> And she brought into it an important concept, religious or not:
> babywise lovers and their ilk believe in suffering now for the reward
> later--eternity notwithstanding--discipline baby now and you won't have a
> teen on drugs, etc. For the religious and others, there is a huge distrust
> of anything that seems like indulgence--i.e. meeting baby's needs, meeting
> one's own needs.
>
I think there is a clear link between the idea of "having to train" the
baby *out* of the baby and our ideas about the nature of humanity.
Adults have trouble taking their own happiness, needs, relationships,
etc. seriously, too, and shaping their lives around those things rather
than other sorts of achievements and goals. If the goal is to be
productive and submit to assembly-line thinking, it makes sense that we
can't allow ourselves to lie around and eat all day, right? If our goal
is to build happy, healthy, loving, unique human beings who connect on
all kinds of levels, however, it is just what we need to do!
Jo-Anne Elder-Gomes, PhD (thanks to dad's teaching and mom's nursing.)

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html