The twin babies are in a room by themselves, crying their little hearts out. Outside the door stands a woman in a nurse uniform, defending her view why nobody should enter the room and console the babies. “They are only crying for attention”, she says. “I’ll show them who’s boss.”
The second episode of Channel 4’s ‘Bringing Up Baby’ aired last night, and again I was horrified by this woman and the methods she promotes. How can Claire Verity possibly think that babies are cunning, that they are forming conscious manipulative thoughts? Babys run on instinct, and cry when they are hungry, tired, want a fresh nappy, or whatever their needs might be. They are not crying with a purposeful motive of bossing their parents around.
Furthermore, Verity only allows ten (10) minutes of cuddle time a day. Ten minutes??? Why even bother having a baby if you are not allowed to love and cuddle it?
She also doesn’t allow visitors to come to the house, and, in particular, handling the baby in any way. In one family that Verity ‘cares’ for, the grandmother made an unannounced visit and came within viewing distance of the baby. She was swiftly ushered away by the embarrassed father. I mean, how dare she go and have a look at her grandchild?
Verity handles babies in seemingly heartless manner, and by that I mean the lack of love and empathy in her movements when touching them. But if you think of her viewpoint, that babies are attention-seeking, manipulative creatures who need to be shown who’s boss, you can understand why.
1 Comment
Thursday, October 4, 2007 at 4:15
Sounds totally insane to me! Is she heartless? That’s not the way I bring up my kids…