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The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast
Welcome to "The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast," the podcast where insightful conversations unfold, and the depth of the human mind is explored. In each episode, I sit down with a diverse range of individuals—thinkers, innovators, and captivating personalities—who share their unique insights and experiences. Together, we embark on a journey of discovery, unraveling the complexities of the human psyche and uncovering the untold truths that influence our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast
Erica Komisar | Negative Impact of Daycare, Importance of Motherhood | The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast #35
Can daycare affect your child's mental health and development? Erica Komisar, a seasoned clinical social worker and author, joins me to unravel the complexities of child rearing in today's society. Through this episode, we challenge the prevailing cultural norms that often pit career aspirations against the needs of our children. Erica offers insightful perspective on how daycare environments can shape a child's emotional landscape, especially highlighting the differing impacts on boys and girls. She passionately argues for the importance of parental presence, emphasizing nurturing and play as foundational blocks for healthy growth and attachment.
Parenting today can feel like walking a tightrope in a world that increasingly values material success over relational harmony. We explore how the joy once found in parenting has been overshadowed by societal pressures driven by the feminist movement and materialism. It's crucial to recognize the vital role parenting plays and the pressures modern parents face in juggling career goals with raising children. Our conversation with Erica pushes us to reconsider what truly counts as success and to strive for a balance that honors both our professional ambitions and our responsibilities to the next generation.
The episode concludes with a deep appreciation of the profound influence parents, especially mothers, have in shaping future leaders. We delve into the potential traumas linked to insufficient early childhood care and the importance of secure attachments with primary caregivers. Erica's insights remind us of the power parental presence holds in a child's world, stressing the value of family bonds and consistent caregiving. By the end, we hope to inspire parents to embrace their critical role, recognizing that the love and guidance they provide lay the foundation for a better society.
the more physically and emotionally you can be present, or at least one primary parent can be present to soothe that baby when they're in distress and provide them with a sense of security, the greater the chance that that child will be mentally healthy.
Speaker 2:If we can just have this minimalist mentality, I think everything would be manageable and we can stay home and take care of our children.
Speaker 1:I always say to mothers you can be physically present and be emotionally checked out. You cannot be emotionally present if you are not physically present.
Speaker 2:period If we want these children in law school, medical school, what we're dreaming of. I mean that takes a lot of nurture and love and care to get them to that level. You can't have a traumatized kid going into all these, you know like healthy education and pursuing these healthy, healthy things for themselves.
Speaker 1:Your children need to be in school. They're going to be more successful. No, I mean, children need nurturing, they need play, they need to be close to their source of security. That's it.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, thank you for joining me today. We want to talk about daycares and I wanted to bring on someone to talk about daycares and the negative effects it has on little children. Now why I wanted to bring on Erica Komisar, lcsw. She's a therapist in New York, the author of an amazing book that really changed my perspective, my life and how I mother my children called being there. I read this book several years ago and it really changed how I see daycare and it really made me rethink about daycare. Now, this is not to have anybody feel judged because their children are in daycare or they have utilized daycares, but I really wanted to bring on Erica because she has such beautiful, valid points with research.
Speaker 2:In this episode we discuss the crucial role daycare plays in the lives of families, but also what it takes away from families, children particularly. I love how she loves kids and I love how she portrays the research about these daycares eloquently. Again, it's not a judge, but I really wanted you guys to see how it does put a tarnish on the development of children and their attachments. We dived into what symptoms children endure when they're in daycare the attachment disorders, whether it's anxiety, whether it's depression. We did talk about the difference between what the boys and the little girls experience that are coming out from daycare. It was just, overall, a beautiful experience to be in her presence, because she takes mothering to a different level. She has three children herself, has raised phenomenal children herself, and it was really loving to see the advice that she gave. You're going to find all of that in this podcast, but I have a really deeper understanding of what mothering is now talking to her, so I think you guys are going to take away some really valid points.
Speaker 2:Again. Third time, I'm kind of reiterating this it's not a judgment for anyone that has their children in daycare, but these are facts that she's saying and these are the experiences that children endure. So we have to really be mindful. We did talk about the simple life and how we can kind of prioritize and I think prioritizing his left women. Because of the radical feminism nowadays, we have forgotten that taking care of our children is the most important thing. All discussed in today's episode with licensed social worker Erica Komisar. Thank you for joining me, erica. It's so nice to meet you. Thank you for joining me today. First of all, it's an honor. I love your work and I love how you love children and how you stand up for their development and their rights, so I'm very excited to have you on today.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I wanted to talk about. I think one of the first questions that I have that just struck me when I'm looking at your podcast is this way of you explaining how we're living in a very narcissistic time and parents have really are looking at their children as burdens instead of value. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 1:Mothering and parenting is very hard work. It's always been hard work, but the responsibility of it was pleasurable in the past Not always, but mostly right. So we took pleasure in giving. We took pleasure in caring and loving and giving. And I think in a generation which hasn't been given to I would say actually three generations now that haven't been given to then the giving makes them feel angry and resentful and dependency makes them feel frightened and resentful, and so that's a symptom of not being given to. If we're given to, we more naturally feel pleasure and joy in giving. If we're not given to, we feel less pleasure and joy in giving and feel more resentment and anger. And so what we're seeing is sort of three generations going on, four of young people feeling resentful about things like dependency, which used to be something that was incredibly pleasurable.
Speaker 2:What do you think I mean from your perspective? What changed in mothering or parents in general that this happened?
Speaker 1:Well, a number of things changed. I suppose the biggest, most obvious thing is the feminist movement, which was a necessary thing. Right, because before that women didn't have choices. Right, so they were having children even though they didn't want children. They were getting married and having children because it was the only thing that society allowed them to do. I think we needed to have a movement that allowed women to have choice. Right that they choose to have children, not that they're forced to have children. But having said that, in doing that, in freeing women and giving them the choice, it sort of perverted the message. The message should have been you have a choice now. The message should have been you have a choice now.
Speaker 1:But children and raising children is an incredibly important part of life. What are we if we can't raise our own healthy children to be our legacy? They're our legacy, not our work, not our money, not materially. What we leave behind. In Judaism I'm Jewish we say when someone passes away, we say may their memory be a blessing, and so we always think of our legacy are the relationships we leave behind, not our stuff.
Speaker 1:But I think that what's happened is that the women's movement said right, raising children is not meaningful and important work. Work outside the home is more important, making money is more important. Economically and career-wise, competing with men is more important. And if you don't do that, it said, you're not part of the movement. You're not part of the movement, you're not a feminist, you're not a modern woman if you don't work outside the home. And that was a very perverse message, instead of saying mothering is critical to the survival of our species and it's such an important role. But you can also have a choice now, women, that you can have a linear career and not have children, and that should also be admirable and respectable. And if you choose to mix it up and have both, you can do both in life. You just can't do them all at the same time. Well, so think of timing in life and choose when you're going to have these fabulous careers outside the home and and then be willing and courageous enough to step off that path to care for your young and give them all of you, and then be willing to go back. You know it, it it didn't again. Sometimes, when movements are trying to, they create an extreme. The pendulum swings very far. So that's one of the things that happened.
Speaker 1:The other thing that happened, I would say, is advertising, television. The usually say technology. Today, like Jonathan and I wrote a book about technology, I would say media, it was the beginning of advertising and the movie industry and television Again, not to demonize it, it's wonderful, I love watching movies. It portrayed materialism and it portrayed economic prosperity as the signs of success. Right, so if you buy this vacuum cleaner, you will be modern, if you buy this new house and these new cars. And that made people suddenly feel as if they were lacking and that if they didn't have the cars and the vacuum cleaner and the bigger house and if they didn't look like supermodels and like movie stars and have the beautiful clothes, that they were lacking and they weren't modern. And so that then that preceded social media and television.
Speaker 1:Social media and technology that we see today. And the problem with that is it whet people's appetite in a way for material success over relational success. So it was a combination of societal things that said what does it mean to be modern and what does it mean to be a modern woman and to be modern? You had to have all this stuff, and to have all this stuff you have to go out to work and you have to make lots of money and that's right, you know so. So sacrifice for relationships went out. The window.
Speaker 2:That's right, which I think also puts so much pressure on the dads at home, because in this new age, in the new world where you have all this stuff that's coming up, I have to have the latest bag, I have to have the latest vacuum In one income. It's difficult to, you know, have all these things so it kind of like pushed women into these jobs and so that pushed these children away as priority, I think, and I think that's what you're explaining, which is so beautifully said. It is this stuff.
Speaker 1:Also, gloria Steinem said, you know, she said go out to work outside the home. And again, you're not modern if you don't go out to work outside the home. So, and she didn't mention anything about children. She actually said children will be just fine, Just find someone to care for them, they'll all be just fine. Just find someone to care for them, they'll all be just fine. And she never had children. So, um, she made that linear decision to be a career woman and she was very successful at it and whatever. But she so what? What got forgotten in all of it? Uh, were children. And what got forgotten is the joy of mothering, because there were a lot of women who loved mothering, who were told that they were insignificant and they weren't modern.
Speaker 2:I wonder, from these talks and these podcasts that you do. Do you ever have women saying, well, that's not a choice, we don't have that choice, we have to work now. And so what do you tell to those families that kind of like go against this, like no daycare is not the best option?
Speaker 1:Not all women have the same choices. We live in a country in America, I live in a country in America that has very few choices for poor women, and it's why I fight for paid leave. I mean, one of the reasons that I go around and talk like I do is to say you know, we are the most insensitive, uncivilized country in the world other than Papua New Guinea. We're the only country that has no paid leave. We put capitalism and materialism and economic success over families and relationship. We talk a big game about being family oriented. We are not. We do not like families, we do not like children. You have to put your money where your mouth is if you say you do. And we're very much into particularly the Republican Party, but also, now you know, the Democratic Party too. We're very much into self-sufficiency, sort of the pioneering spirit of America. We should all be able to do it on our own, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and work hard and do it on our own. We shouldn't lean on the government or anybody else. On our own, we shouldn't lean on the government or anybody else. Just independent self-sufficiency, self-determinism, pioneering spirit.
Speaker 1:And the truth is that probably the majority of people in America do not have that ability. They've been raised in generational poverty. They are not, they do not have access to education or opportunities and they remain in. Uh, if they do at work, they remain in, you know, uh, very low paying, uh minimum wage kinds of jobs and they can't afford to to take off time when they have a child. Neither one of them and many families work two and three jobs just to be able to pay their mortgage. So you know, and that's different than the middle and upper middle class and the affluent class in America, there is a working class in America and an impoverished class that desperately needs to have paid leave. And so this idea that we should all be self sufficient is part of the pathology of our country, because self-sufficiency is something that we can only achieve when we can lean on others. It's an offshoot, it is a byproduct and a developmental byproduct of being able to be dependent. So we have to be able to lean on others, including our government, if we want to eventually be more independent and self-sufficient. So the idea that from birth you should be self-sufficient.
Speaker 1:So you know, again I'm going to say, on the right, on the left, they say you know, go women, go working women, you know you go, be part of the economy, compete with men, be out there. So they have their own shtick about it, which is, yes, we want to give you three months of paid leave, but then we want you to put your children in institutional care because you women should go out and work. So they don't really. They don't really care about children. On the right, they say they care about children, but they don't want to pay anything to support families with children, and so then the idea is, of course, we want you to stay home, but we want you to do it on your own, just stand on your own feet, and that's just not realistic for a good proportion of this, a good percentage of this country or any other country. I mean, if you look at any country, they have paid leave for a reason they do. Even grandparents, people who work in low paid jobs, desperately need to have paid leave. So we could even I mean, you know, everybody talks about paid leave should be universal. I think in our country that probably is never going to happen, but I do believe that it could be needs based and I believe that the people who really need it, not the people who want it, so they can have two cars or take a vacation or, you know, get a bigger house or um. Uh, chris Rufo, who's at the Manhattan Institute, said to me uh, we were having a conversation and he said to me, and he's very Republican, and he said you know, part of the problem too is that people I believe he said people people's desires also increased. So whereas people used to be happy with a 2000 square foot house with four bedrooms, everybody just had a tiny space, now the middle class has to have a 3,000 square foot house or a 4,000 square foot house and two cars not one car and take two vacations a year and buy new clothes for their children every school season.
Speaker 1:When I was little, I used to go to Barnum and Bailey Circus with my family and Madison square garden. Then it was in Connecticut. It it uh, in one of the kind of big kind of places in new Haven. I can't remember what it was called, um, but it like a Madison square garden and I remember it was big like the elephants and the, but it was. It was big but manageable. I was little and it was big and the noise was loud, but it was exciting. And as I got older and my kids. I started taking my kids to Madison Square Garden for this, for Barnum and Bailey Um. What I noticed is it got bigger, louder, more overstimulating, to the extent that I could no longer take my children to the circus and then the circus shut down because no one was going to the circus, because it got so big and loud.
Speaker 1:In the same way, we have grown in our greed as a nation in terms of how much is enough, and that's made it untenable for even middle class families who used to have choices. So we do say housing is expensive and all these things are expensive. It's true, but the truth of the matter is our greed is a big part of it. Not for very poor people, no, but for middle class, upper middle class, wealthy people. It's greed and we don't want to call it greed, but it is greed. We value our material success and pleasures over our children.
Speaker 2:I agree with you 100%, and a wise man once said children are not expensive. We are expensive. That's right. It's so true, that's right. I think that if we can as a society and I know it's kind of hard to do and possibly might never happen, but if we can just have this minimalist mentality, I think everything would be manageable and we can stay home and take care of our children, Because daycare is also very pricey. That's also a different expense and there's a lot of myths, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So people have been been told. And again I blame this on the feminist movement, because daycare was part of the feminist agenda, right, and it's part of the capitalist agenda. It's part of the Democratic Party's agenda.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Which is that you know again, here we go. The Republican Party doesn't push for daycare, they push for families, but they don't want to pay for families to be together. The Democratic Party says that they push for families, but they want kids in daycare because, in the end, capitalism is more important than children. In both parties, capitalism is more important than children and that's really a problem. But what?
Speaker 1:The myth that spread about daycare and started with the feminist movement is that it's good for children, that it was a failed experiment. The idea of separating children from their parents long days, long hours during the day and even overnight was a failed experiment. It actually traumatized children who needed attachment, security to a primary attachment object their parents. Right, and so we know that this is a failed experiment. But what's happened is it's being promoted as being good for children, that it helps them to be smarter and get ready for school, and it's called school in northern Europe. I'm like it's not school, it is institutional care, at a time when children shouldn't be in institutional care, and the myth that somehow and it's good for children socially Children don't interact with one another until they're about three. They do something called parallel play developmentally, so it's not good for children. It traumatizes children, it elevates their cortisol levels, it makes them feel frightened and it activates the stress regulating parts of the brain at a time when that part of the brain is supposed to remain very, very offline, and so it's not good for children. It's been shown that children who are put into daycare have higher levels of aggression later, and when they get to the school years they also have higher levels of distractibility and higher levels of depression and anxiety. So, as we say in America, houston, we have a problem in that it's gaslighting.
Speaker 1:Parents is what it is, because I have parents come to me and say we were told that our children would get left behind, that it's better for children to be, and Romania did this too. Romania promoted the myth. Cecefscu promoted the myth that the state could raise your children better than you could, and it ended up with children being put into orphanages. Families who could have cared for their own children believed that they were doing what was best for their children by putting them in state-run institutions, because the state said we can raise your children better than you. Now, this isn't telling parents to put them into orphanages, but when you tell parents to put children into daycare up to 10 hours a day. You are basically telling them to put their children in orphanages. That's right.
Speaker 2:So the myth that they learn how to play, they learn how to socialize, they learn how to connect so that later on in life they'll know how to play with their siblings better.
Speaker 1:That's all false mother or a father, whoever is the one who is their primary attachment figure, usually the mother. It is through that intimate, trusting, safe, loving, reassuring relationship, that consistent relationship, that a child develops a deep sense of security and the ability to read social cues of other children. There was just a study that came out that there's been many studies. There was another one that came out the other day that said you know, by three years of age children have developed all the mirror neurons so they can identify the intentions of other children. Now if you put them in daycare, they never develop those reading of social cues. The reading of social cues comes from your intimacy with them, your empathy for them, your skin-to-skin contact, your soothing them when they're in distress. That safety and acknowledgement and understanding and reassurance from moment to moment in the first three years with that primary attachment object, is the way that they learn how to have close relationships. When you put them in daycare it creates attachment disorders which then interfere with and become obstacles to having relationships.
Speaker 2:What are some of the developments that they learn when they're with their mother, when the mother is nurturing with them, so during those three years, so that, so the viewers can understand.
Speaker 1:So mothers do a few very important things. One is that they buffer children from stress. They protect them from stress with things like skin to skin contact, eye contact, the tone of their voice, the soothing of that mother from moment to moment when the baby is in distress. It both regulates the child's emotions. It keeps their emotions from going too high or too low and it also buffers that child from stress, protects them from stress and keeps the stress regulating part of the brain offline for the first year.
Speaker 1:So little incremental amounts of stress are part of all baby's lives. I mean whether it's the mother looks away for a moment or walks to go to the bathroom for a moment, or there are moments of or doesn't get they'll diaper change quickly enough for is hungry and has to wait a few minutes. There's always incremental bits of stress, but nothing major. So we say that minor tears in the connection can be repaired. Major tears are another thing. So when you have a rupture in a relationship, it could be as simple as the baby seeing the mother look away for a moment. But the mother then looks back at the baby and reassures the baby and says oh honey, I see I looked away and you're sad, and that is repairing the rupture. But so we call them minor misunderstandings throughout the day. But when you leave a baby, it is not minor, it is major right. And so buffering from stress, emotional regulation, teaching babies how to read social cues, teaching them how to trust in relationships overall.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful. Does every child experience the attachment damages while they're in daycare or it differs? Every child is different.
Speaker 1:Every child is different and that means that they differ in terms of their sensitivity to stress in the environment. So very sensitive children who are more neurologically sensitive. It basically means they're more sensitive to stress. And what we do know is that many babies are being born more emotionally and neurologically sensitive. They're the babies who are harder to. So that if you're fiscally and emotionally present for those babies as much as possible, it neutralizes the expression of that sensitivity in mental health terms, but if you're not present, it exacerbates it and it turns into things like ADHD, depression, anxiety, forms of aggression.
Speaker 1:So when we are stressed as human beings, we go into fight or flight mode essentially, and so we're seeing more children in fight or flight mode, whether it's more aggressive children, more distracted children, which we're labeling as ADHD, which is just a symptom of stress, right Distractibility. These are depression and anxiety. These are symptoms of their responses to stress, essentially. So we know that the babies differ in terms of their sensitivity. Some babies can tolerate more stress. Some babies less Little boys are generally more neurologically sensitive. We say that more little girls, more little boys are born in the world, but fewer survive right Everywhere in the world, and that has to do with the fact that they are more sensitive to stress in the environment physical stress, emotional stress Even more than little girls. They will get triggered and go into a symptomatic state.
Speaker 2:This is the suffering that you're talking about, that children suffer without their mothers. Are these that you just labeled some of the symptoms that they experience later on in life?
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean as a result of having attachment disorders. Different attachment disorders correlate with different forms of mental illness.
Speaker 2:What do we see?
Speaker 1:more Depression.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do we see more? Sorry, what do we see more like in little girls and little boys later on, like I'm noticing boys with ADHD symptoms that are just been you know misdiagnosed left and right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, more depression in little girls, more distractibility and aggression in little boys. But, that it's not not. As a general rule, little girls can be aggressive and distractible, but generally more little boys are aggressive, bite and hit, throw chairs. Um, and more little boys uh are are are distractible, meaning they go into flight, and more little girls go into a depressed state.
Speaker 2:I want to go back to kind of uh, I know there's going to be a lot of families watching this. Um, I want to soothe the mothers and fathers a little bit, because they're going to probably think that we're saying never work, just stay home and take care of your children. Now, is there like a good balance that we can balance or doesn't exist, so that we know that we're not damaging our children?
Speaker 1:You know, balance is it is according to the individual children that you have. So if you have more sensitive children, you have to pay attention to that, meaning you can't treat all of your children the same. Maybe you have one child who you can leave three hours a day and the other child can't be left at all because they go, they freak out when you want, when you leave leave. So it depends on the individual child. But what I would say is that you know more is more. The more physically and emotionally you can be present, or at least one primary parent can be present from moment to moment to soothe that baby when they're in distress and provide them with a sense of security, the greater the chance that that child will be mentally healthy. So that means going back to a one working parent family. You know, in a two parent family where one can stay home or one works primarily outside the home and one works primarily in the home. That doesn't mean that the one that works in the home can't also have some part-time work. But the idea of two full-time working parents, you can't. Children are not self-cleaning ovens, they just aren't. They don't. They don't raise themselves and you can't expect someone else to raise your, your children, to be healthy, to, to, and you can't expect that child to feel safe if you haven't been with them to provide that safety in those early years. So what we're not talking about in society is how do we get back to a place where we can raise children with one person, where we can raise children with a team approach? Right, a team approach wasn't a competitive approach.
Speaker 1:Today, men and women compete because the feminist movement said you go out there and you beat more men than men. You beat the men at their own game. You can be more men than men. And that's what they did. They went out there, they abandoned their children. That generation of women dropped their children like yesterday's old fish wrapped in newspaper.
Speaker 1:This is true, yeah, and those children were abandoned. I call them the abandoned generation, the generation of feminism. They literally were dropped. Wow, yes. And then those women became mothers and, because they were traumatized and neglected, they then raised their children and dropped their. I mean, this is generational expression, right, and so, yeah, I mean I think the idea is if we could get back to a place where, from a very early stage in our lives, we plan our life. We don't plan our career, we plan our life and you teach your daughters and your sons to plan a life, not a career. I have a son in medical school and his girlfriend is in law school and the kind of work that I do they hear me all the time. My family could probably get on this podcast and be interviewed by you and they'd be able to say exactly the same thing, because they've heard me.
Speaker 2:So much so how do you do that? How do you have parents teach that? How did you do that? How did you apply? I have two kids. I would love to learn.
Speaker 1:First I modeled, and I modeled when they were, when they were little. They were my priority. I worked very little. I worked a little bit outside the home, just enough to pay for for me myself, to pay for a babysitter, not so I could leave my children, but so that when my husband was at work and we had three children it could be two on three what we call zone defense, because one on three was tough. My mother was ill and my sisters were preoccupied, so for me to have another person like extended family. So I ended up hiring a 58 year old woman who I loved, who became like a grandmother, and Alba and I were together and we would go to the park together and we would tag team together and I would take two and she would take one, and I would take one and she would take two, and then we would all be together. But and then my husband would come home and Alba would leave and that it would be my husband. So it's a team approach. You see, it's not competitive. So in those years it wasn't. Can I make as much money as my husband? Can I? Can I be as successful as him? Can I be as narcissistically pleased by my career. It wasn't like that. It was how little can I work and still be able to pay Alba, but be primarily with my children, and so I love her name? Yeah, I was able to get away with a couple of hours a day of work and it was enough to pay Alba, and then we um, I didn't ratchet back up my career until my children were in high school and college. So the idea is that and even then I made sure to be home when my children were home and to work when they were in school. So you know, the day is long, maybe not long enough for some, but the day is long and you can do a lot of things in the day, but you can work when your children are at school and that's ideally.
Speaker 1:Eventually, that's the ideal for mothers is to not have to work when their children are home, but to work when their children are working. You know, maria Montessori said children's work is school. So when they're actually eight years old, 12 years old, 14 years old, when they're at school, you work. And when they come home from school, and the ideal is to create the illusion for your children that you're sitting home all day, twiddling your thumbs, waiting for them to come home. Because my kids used to come home when they were six, seven years old and I picked them up at school at two and they would come home and we'd bake cookies and, you know, go to the park and then make dinner and play. And so they said to me, mommy, what did you do all day waiting for me? Because their illusion, the illusion, was I was waiting for them. They didn't know. I was at my practice seeing patients from nine to two, you know, and then picking them up.
Speaker 1:So the ideal is for women to work when their children work. That is the ideal. But when they're under three, children do not work, they play and they need you. Children do not work, they play and they need you. And so more is more.
Speaker 1:The more present you can be in those years, the healthier your children will be, and there's just no substitute for the time you spend with them. You know, I always say to mothers you can be physically present and be emotionally checked out. You cannot be emotionally present if you are not physically present. Period, that is absolutely a myth. Another myth, and some of these myths, which were like gaslighting parents about children, really took hold of our culture the myth that daycare is better for children than being home with your mother, that quality time is as good as quantity. I don't know. These myths grabbed hold of our culture and I think now, the ignorance in so many parents which is not their fault, the lack of knowledge of what is actually good for children is shocking to me Absolutely, and I feel and I see this all the time too mothers are home, but their children are in daycare.
Speaker 2:I promise you, I see this all the time too. Mothers are home, but their children are in daycare. I promise you, I see this so often. I know that it's this like me, me, me. I want to have my own time. I need my own time. We're such a selfish society. It's very selfish. Yeah, the way you're talking. It's so eloquent. You express it so beautifully that women need to prioritize their children. But how can we make or allow women to know or understand that it is priority If we want these children in law school, medical school, what we're dreaming of, that I mean that takes a lot of nurture and love and care to get them to that level. You can't have a traumatized kid going into all these.
Speaker 1:you know like healthy education and and will be successful in their careers, but they all recognize that, that careers always have to come second to relationships, so says I don't want to work all the time. I don't want to do that. I want to be able to be with my family and my loved ones, and I feel empty when I'm working all the time. You want your children to feel empty when they work all the time. You want them to feel full when they're with relationships that they love. You want them to feel full when they're with relationships that they love. And we've created the opposite paradigm Feel full when you're at work and feel empty when you're with your children. It's the opposite. We want them to feel full with their children and feel a little empty. So when mothers say to me I'm preoccupied with my baby, I went back to work too soon, but everybody's telling me it'll get better, I'm like no, I'm like you don't want it to get better, you want to be preoccupied with your young child. So listen to this. Society is telling you, is gaslighting you, is telling you a myth, a lie. You listen to your instincts. It's called maternal preoccupation and it's hormonal. When we have a baby, we can't take our mind off the baby and society says oh, don't worry, that'll go away If you just wait, it'll just go away.
Speaker 1:There was a line from I don't know if you know the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder. No, but it's my favorite play. Uh, thornton Wilder is one of the great American playwrights and he uh, there's a scene. It's basically about a woman, a woman who passes away, young woman who passes away and she leaves a young family. She dies in those days you could die from the flu, you know, turn of the century maybe and she dies.
Speaker 1:And it's a small town and there's a scene in the graveyard where all of her neighbors who have passed away are sitting up in their chairs in the graveyard and she comes in. She's the newbie she's died and she's coming into the graveyard and she's mourning for the loss of her children and her husband and her family and she's crying and mourning and the people who have passed say to her don't worry, dear, this will pass and you'll feel nothing. You'll eventually feel nothing. And I always think of that scene because what we're asking is that people's instincts die, that they disconnect from them, like being in the graveyard of instincts where we tell them don't worry, your feelings, for your baby will die and you'll be okay. And it's disastrous for children. Why do you think it's disastrous for children? Well, when your own mother and your father cannot feel empathy towards your distress or pain or loss, then you are truly lost, that's trauma, as Gabor says, it's trauma.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your first. You know trauma is the safety net that's been compromised.
Speaker 1:It is the trauma.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if the, if the families do not have a choice let's say daycare is the only option other than daycare who else is safe to leave the children with? That's going to develop the attachments securely and properly.
Speaker 1:Well, in my book, in order of appearance, I talk about what's best for children.
Speaker 1:And first and foremost, what's best for children is their primary attachment figure. Usually their mother could be their father. Today we know that next best would be kinship bonds. So kinship bonds are grandmothers, aunts, um, uh, you know, sisters that are caring for your, for your children, um, and that's the next best, because those people have the the most similar investment emotionally in your children and will be in your children's lives forever.
Speaker 1:So, like an aunt, I remember when my kids were in preschool, at about four, there was a family who, a Latino family, who had brought the sister in law over from you know whether it was Columbia or and she became the caregiver because the mother worked and she was the caregiver, uh, and so you know she lived with the family but she was the aunt and she wasn't going anywhere.
Speaker 1:She was going to be the aunt for life. Now, sad for the mother that Auntie Maria was going to be closer to those children than the mother, because the mother was a banker and worked full time. But Auntie Maria was going to be the one who sued them when they were in distress and probably, at the end of the day, I never really asked. I'm guessing the babies did not want to go back to the mother but wanted to sleep with Auntie Maria. So you have to know when you give that role away to a grandmother or an aunt, you are giving it away. You are giving it away. You are giving something very precious away that you will never get back. Do not give that role away unless you are desperate, okay.
Speaker 1:Second, after kinship bonds, would be a single surrogate caregiver, a really good babysitter who, or nanny who, becomes like extended family. If you really don't have extended family, then hire extended family and make sure that that person can stay in your children's lives for 18 years so they're the closest. So Alba is still in our lives. So you know the idea that those people remain in your children's lives like grandmothers and aunts, right, they're not disposable in any way and they should not be treated like hired help because they are more like family. Okay, afford it.
Speaker 1:So daycare, as you say, is quite expensive. Sharing a caregiver with your best friend saying, jane, let's share this babysitter, let's share Alba, I'll pay for half of Alba's salary, you pay for the other half and she can spend half of the days in my apartment and half of the days in your apartment and that way our children know each other's homes like they're their own homes and they feel then comfortable and they have one caregiver who's taking care of two children. Remember, the ratios in daycare with strangers are no less than five to one, usually eight to one. You're putting five one-year-old children or less, five children with one caregiver and and so I challenge any mothers listening to this, or father to think about caring for five children and to see how would your patience level be, how would your love level be, how would your ability to soothe them when they're in distress, how would your relatability and intimacy be? And the answer is no. The answer is no, just no. So it's this weird disconnect in families.
Speaker 1:Parents say oh, I can give my child to this super caregiver. She's a super caregiver, she's better than me, she can handle five children at once. She's not better than you, and she can't handle five children at once. And so what you're doing is you're putting your child in an environment where they're going to be neglected.
Speaker 2:I agree with you. And there's, you know, something even deeper than that is when it's your child. Okay, you have three kids at home, but there's this different level of empathy and sympathy that you have for your kids. So when your child is crying or when they fall, you still might be anxious, you might be angry and frustrated, but you're still able to nurture that child, your child. Versus a super babysitter or a daycare worker. They're not going to have that same level of empathy and sympathy that you have for your kids.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of parents miss to understand that as well. It's a little different. What age is okay to put kids in school? We know that. You know those three years are extremely crucial for their developments. Is four okay?
Speaker 1:Daycare is under three, yeah, after three. In this country we call it preschool. In other parts of the world they call it preschool at a year. Okay, preschool is not. A year old is not preschool. A year old is institutional care. A child cannot be in school. There's no school. It's not school.
Speaker 1:And again, that's gaslighting. Again, because it's teaching parents that your children need to be in school. They're going to be more successful. No, I mean, children need nurturing, they need play, they need to be close to their source of security. That's it. They don't need school.
Speaker 1:And it isn't school until about three. And even at three it's still got to be play-based, because their left brains are not ready to handle the frustration of cognitive development until they're about five or six. So you know, they learn their colors and they learn. So is it okay to have them sit in circle time? Sure, for a few minutes, but anything more than that, where you make them learn numbers and letters, you are forcing, you are cramming cognitive development into a child's brain who cannot handle the frustration yet. Well, it's to impress the parents, but it will backfire.
Speaker 1:I agree, because if you try to develop the cognitive part of the brain, the left brain, before the social, emotional part of the brain. The brain rejects, eventually rejects it and cannot learn, shuts down. You need to put your socks on before your shoes, and your socks is social, emotional development. That is attachment, security, play, and then you can incrementally, when you get to primary school you can start to learn academically, but very slowly and incrementally before the age of five, between three and five. It's really it needs to be play-based and that's another myth. We tell parents that we can, you know, we can give children cognitive skills. That's right, you can, you can, you can, but it will backfire. That's right, you can, you can, you can, but it will backfire. And what are the studies all show? The studies all show that children who are social, emotionally sensitively raised in the first five years do much better in terms of cognitive and academic development later on, whereas the children who are force fed cognitive skills at too early an age struggle with learning later on.
Speaker 2:That's a very powerful study, because I've seen three-year-olds say things, do things and I'm just like, how is this possible? But I think again, going back to what I was saying, a lot of these daycares will force this on their kids because they want to impress the parents. Look what your children can do. This is, you know, your money is going into the right place. And it's unfortunate because those kids, yeah, they fall out. They don't want to learn anymore when they're like five, six, seven years old. It's unbearable pressure. I have a question, no-transcript. Well, I mean, the truth is that we what did you do? I learned from you.
Speaker 1:So floor time is critical with little ones.
Speaker 1:So, we're putting a blanket floor time, yeah, and so every day should have a period of time that we call floor time, which is that you just sit on the floor and they sit on the floor and you have lots of toys and you, you know, rotate, rotate the toys so they stay interested in, curious and stimulated, and you just sit on the floor and you know, admire them as they pick up objects and put them in their mouth, because that's how they learn when they're little and that they're, you know, shaking things and things light up, and you know, and you, and it's the wonder and the awe of learning about the world through physical exploration and objects. So babies learn about the world through physical exploration and objects. So babies learn about the world through objects. There are toy companies now, like Loverly or Love Every or whatever it's called that you know that really focus on developmental toys, things that stimulate babies.
Speaker 1:But the idea is that any object, you know, in the old days you didn't need things to light up, you didn't need things to make sounds. You know, kids had spoons and pots and they would take a spoon and hit the pot, you know, and make a musical instrument. So the idea is that they learn through objects and exploration of their physical world. That's how they learn, and so, sitting on the floor and just being in awe of them as they learn about the world, take the pots out of the kitchen drawer and the spoons and things that they can't. I mean no knives and forks, please, but you know spoons and pots.
Speaker 1:And you know all kinds of things in the kitchen that are just non-harmful, innocuous objects. They learn about the world through objects and physical exploration. So just being with them as they're learning about the world, introducing them. Look at the spoon and if I hit it on the pot it goes boom, boom, boom. And giving it to them and saying you do boom, boom Toys in the home.
Speaker 2:No Things that you already have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so you don't need to go out and spend thousands of dollars on toys. I mean, have toys gotten interesting? Yes, I mean, but you don't need to spend thousands of dollars on toys. I've traveled all over the world and I've seen that children have what we call transitional objects, poor situations. I was trekking in Vietnam and there was a little boy in the poorest mountain village and he had a teddy bear. That was not a teddy bear, it was a piece of corn wrapped in a knitted piece of fabric, a small piece of fabric that his mother knit and she wrapped it around the corn and he held that wrapped piece of corn and that was his teddy bear. So it's not about being fancy and it's not about fancy classes that you take your children to. I mean, it's just about being in awe of how they learn about the world.
Speaker 2:And give them time also right, not expecting your kid to be I don't know what at age three. I think we also have to have patience for their learning process. Yeah, and there's also this like comparison with mothers and their kids like so-and-so is, you know, knows how to count now and say colors, and you don't. It's so unfortunate. I see so much, so much of that. I grew up in the Soviet times and I'm from I'm Armenian, so I was. When I was growing up in Armenia, I had the one little teddy bear. That wasn't that teddy bear and I had so much love for that little toy. But now it's just so many things that I think like. Also, it teaches them value, material, it's material, it is, it's they have their own playrooms and, yeah, it's material, it's all material.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we've exchanged love and presence for materialism, and that's really a shame.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for today. I mean, you've literally covered. I had 25 questions but you just covered everything so perfectly. I didn't even have to ask you. You talked about them so beautifully. I appreciate you, I appreciate your work and I love everything that you're doing and I wish that really moms can take example of that, because it's so meaningful, because we are, we are raising tomorrow society. All of this matters Because we are, we are raising tomorrow's society. All of this matters. Then, you know, you have people acting wrong and doing horrible things and we wonder where is that stemming from? It's moms? You know we have to take responsibility for that. So thank you, thank you for today.
Speaker 1:Thank you.