Dear Lactnetters,
For reasons of my son's privacy protection, I have asked Kathleen Bruce
to forward this message to Lactnet for me. This message regards a comment
made by Zena in response to a question from Chris about skin to skin. Zena,
you said:
When a person is physically abused, the first step to
healing is positive interaction and positive touching. Postitive touching
can
help heal negative touching. You don't stop hugging a child because they
were
molested. They really have nothing to do with each other.
I'm sorry, but you really can't make a blanket statement like this. Our
son was molested by a babysitter when he was just a preschooler. Because we
very rarely used babysitters, this went on for a period of many months
before he told us what was happening. Happily (if you can call it that),
this babysitter was only with our son 6-8 times in the course of a year. It
took that long for our son to muster up enough courage to tell us what was
happening. (Molesters are very good at scaring children into not telling.)
Our son was never a "huggy" child. When he was born, he had a huge
"personal space bubble". We worked with him, and it made me so happy that
by the time he was 3 years old, he would finally just come up and
spontaneously give me a hug around the neck. Then, just after his 4th
birthday, he mysteriously stopped wanting to be touched. It broke my heart
that he regressed like this, but I had just recently read a book that said
that 4-yr-olds were "little monsters" (basically), so being an unexperienced
first-time mom, I figured his sudden change in behavior was due to turning
4. If I had been a more experienced mom, I would have realized that the
change in behavior should not have been so sudden. When he was just past
his 5th birthday, he told me what was happening. Of course, we never used
that babysitter again (reported her to the police, etc, etc), and took our
son for counseling.
Due to the molestation, our son could not tolerate any touching. Hugs
made him panic. We did not want him to lose all touch, so we privately
explained to grandparents, aunts and uncles, that our son could not handle
hugs good-bye when visiting. We asked our son if he could handle a
handshake. He agreed to try. It was difficult for him--you could see it in
his eyes--but he tried to live up to our compromise agreement about
touching. Everyone gave him a handshake when it was time to part. Even us,
his parents. He would flinch at a bedtime kiss, even given on the top of
his head. (I did it anyway, because *I* needed to. And I hoped he would
eventually grow used to it.) He was in high school before he could tolerate
a hug good-bye from me, and in college before he willing initiated a hug
good-bye. We had to respect how slowly our son could move from the hurt he
had experienced.
I think when we are working with mothers who have been abused, we need to
offer the same respect. Ask the mother if she can hold her baby on her
chest. Some can't. Some can barely tolerate baby's lips on the nipple, and
push the rest of baby's body away from their own body once baby is latched
on. (Baby is lying on a pillow so there is no touch other than the mouth.)
They are doing the best they can at that moment. If not pressured, they may
be able--in time--to touch and hold their baby more closely. But you can't
push them. Just like we always ask a mother's permission before touching
her breast during a consultation, we should always ask her permission before
just putting baby on her chest. We might get told NO, and we need to honor
that.
***********************************************
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
