The late psychoanalyst Selma Fraiberg said that babies need mother most of the time
until age three, and afterward, can tolerate only a half day’s absence.
Every parent or parent to be, should read the brilliant work by Dr. Peter S. Cook, MB, ChB, MRCPsych, FRANZCP, DCH, child and family psychiatrist 1927-2017. Some of his priceless work includes: “Mothering Matters,”, “Early Child Care ” and “Mothering Denied” How our culture harms women, infants and society
‘Mothering Denied,’ Page 4 excerpt: Live brain-imaging techniques show that during
mothering the same brain centers are active, deep in the ‘mammalian brains’ of each of both humans and other mammals.
In comparison with the long-term development and well being of children reared mostly by their mothers during infancy, there is increasing evidence that the placement of infants in non-family daycare during their early years involves risks to their healthy emotional and behavioral development. The more hours spent in childcare, the greater the risk of adverse
effects. These include increased aggressiveness, disobedience, and abnormal blood levels of the stress hormone cortisol. In vulnerable infants, rearing in non-family childcare disrupts many processes that depend on normal mothering. The quality of family life is the most significant influence on a child’s development, and non-family childcare is only preferable if the alternative would be worse.
Dr. Cooks research also reveals that children deprived of parental care in early childhood are likely to be withdrawn, disruptive, insecure, or even intellectually stunted. Depression resulting from separation anxiety in early childhood can cause a permanent impairment of the immune system making these children prone to physical illness through their lives.” This is already a very common occurrence in most western countries.
His life long work profoundly outlines the importance of providing maternal care during the early years. He also notes that the movement for women's "liberation", while advancing women in the workplace, devalued and undermined their role as mothers. It denied infants' needs for mothering, and mothers' needs to provide it.
The pressures today’s high cost of the living and governments pressuring women back
to work shortly after giving birth, to raise tax revenues and cut benefits, are doing immense costly, long-term damage to the next generation. This short sightedness will also damage their country’s long-term economic future. In addition, fathers who don’t support the mother staying home with their child/children during the early years, or if split up, demand equal time to evade paying child support are also doing a lot of long-term damage to the child/children. Undoubtedly, they will pay a high price later in life. Dr. Cook affirms that healthy mothering includes breastfeeding, holding, carrying, attachment bonds, and making infants feel loved. This is almost impossible to do if the mother is forced to go to work within the first three to four years after giving birth. These basic needs of infants are hardly met in institutional childcare, especially when profits must be maximized in private centers.
Dr. Cook affirms that it is necessary to work with Nature and not against her if we are
to promote health and well being in young children, their mothers, and society. A normal mother-child relationship is a love affair that needs the right conditions to flourish. Infancy cannot be re-run later.
Most child development professionals privately believe it's best for infants to be cared for mostly by their mothers. Like the NICHD studies, they don't support the view that parents are interchangeable, but that they complement each other.