The time is com­ing. There is much you should be think­ing about. Have you met the part­ner of your dreams? That’s great. If you haven’t don’t get des­per­ate – I’ve seen what ‘desperate’ can do when they have to meet on match­dot­com and then ‘have’ to have a child because time is run­ning out (By ‘have’ I mean: adopt/buy, invit­ro fer­til­iza­tion, sperm dona­tions, sur­ro­gates plus the old fash­ioned way). You could be the gen­er­a­tion that is dam­ag­ing the next gen­er­a­tion by neglect­ing your children.

‘Neglect’ includes assum­ing that any and all day­care sit­u­a­tions are fine for your babies and tod­dlers and that it’s per­fect­ly OK for your baby to be in a con­tain­er while you ‘work at home’. I’m not going to explain ‘con­tain­er’ to you.

If you start think­ing now you can be the pro­tec­tors of the next gen­er­a­tion ensur­ing that their minds and bod­ies aren’t dam­aged by igno­rant caretaking.

We all know that there is igno­rant and care­less care­tak­ing in nurs­ing homes – sto­ries abound about the neglect of some­one’s grand­ma and con­tin­ue to hor­ri­fy us. But, by the same token, if you don’t know that it’s hap­pen­ing at the oppo­site end of soci­ety you are sore­ly miss­ing the boat and will per­ma­nent­ly dam­age your child (I guar­an­tee it because I’ve seen the dam­age on so many occa­sions, over a peri­od of over 30 years).

Why would it be good for a child who is four and has very poor lan­guage skills to attend a school where it is cus­tom­ary (and by the way, con­sid­ered ‘good’) for that child to work in a morn­ing three-hour work peri­od and not say a word to any­one!!! Saw it last week.

Why is it OK for a 5 month-old baby not to look all her car­ers in the eye? Saw it again yes­ter­day. And for those car­ers not to be wor­ried about it or the fact that the baby screams so loud­ly ‘for no appar­ent rea­son’, espe­cial­ly when the car­ers already know that the baby’s four-year-old broth­er still doesn’t have good eye con­tact with teach­ers he knows well, adults or his friends!

Why is it OK for two three-year-olds from dif­fer­ent and unre­lat­ed fam­i­lies to par­rot vir­tu­al­ly all the lan­guage they hear and yet have lit­tle or no phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al con­trol of themselves?

These are the chil­dren of ‘successful’ par­ents – doc­tors, lawyers, etc. attend­ing an expen­sive school.

With­out chil­dren being their par­en­t’s pri­or­i­ty for at least their first five years they don’t stand much of a chance of being pro­duc­tive. And if they aren’t pro­duc­tive and com­mu­nica­tive when they are three or four years old what hope is there for their future?

I’m warn­ing you – step up to the plate and wor­ry less about which mini­van you need to buy to trans­port your chil­dren, or the new fash­ion­able outfit/pushchair/cot for your baby (not for­get­ting the litany of oth­er objects, includ­ing an ipad for your four-year-old, that you can’t stop your­self buy­ing as a ‘good’ par­ent!) and wor­ry more about the con­tent of your baby’s brain – who is fill­ing it and with what?

You might even con­sid­er not nurs­ing your baby because ‘it looks good’, some­thing a moth­er is sup­posed to do to appear to be doing the right thing, when your baby con­stant­ly reflects the fact that nei­ther you nor he gets what should be passed through and by the nurs­ing relationship! 

Your behav­iour is destruc­tive to your baby and to those around you who assume you are nurs­ing and car­ing for your baby for all the right rea­sons – you’re not!

Get in touch if you’re hav­ing prob­lems with your baby! I’ll give you some clues…that is, if you are ready to change your own behav­iour for the true good of your child. 

But only when you’re ready to change!