Mothers Are Always the Problem—or Are They? Old Wine in New Bottles
1 Department of Child Psychiatry, New York University Medical Center, New York
Pediatricians know that it is desirable for an infant to have a healthy start in life. But they also know that the young child who suffers inadequate nutrition, a severe infection, or physical trauma, is not thereby doomed, except in extreme cases, to a life of physical inadequacy. The human organism is resilient and in most instances capable of recouping the damage caused by malnutrition, infection, or trauma.
The issue is the same for psychological development. It is desirable for the mother and the father to have immediate and active contact with their newborn baby. But absence of such contact does not prevent parent bonding to the infant nor does it doom the infant to less than optimal development. A relaxed and emotionally positive attachment between the 1-year-old infant and the mother is indeed valuable. But the mother does not need extraordinary capacities for this to occur. And if, for some reason, either the mother's bonding to the infant or the infant's attachment to the mother is impaired, this does not foretell failure in later emotional relationships. The establishment of reasonable feeding and sleep routines and ease in toilet training are assets for healthy development. But difficulties with these or other socialization landmarks do not necessarily predict psychological outcomes.
As I have stated previously,19 "The emotionally traumatized child is not doomed, the parents' early mistakes are not irrevocable, and our preventive and therapeutic intervention can make a difference at all age-periods."
