Raising kids is hard. Raising kids when there are people like Darcia Narveaz around would make it much harder. Resisting the temptation to scream at her may well be impossible, for she’s that self-righteous busybody who believes she has an “ethical duty” to stick her nose in and tell other mothers how to raise their children.
I heard the toddler wail across the store. He kept up his protest as we passed him in a cart along the checkout lines. He sounded both angry and heartbroken. After our purchases, he was still upset, tears leaping from his eyes as he cried sitting next to his mother in a booth. She asked him if he wanted to try his pizza. Distressed, we walked on by, not knowing what to do. I now consider that an ethical failure. I became haunted by my failure to help.
Kids crying in stores isn’t exactly unheard of. Kids crying anywhere isn’t exactly unheard of. That hearing a child cry “haunted” Narveaz, however, is bizarre to the point of suggesting the need for serious therapeutic action. Not for the kid, but for Narveaz. But then, her facile, yet delusional, description that he “sounded both angry and heartbroken” provides some insight.
The kid was crying. Cries sound like cries. More importantly, to know whether it was any different than any other time the kid cried would require that she know the kid. She didn’t. This wasn’t how “he sounded,” but how his cry got twisted in her delusion.
But Narvaez has a Ph.D., and she’s an expert. We know it because she tell us.
My expertise in neurobiology and the development of human moralitymake me sensitive to the needs of young children and the possible harm they are experiencing when they are highly distressed. Extensive distress does damage to developing brains, leaving long term marks on brain function, like a hyperreactive stress response (Lupien et al., 2006), which undermines sociomoral functioning (Narvaez, 2014). Because thousands of synapses are developing every minute in a young child, one never knows what distress is altering in normal development.
Perhaps this gives rise to an image from a Woody Allen movie, where Marshall McLuhan magically appears to correct the boorish academic on the movie line. Maybe this mother, with her crying child, would appreciate a little support at the moment.
In our ancestral context, children grow up in a community of responsive relationships 24/7. For over 99% of our species’ history, mothers and their children have been supported by other community members. Children thrive within a ‘village’ of caring supporters. If a particular caregiver is preoccupied with something else, there is someone else around to whom the child can turn for comfort or play, or who will step in to alleviate distress. Most children in advanced economies are missing out on this web of constancy provided by familiar caregivers day and night.
Missing from this shallow perspective is that it wasn’t up to the “village” for force itself upon the mother, but for the mother to ask for help, to seek the support of others. As for a “web of constancy,” that’s remarkably wrong. There was support when needed, but it was never thrust upon a child so that they were never left to their own devices, to learn how to negotiate life.
And yet, this “expert,” apparently after much soul-searching in her haunted state, came up with what she deems the ethical thing to do.
This is what I think I should have done:
Walk up to the child and mother and say: I’m a psychologist. I’m concerned about this child’s wellbeing. Tell the child in a calm voice: It’s okay. You will be all right. Then, turn to the mother (but keep turning to the child with reassurance) and represent the child’s view: The child needs comforting. He is unable to calm down without your comfort. He feels abandoned emotionally. To alleviate that pain, he needs comforting—comforting conversation, comforting touch.
And if you were this kids mother, what would you do in response to this random woman in a store, pushing her way into your world as your kid is crying, smugly informing you that you’re parenting wrong?
Short Take: Or Mind Your Own Business curated from Simple Justice
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