Are children people?

Of course they are.

Do adults treat them as people? Rarely. The old adage "do unto others..yada...yada...yada" does not seem to apply to children.

Think about how newborns are treated in the hospital. There is very little consideration for their comfort.

If you doubt my words, watch a circumcision procedure. You should have seen the look on my doctor's face when I said that I wanted a pain block for my little boy. She screwed her face up and then explained to me that infants do not feel pain. I thought that she was joking and I laughed. She didn't laugh and I belatedly realized that she was serious. Where in the world did this idea come from? Just because an infant is not mentally or physically organized enough to express themselves does not mean that they are not feeling creatures. (My precious darling got his pain block and unfortunately his stupid parents had him circumcised.....ah to have a second chance....)

Is it because babies won't remember the pain, discomfort, or unhappiness that we are so willing to cause them suffering?

What an idiocy. What bullies we are to our children. Let's discuss what we do to our childen after they are born.

The mother has a good nap after the birth and the baby goes to the nursery. The little precious has had a temperature controlled environment with the soothing sounds of her mother's heartbeat, voice, gently digetive gurgling sounds for her entire life. In an instance, she is placed in a plastic isolat (that is what they are really called) with strange sounds, bright lights, and cold air. No wonder they sleep so much...shock will do that to a person. Then to add insult to injury, often they are fed artificial food (formula) when they have never even eaten using their mouths before. Their stomachs are forced to digest for the first time substances that adults wouldn't dream of eating (ever tasted formula.....vile stuff!).

It is at this point where I would like to remind the audience that God, Mother Nature, The Cosmos, Jack the Wonder Berry or whoever else you want to believe created this universe and stuck humans in it intended for infants to be held by mother, fed by mother, warmed by mother, soothed by mother and so on. Has it never occurred to anyone that maybe the infant biochemical neural responses require these activities in order to complete connections correctly, establish healthy pathways, and hormonal releases?

Why do we disconnect the emotional from the physical? A baby is not a toddler or an adult and therefore does not distinguish between a want and a need. All wants are needs. If a baby wants to eat then he needs to eat. If a baby wants warmth then he needs warmth. But just like with all parts of life, some things need to be learned. An infant has to learn to want his mother...he does not yet know that she will satisfy all his needs, therefore he does not know to want her at birth. This is why there is a bonding period immediatly after birth. If this period is skipped then some important biophysical groundwork does not happen for the infant or the mother.

Feel sorry for the babies who are bonding with the plastic walls of the isolat.

Lordy I needed a good yell at the world. More later....evolution and creationism fit into the "truth about parenting" so come on back and take a gander.