Diane Wiessinger and I were e-mailing privately about thumbsucking, and she
says I should post this to the list, so here it is.

>Thanks for sharing this.  You know, the idea that babies can be "bored"
just never seems to occur to most people.  They think of babies like a dog
or a toad, who have nothing going on in their brains.  Actually, I have two
smart dogs and one "Odie"-dog who never has a thought cross his mind.  But
the point was that many is the time I've taken a fussing baby from its
mother and just placed it in my arms in front, facing out, and walked it
around the house, or outside, talking to it and pointing things out to it.
"Here's the photograph Gentry gave me for teaching his class one spring" or
"Here's a mask from Venezuela -- See, it's a bat."  Most babies will calm
right down and be happy as a clam.  And the mother says "You have a magic
touch" and I say "No, the baby was just bored."  Taking them outside seems
to help even more, especially at night.  I remember "Moon" was one of
Miranda's first words in Bambara, when we lived in Mali.  Women in Mali
thought it was ridiculous to "talk" to babies, and thought I was a little
odd that I talked to their babies, but then their babies had plenty to see
and do and watch and be stimualted by.  Jean Liedloff's book "The Continuum
Concept" about life in an Amazonian village, talks about this a lot -- about
how babies are expecting to be observers to an interesting and varied work
life from their mother's arms or back.  They are not expecting to be
enclosed in the walls of a playpen with a few pastel covered toys, or to be
constantly interacted with face to face.  But if the environment is boring,
then they need more social stimulation from mom directly.
>
>By the way, I was nursed until 18 months, then weaned, and it was at that
point that I started sucking my thumb while holding onto a cloth diaper.  I
continued that until I was 8!!  I never saw a child suck its thumb in Mali,
and the Malians all thought American babies pacifiers were bizarre.  It
would be fascinating to plant a microphone on the Malian nannies of American
babies and listen in on their conversations when they gather with their
charges to talk and visit!
>

Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University
Co-editor of "Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives"