Hug the Monkey

Pillow Talk for Kids

with Jasvir Singh

Not enough time to nurture your children in the day?  Nurture them in their sleep as well.  

We are not born knowing how to love—the kind of mothering we get shapes our oxytocin response. How many oxytocin receptors the baby brain develops depends on the nurturing, love and intimacy the baby gets in the first months of life. These days, parents are often so busy that it can be difficult to give their child the amount of love they need.

According to Nancy Beck, a good way to nurture a child is through pillow talk—a message you can deliver while you’re child is sleeping.  Beck, BSN, RN, developed a book called "Pillow Talk: Loving Affirmations to Encourage and Guide Your Children," that explains this unique parenting skill. She says that pillow talk is an effective and easy way to infuse children with love while they are asleep.

She explains how to give your child life- and love-affirming messages that will remind him or her that your loving presence is constant.

Beck's concept is not the same as subliminal learning; nor is it a form of brainwashing.  Pillow talk will not override a child’s free will. It shouldn’t be used to convince a child to do anything or alter their thoughts---rather, she says, it is there to support one’s nurturing parenting skills day and night. Pillow talk can help your child develop a strong oxytocin response that allows them to grow up to be more confident, less worried, and connect with others more deeply. You can view Nancy’s article on Pillow Talk and find out about her book on her website, NurseNancyTalk.com.

Sometimes, a hard-working parent can't even get home in time to spend an affectionate hour or two while kids are awake. Nancy's book reminds us that we can  help shape a healthy oxytocin response and build a strong bond with our children at any time of day or night.

A Boy's Choice: Purpose or Aggression

There's an excellent interview with Michael Gurian in Scouting Magazine.  Michael Gurian is author of many books on parenting boys that are based on brain science. I love his approach, which is to channel a boy's higher levels of testosterone away from violence and toward a higher purpose. Remember, boys' brains produce as much oxytocin as girls' brains do; but testosterone tends to mute oxytocin's bonding and connecting effects.

Here is just one of many interesting nuggets from Gurian's interview with Sean Mitchell.

We’ve heard a lot about the importance of self-esteem, but you write that self-esteem should not be conferred automatically on boys.

It has to be earned. And studies show that boys, after a certain age, don’t trust blanket praise. They want praise based on their achievement. It’s a little different with girls. Girls are so verbal, and their oxytocin level is so high, that if you say to a girl, “You’re great! Great job!” that has a different effect on the female brain than the male brain. It immediately stimulates oxytocin, which is a bonding chemical.

With sons, that doesn’t work as well, in general. They don’t get the same surge.

While we're using science in so many areas of life, parenting is too often left completely to the unconscious desires and attitudes of people who may not have been well-parented themselves. Gurian provides compassionate and wise guidance for parents -- and I think his views could change society for the better.

I had the privilege of interviewing Michael in 2007, as I was writing my book. (His work informs the chapter on adolescent love and lust.)  Read the interview here.

Odent Tells Men to Butt Out of Childbirth -- Again

I really respect Michael Odent for helping to spread the word about the importance of natural childbirth. But I find it hard to accept his reasoning that men shouldn't feel pressured to be present for the birth of their babies.

Odent made these statements more than a year ago, and he's still at it. In advance of an address at the Royal College of Midwives' conference next month, Odent is continuing to say that not only should men not feel that they should be there, they probably shouldn't be there even if they want to.

He told The Observer,

"The ideal birth environment involves no men in general. Having been involved for more than 50 years in childbirths in homes and hospitals in France, England and Africa, the best environment I know for an easy birth is when there is nobody around the woman in labour apart from a silent, low-profile and experienced midwife – and no doctor and no husband, nobody else."

Odent also told The Observer's Denis Campbell that seeing a woman in childbirth can ruin the man's sexual attraction for her. This is so disappointing. As we understand the connection between sex, love for a mate, childbirth and love for one's children, we see how oxytocin is central to each of these experiences. Therefore, they're really all part of the same thing, one big wheel of love within the family. Why would you want to leave a father out of part of this?

Certainly, a laboring woman needs to feel secure and safe. And, unfortunately, sometimes we don't feel really safe and secure with our mates. This is tragic, and if you're bringing a baby into this situation, it might be better for the man not to be there. 

But I think Odent goes way too far in saying that men have no place in the labor room.

Mothering and Fathering Influence Bonding in Adult Voles

Larry Young and Todd Ahern of the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory found that "early life nurturing impacts later life relationships."

It's still another data point in the enormous body of evidence showing how important it is for kids to get early nurturing, love and care. Larry Young was one of the second wave of oxytocin researchers working on the monogamous prairie voles. This research showed that oxytocin was crucial for the prairie voles' ability to form pair bonds.

In this experiment, also with prairie voles, Young and Ahern compared prairie vole pups raised by a single mother with those raised by a male and female couple. In the wild, prairie voles mate for life in a system described as social monogamy. That is, the couples live together and cooperate in raising offspring; they may engage in some extra-pair copulation, the rodent version of affairs.

The pups raised by a single mother got a lower level of care than those raised by a cooperating couple.  And when they reached adulthood, they weren't as enthusiastic parents.

According to the press release,

"These results suggest naturalistic variation in social rearing conditions can introduce diversity into adult nurturing and attachment behaviors. S[ingle-mother]-raised pups were slower to make life-long partnerships, and they showed less interest in nurturing pups in their communal families," says Young.

Michael Gurian and "The Purpose of Boys"

I am a huge fan of Michael Gurian, a psychotherapist and author whose life's work is helping society understand how to raise children to be secure, happy and fulfilled. His special focus is boys, and how our culture doesn't support them in their development.

I have been very guilty in the past of being angry at men because they're not more like women. As I learned about the differences in the brains and neurochemistries of men and women as I wrote The Chemistry of Connection, I realized that it's neither fair to expect this nor possible for men to relate in the same way that women do.

Gurian has terrific ideas for ways that parents and society can help boys find ways to live honorable lives that harness their strengths. His latest book, The Purpose of Boys, is designed to help parents give boys what they need to thrive.

USA Today interviewed Gurian about the book, and it's well worth reading.

Oxytocin and the Male Monkey

Much research has been done on the role of oxytocin in behaviors related to bonding and parenting in prairie voles, a socially monogamous species. Karen Bales at UC Davis is looking at oxytocin and vasopressin in titi monkeys, a socially monogamous primate.  Working up the evolutionary chain makes it more likely that changes in behavior caused by manipulating oxytocin could give us insights into human behavior.

Adam Smith, a graduate student at the University of Nebraska, just got a National Science Foundation to continue his work on oxytocin and male marmosets -- still another socially monogamous primate.

And, gotta love whoever wrote the headline:

Monkey Love May Be in the Air

Smith is looking to determine whether elevating or suppressing the oxytocin in marmoset monkeys will affect the social behavior that influences the monogamous relationships of adult male and female monkeys.

Men, Stay Out of the Labor Room

Should men -- that logical, charge-taking, squeamish half of the human race -- be present when their mates give birth to their children?

This opinion piece flies in the face of modern thinking and all the work women and men have done in the past 50 years to move toward equality not only in the workplace, but at home. If it were written by anyone else, I'd sniff at it and leave it.

But "A top obstetrician on why men should NEVER be at the birth of their child" was written by Michel Odent, who was one of the first people to begin speaking out against the way medical birthing practices can break the bond between mother and baby -- and therefore someone I respect immensely.

Odent makes some very good points about how the presence of the father-to-be can keep a woman from going into that oxytocin-driven state where her body "knows" how to give birth.

First, a labouring woman needs to be protected against any stimulation of the thinking part of her brain - the neocortex - for labour to proceed with any degree of ease.

This part of the brain needs to take a back seat and allow the primal "unthinking" part of the brain connected to basic vital functions to take over.

A woman in labour needs to be in a private world where she doesn't have to think or talk.

Yet, motivated by a desire to "share the experience", the man asks questions and offers words of reassurance and advice.

In doing so, he denies his partner the quiet mind that she needs.

The second reason is that the father's release of the stress hormone adrenaline as he watches his partner labour causes her anxiety, and prevents her from relaxing.
This needs to be said. I can certainly see how feeling she needs to share the experience with her partner could distract a woman.

But Odent ignores another option: What about teaching the father ways to behave that don't activate the laboring woman's neocortex? A man can share the experience just by being there, as well as by offering loving touch in the form of massage, caresses and even sexual stimulation, which can help bring on labor.

Odent seems to feel that men are incapable of this, as well as often too put off by the messiness and blood. I'd like to think that the majority of men, if it were explained to them, would be willing and able to enter with their women into that primal, sensual state that can make birth an oceanic experience.

Should we deny them that opportunity?

Testosterone, Fatherhood and Oxytocin

Something about marriage -- in the sense of cohabiting with a woman and raising children, seems to lower a man's testosterone.

Peter Gray, a University of Nevada researcher, has been measuring testosterone fluctuations in men for several years. He and colleagues test the levels in men's saliva several times over the course of several days. They've found that

Gray is unusual among researchers in that he's extended his studies outside of the U.S. and doesn't confine them to student populations. (Many researchers use students because they're very easy to obtain for studies; sometimes, they're required to participate in studies as part of their coursework. However, this can really skew results, especially when it comes to relationship studies. It's not at all clear that a 19-year-old student's relationships mirror those of a 40-year-old's.) Gray has done studies in China, North Africa and Jamaica.

He's published two new studies. One looked at fathers and non-fathers in Jamaica; the other, in North Africa.

Ariaal men, members of a tribal population that tends to marry late and focus relationships more on other men than on the family, still had lower levels of testosterone than single men. And, while you might expect men with several wives to be high-testosterone (in order to be able to handle all those women), the same thing held true for the polygamous men.

In the other study, in Jamaica, married men had lower testosterone and higher prolactin levels than single men.

Because testosterone mutes the effects of oxytocin, it's possible that this reduction in testosterone is part of a natural process that allows men to be more uxorious and keeps them more available to the family. Prolactin is released in men after orgasm; perhaps -- and this is only my own speculation -- increased sexual activity in marriage is responsible for the higher prolactin and lower testosterone.

Here's an abstract of the Kenyan study: Testosterone and Marriage Among Ariaal Men of Northern Kenya.

Here's a press release about the studies: Marriage and Fatherhood Linked to Lower Testosterone Levels.

Generation Alienation Is a World-Wide Problem

It's easy for those of us living in the dysfunctional United States to blame our indigenous culture on the growing crisis in attachment. But this story from the Bay of Plenty Times in New Zealand shows that country is experiencing a similar attachment crisis.

Writer Elaine Fisher quotes psychotherapist Augustina Driessen, who predicts that child abuse will worsen in New Zealand as kids who have been neglected, abused or ignored grow up to become parents themselves. Driessen says,

  "To break the cycle we must teach many parents how to parent, to stop them bringing up their children as they were brought up.

  "It is a privilege to have children. In extreme cases, some parents should never be allowed to have children again."

I agree. In modern society, having children shouldn't be considered a human right. It should be a privilege reserved for those who can prove they can provide for a child's emotional needs, as well as the most basic physical needs, that is, enough to eat and secure shelter.

For more on this, see "A Generation in Pain."

Adopting for Love

Ralph James Savarese's op-ed in yesterday's Los Angeles Times is so inspiring for its depiction of a parent's unyielding love for a child.

Savarese is the author of "Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption," coming out today from Other Press. The book tells the story of their son's rebirth after eight years in their care. The six-year-old they adopted had been diagnosed as autistic, abandoned by his mother and abused in foster care.

They had bonded with him when Savarese's wife, an autism expert, had attempted to help the mother. Their love for him was already too strong to let him slip away into a life of trauma.

He writes,

"Despite the stigma attached to "special-needs children," people do adopt these kids. And yet, many more Americans spend gobs of money on fertility treatments or travel to foreign countries to find their perfect little bundles. I'm haunted by something my son wrote after we taught him how to read and type on a computer: "I want you to be proud of me. I dream of that because in foster care I had no one." How many kids lie in bed at night and think something similar?"

His editorial is full of righteous anger at the callous way society looked at his son, and it's full of steady love. This should be a terrific feel-good book for all parents and a must-read for anyone who wants to have a child, biological or adopted, disabled or not.