The Nomadic Alternative – Page 236

attach itself to a foster mother. The life of the child does not absolutely depend on the life of the mother.

The new born child clings. Waggle your finger in front of its hands and the strength of its grip will amaze you. At thirty days a child can suspend its own weight from a bar for half a minute without falling, but this clinging mechanism, known as Moro's Response, declines when it is unused. If the mother - or her substitute - removes her warm presence and nourishing breast, another instinctive response makes the baby cry until she returns. The baby 'knows' automatically how much milk to take from the breast and cannot overfeed itself, unlike a baby fed from a bottle. Thus, the first demands a baby makes on a mother figure are for food and the warm protection of her body.

But at about the age of twelve weeks a major change takes place. The baby can recognize the mother in a sea of outside moving presences, and it diverts all its clinging attachment behaviour onto her - and her only. It recognizes her presence at once and registers its disapproval of all others. When she leaves, it sends out furious signals of alarm and rage. The child cannot bear separation from her. Its outbursts intensify if left alone for long, at the approach of strangers and animals, at thunder or any loud noise, or when bright lights shine in the dark. In moments of real danger, the mother reciprocates the alarm of her child, defending it with an all-or-nothing desperation that borders on the superhuman, and owes nothing to rational reflection. But her child cannot yet distinguish between a real and an imaginary terror.

To silence the screams of her frustrated child, the mother can perform all or any of three fixed actions. If the anxiety is not extreme, the sound of her voice alone suffices to quieten it. If that fails, she may stop the crying by offering her breast or a substitute for it - a bottle or a dummy. Anxious mothers often interpret infantile rage as signals for more food or a sign of illness. But those who unwittingly overfeed their babies, are victims of an economic interpretation of motherhood. In popular