37
sa
microorganisms, mini-monsters of which you've never caught the
slightest glimpse.  You probably avoid cholesterol, but have you ever
had a peek at it?  For those who don't use a microscope, it's as ethereal
a force as the cloud-riding spirits of the Native Americans.
With poor guidance, we stumble our way through the invisible,
sometimes blundering  badly.   We accept  most  child-rearing  theories,
for example, with no evidence.  Sioux Indians are horrified that we
hold up a newborn baby and spank it.  They believe the baby should
be cradled tenderly and given love.60 Victorians thought that by
holding a baby you spoiled it.  The same notion persisted in America
through the first half of this century.  In 1928, J.B. Watson, the leading
American psychologist of his time, repeated the concept emphatically
in a book that became the child-rearing bible of the next twenty years.
He said,
There is a sensible way of treating children.  Treat them as
though they were young adults.  Dress them, bathe them with care and
circumspection.  Let your behavior always be objective and kindly
firm.  Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap.  If you
must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night.  Shake
hands with them in the morning.  Give them a pat on the head if they
have made an extraordinarily good job of a difficult task.  Try it out.  In
a week's time you will find how easy it is to be perfectly objective with
your child and at the same time kindly.  You will be utterly ashamed of
the mawkish, sentimental way you have been handling it. ...In
conclusion, won't you then remember when you are tempted to pet
your child that mother love is a dangerous instrument.  An instrument
which may inflict a never-healing wound, a wound which may make
infancy unhappy, adolescence a nightmare, an instrument which may
wrench your adult son or daughter's vocational future and their
chances for marital happiness. 61
Watson pontificated that mother love was a force which inserted
itself into the invisible machinery of a child's psyche, destroying him as
  nitary decisions may well be based on the fear of these
<<  <  GO  >  >>