is human, at the same time I think it is loaded with prejudices, or judgments, considerations, thoughts that come from the social environment in which I live. If I analyze the situation I understand that the fear of facing this long journey was linked to a decision that came from the common sense. In other words, I was going to do something that I had never heard him do in any other mom. While preparing the suitcases to Thailand, I had in mind an imaginary group of mothers who said: children must have the routine, sleep in their bed, respect the times and go to bed when it's time ... I could go on and on!!! The speeches of these ladies were crippling me, because, I do not deny, the status of a mother can open a huge door on fears, insecurities and feelings of inadequacy towards everything related to motherhood and the choices of a mom. I had decided to leave, in front of me was opening a road that I did not know where it would lead or perhaps I knew very well, but the point is another! I did not expect to be able to deal with my daughter on a journey that I had already done many times alone. Fears and insecurities in the end I did not have dried up but they are games with me, only in this way I was able to resize them and deny them. I felt different and daring than a "classic" way of being a mother, although "the classic mom" was just a thought in my head contaminated.
I believe when I say that the most difficult task for a mother is to reorganize thoughts to establish, about any decision taken (whether it is due to the feeding of their child or to transfer to another continent!) which they belong and which are not, what are his own judgments and deep thoughts and which are contaminants that originate from other. Clarified that "the distances are shortened," and the feeling of loneliness that is felt becomes sustainable. I realized that I was experiencing fears transmitted by common sense and was transferring the child. This awareness has allowed me to leave for my trip having more confidence in the resilience of my child and, I hope, in my way of being a mom.
May 26
The Code of the Soul
I often that mothers in trouble with your child ask me for advice on what to read. Thanks to my work - as an educator and psychologist - I realized that the greatest fear of a mother is to make mistakes. The power, sleep, the game, relationships with other children, and still the choice to prolong lactation, the decision to enroll the child in the nursery - the list certainly does not end here - are all areas in which the mother, on a more or less conscious, feels to be afraid of not doing his best and hurting your child. It happens then that we speak among mothers, that interpellino specialists or that we go looking for a book that illustrates a method that works. Tips and techniques, however,, once put into practice, reveal their limitations and seem insufficient to fulfill their task. The baby still does not sleep, not to eat, not to listen, to oppose and here, precise as a scalpel by cutting thin, doubt creeps: "Where am I wrong?”, and then "how can I do?”.
I chose a book somewhat unusual for a mom, because it breaks the mold of developmental psychology and pedagogy commonly known. James Hillman (analytical psychologist, disciple of Jung) in the book "The Soul's Code" addresses a key issue: the existence. The argument is complex, especially if we think that poets and philosophers deal with it for millennia! My challenge is to open a door in the imaginary mother who departs from common sense and that helps us to ask questions different from those that we do on a daily basis. Mothers come to me when they have one of these problems or more than one set: "My son does not eat, not walking yet, asks the sine of continuous, does not stand still, is careless, Shy, do not play with other children ". At that point I ask: "What should I do? How can I help? Unlock? Support? There'll be bad? Suffer? The provoke a trauma?”.
In "The Soul's Code," the author chooses an unexplored path that leads us to consider the point of view of the child. The argument is not the most simple, because he speaks of destiny and vocation of our children, terms that are not found in the texts of psychology and do not ever come out of the mouth of our pediatrician. So why occuparcene? Hillman argues that "flatten our lives with the way in which we conceive. We stopped to imagine it with a pinch of romance, with an air of romance " – Imagination? Romanticism? But what to do with the baby food and sleep! -. In support of these arguments, there are major philosophical ideas such as beauty, the mystery, the myth that they are a cure for the soul and go straight to soothe our fear of failure and to provide a trauma to our baby. Hillman invites us to stand on the side of the children stating that they too, already from very small, have in mind what to do with their existence, who have a vocation to express.
I gave the book to a friend, who told me that he found it too challenging – in fact it is not a work to be read in the light of the bedside lamp when, after a day's work, we put the kids to bed! - So I decided to analyze the themes of "The Soul's Code" in order to make them accessible even to those who do not chew philosophy and analytical psychology.
From an educator for twenty years and a mother for a few months, I came to the conclusion that we have the difficult task of thinking about our children, projected into the future, because children immediately start to go in against their fate and their vocation is revealed, in a more or less clear, already during the first years of life: become a sportsman? A researcher? A caring parent? Speak many languages? Will base its activity? It will pay to the other? Will live in a country other than that of origin?.
Hillman would say we have to imagine their lives "with a dash of romance". Only this will allow us to think of our children as unique individuals, giving us the feeling that the world wants them to be the same in the world, which is not only a desire to Mom and Dad. The Soul's Code does not give practical answers, reveals not the right method to solve everyday problems, but we'll have deep, and will touch the idea that we have of our children. The book is an act of love undisputed by the author in respect of the human race and I think that his reading is an act of kindness and generosity on the part of a parent against his son.
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