T Pitman wrote:
>
> I just wrote an article on separation anxiety and interviewed a psychiatrist
> in Toronto who specializes in anxiety in children. One of the points she
> made was that this is very cultural. In many societies, young children are
> expected to be with their parents, especially their mothers, day and night
> and this is not an issue. It is our expectation of very early independence -
> and our lifestyles that often require children to be in daycare or school
> settings from a young age - that makes this a problem. But as she said,
> children have to adapt to their society's expectations.

If society's expectations were inviolable then many of the women on this list
wouldn't have the jobs and responsibilities, or even the vote, they do have
now.  Society's expectations of racial segregation, disenfranchisment for women,
unequal pay, wife bashing, to name but very few, would never have been changed.
Children don't have a voice so they can't mobilise to change their living
conditions.  Calling a natural developmental stage a problem is wrong.  If
socity condones it then society must change it's expectations especially since
the so-called problem is not a problem world wide.  Seems unfair that a child
born in the US is medicated while a child born in Africa is simply accepted as
being a child for exactly the same behaviours.

Gitte
--
BN Carney
<[log in to unmask]>

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"Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be"
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