This is frequently the scenario in my experience of early childhood care when a mother isn’t sufficiently connected with her baby from his earliest days. ‘Bonding’ is often used to describe the connection that mother and baby ought to have and many mothers use the term. However, I don’t always see the mutual bonding that I expect for a healthy mother/baby pair. I always seem to searching for Donald Winnicott’s ‘ordinary good enough mother’! Where did she go?
A mother’s education has no bearing on her ability to mother. A good instinct for her baby’s and young child’s needs will go such a long way in ensuring positive and neurotypical development in all domains: physical, emotional and linguistic (by ‘linguistic’ I mean all forms of communication in the first three years).
We have to know our babies well and want to get to know them in order to be ‘a good enough mother’. Challenges abound for the working mother who leaves her baby in group care from infancy. Those who understand the two sides of the bargain of parenting have no trouble bringing up their babies and really work hard to develop their mothering and parenting skills and understanding their child.
However, in every instance where a child is ‘awkward’ when in group care there are missing pieces to that mother/baby pairing, mostly stemming from the mother’s poor skill set and poor ability or desire to constantly learn about her baby.
So when I say ‘disorganised’ when referring to a mother I don’t mean she’s untidy in her personal or professional life but I do mean that there are pieces of her baby’s developmental puzzle that she is incapable of observing, learning from and then making the requisite changes to her own contribution.
If you couple that disorganisation with a ‘disorganised’ caregiver for 10 hours a day it is unlikely that the child will be emotionally balanced, feel secure and have the language skills and cooperative behaviours I expect at 18 months, when in group care they usually make the transition to a toddler classroom.
An intelligent child that hasn’t been overpowered by his parents or caregiver can become extremely mentally well balanced and communicative, and can even come out of a disorganised state when he starts to recognise that although his mother is disorganised an adult in his group care room is worth connecting with in a positive way.
Of course the best developmental results come about if the caregiver is RIE trained (practicing the Magda Gerber/Emmi Pikler philosophy) and the mother is ‘organised’. Those toddlers are a delight to watch; they are happy, greet you with a smile, saying your name and are very ready to listen to a story. “Read! Read!†they scream with excitement – it’s a wonderful sight to behold!
RIE training is always the best route. However, it is perfectly possible for young and otherwise inexperienced yet very caring young women to read Magda’s books, discuss her philosophy with me and quite quickly absorb most of the skills needed to care for babies. What a difference they make in the group care classroom!
One young assistant wondered if the little ones would remember her after she left. I told her they might not remember her specifically as the years went by but they would always remember how kindly she treated them. I was a recent witness to her return as a visitor. One of ‘her’ babies, now in the toddler class, came into the infant room looked at her slightly puzzled but not scared. She said nothing but “Hi, Peter†with a lovely smile. He then remembered the voice and the face! And walked over to her and calmly backed into her welcoming lap.
It is hard to explain how important such connections are in a baby’s early years. If they haven’t had this special connection with their mother and haven’t had it with their caregiver they are in dire straits, but in Peter’s case his mother was always very ‘organised’. She seriously accepted her role as Peter’s mother, never rushed to him at pickup saying (demanding?) “Where’s my smile?” or “Where’s my kiss?” or “Where’s my hug?†(the usual litany of requests from a ‘disorganised’ mother. Some even say to their baby on arrival: “You hurt me when you don’t give me a kissâ€! How insensitive and disrespectful is it to say that to a 16 month old?).
‘Organised’ babies, toddlers and 3’s quite comfortably lean on a loving and warm (RIE?) caregiver. Other, less caring and less intuitive, staff members feel they have to tell me that “Tom is leaning on your back†while I’m feeding another baby.
What the staff member doesn’t know (because she’s ‘disorganised’!) is that Tom and I have a perfect understanding – he knows that I know he’s there. He doesn’t need anything more from me except to be a prop to aid his new-found ability to stand and take a few steps. If he needed me he would be much more assertive and make more noise – I would be forced to respond to him!
To answer your question: Tom’s mother is ‘organised’!
I repeat: “Disorganised mummy = disorganised babyâ€