Soothing Our Children Is a Basic Human Right
Parents and kids torn apart at the border are losing something most of us take for granted
The news these past couple of weeks — families making what is surely a harrowing journey to our border only to see their children taken, to have to listen to their children shriek and cry for them, to have to imagine how their children are faring in some unknown place in some unknown city — has me thinking about what I take for granted every day as a parent: the ability to comfort and soothe my children when they need me. Specifically, it has me thinking of my middle child, who has required closeness from me since day one.
He was lifted out of my womb nursing the air, already searching for me, and for the first 36 hours of his life, he refused to let me put him down. He would stop crying only when he was nestled in the crook of my arm or nursing. I called it “nooking it,” because there was a very specific nook in my body in which he was happiest. For the first year of his life, he would not go to sleep unless I was the one to put him down. He would wake several times a night until he was well over a year old. He did not like being held by anyone but me. His first word was “Mama.”
Attachment theory tells us that a responsive caregiver ensures healthy attachment and…
