{"id":50796,"date":"2012-12-30T13:01:31","date_gmt":"2012-12-30T18:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=50796"},"modified":"2013-01-15T23:54:03","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T04:54:03","slug":"too-much-mother-love-proving-the-need-for-nurture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/12\/30\/too-much-mother-love-proving-the-need-for-nurture\/","title":{"rendered":"“Too Much Mother Love”: Proving the Necessity of Nurture"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the last week of December, we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2012. Cross-posted at The Huffington Post<\/a>.<\/em>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All that rot they teach to children about the little raindrop fairies with their buckets washing down the window panes must go. \u00a0We need less sentimentality and more spanking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or so said<\/a> Granville Stanley Hall, founder of child psychology, in 1899. \u00a0Hall was one of many child experts of the 1800s who believed that children needed little emotional connection with their parents.<\/p>\n

Luther Emmett Holt, who pioneered the science of\u00a0pediatrics, wrote<\/a> a child rearing advice book in which he called infant screaming “the baby’s exercise.” \u00a0\u00a0\u201cBabies under six months old should never be played with,” he wrote, “and the less of it at any time the better for the infant.”<\/p>\n

Holt and Granville’s contemporary, John B. Watson, wrote<\/a> a child advice book that sold into the second half of the 1900s. \u00a0In a chapter titled \u201cToo Much Mother Love,\u201d he wrote:<\/p>\n

Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say goodnight. Shake hands with them in the morning.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

When you are tempted to pet your child remember 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 wreck your adult son or daughter\u2019s vocational future and their chances for marital happiness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With these quotes in mind, it seems less surprising that we put adolescents to work<\/a> in factories and coal mines.<\/p>\n

In any case, it was in this context — one in which loving one’s child was viewed suspiciously, at best, and nurturing care both psychologically and physically dangerous — that psychologist Harry Harlow did some of his most famous experiments. \u00a0In the 1960s, using Rhesus monkeys, he set about to prove that babies needed more than just food, water, and shelter. \u00a0They needed comfort and even love. \u00a0While this may seem stunningly obvious today, Harlow was up against widespread beliefs in psychology.<\/p>\n

This video shows one of the more basic experiments (warning, these videos can be hard to watch):<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

The need for these experiments reveals just how dramatically conventional wisdom can change. \u00a0The psychologists of the time needed experimental proof that physical contact between a baby and its parent mattered. \u00a0\u00a0Harlow’s experiments were part of a revolution in thinking about child development. \u00a0It’s quite fascinating to realize that such a revolution was ever needed.<\/p>\n

Special thanks to Shayna Asher-Shapiro for finding Holt, Hall, and Watson for me.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the last week of December, we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2012. Cross-posted at The Huffington Post. All that rot they teach to children about the little raindrop fairies with their buckets washing down the window panes must go. \u00a0We need less sentimentality and more spanking. Or so said Granville Stanley Hall, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[223,329,253,272,675],"class_list":["post-50796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-childrenyouth","tag-emotion","tag-history","tag-marriagefamily","tag-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50796"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53298,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50796\/revisions\/53298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}