    37

    sa

    microorganisms, mini-monsters of which you've never caught the

    slightest glimpse.  You probably avoid cholesterol, but have you ever

    had a peek at it?  For those who don't use a microscope, it's as ethereal

    a force as the cloud-riding spirits of the Native Americans.

    With poor guidance, we stumble our way through the invisible,

    sometimes blundering  badly.   We accept  most  child-rearing  theories,

    for example, with no evidence.  Sioux Indians are horrified that we

    hold up a newborn baby and spank it.  They believe the baby should

    be cradled tenderly and given love.60 Victorians thought that by

    holding a baby you spoiled it.  The same notion persisted in America

    through the first half of this century.  In 1928, J.B. Watson, the leading

    American psychologist of his time, repeated the concept emphatically

    in a book that became the child-rearing bible of the next twenty years.

    He said,

    There is a sensible way of treating children.  Treat them as

    though they were young adults.  Dress them, bathe them with care and

    circumspection.  Let your behavior always be objective and kindly

    firm.  Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap.  If you

    must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night.  Shake

    hands with them in the morning.  Give them a pat on the head if they

    have made an extraordinarily good job of a difficult task.  Try it out.  In

    a week's time you will find how easy it is to be perfectly objective with

    your child and at the same time kindly.  You will be utterly ashamed of

    the mawkish, sentimental way you have been handling it. ...In

    conclusion, won't you then remember when you are tempted to pet

    your child that mother love is a dangerous instrument.  An instrument

    which may inflict a never-healing wound, a wound which may make

    infancy unhappy, adolescence a nightmare, an instrument which may

    wrench your adult son or daughter's vocational future and their

    chances for marital happiness. 61

    Watson pontificated that mother love was a force which inserted

    itself into the invisible machinery of a child's psyche, destroying him as

      nitary decisions may well be based on the fear of these

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