Touch - The core of being human - now largely banned

I have been exploring touch over the last few days. One of my aha's is that while we think we are so modern, we are primates. We may have been homo sapiens for 40,000 years and we may have been "civilized" for 4,000 years but we have been primates for 4 million years. How important is touch to primates? Harlow's famous experiment some monkeys were given a wire mummy. The others a cloth fuzzy mummy. The wire monkey had food the cloth fuzzy monkey did not. The babies huddled with the cloth monkey. Grooming is at the heart of the social welfare of primates. Robin Dunbar's thesis is that language itself arose from grooming. Gossip is in effect long distance grooming.

Yet we are so frightened of creating dependency and maybe also of the sexual aspects of touch that most of us hardly touch our babies much when compared to primates and to most traditional human societies. Car seats, strollers, cribs and playpens are now the essential kit that we have as parents.

Our babies are in effect born six months premature. Our brain is so big that if we went to term, women would have such wide hips that they could not walk. Only marsupials, who have nice pouches, have more helpless infants than humans. I was brought up the traditional way and we brought our kids up the same. We were taken at the moment of birth and "cleaned up" by the doctors and nurses. Then whisked away to the nursery. We were presented to our mothers on schedule for feeding. At home the separation continued. I still recall biting my hand as we heard Hope cry for us from her room.

What I have been reading recently, The Continuum Concept, The Vital Touch and What's Going On In There is quite clear. Babies need as much touch as possible in the first 6 months of life.

Bottom line if we fill the touch need of an infant, she will be quite independent. It's a paradox that I see so clearly in our two dogs. Jay was abandoned as a puppy and spent 4 months in the pound. He is by my feet as I type this. He cannot stay away. Mildred was raised with her mummy and then moved off with her litter mates and then into our bed and into the bed of her foster mum Ann while we away. She is the most independent dog out. Always on her own and not "needing"

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I posted this back in October 2003. I repost it today because of my growing understanding of the causes of our malaise. Why are so messed up because we have all but broken the thread between us as humans and our nature.

The modern world has separated us from nature and our own nature. All that makes us human has bene banished. Is this why we are so ill, confused, depressed and lost? I think so.

I see that all that made us human is almost gone. We are designed to grow up and work in a tribal setting. What is the family today?

We are designed to eat real food in a highly social setting. What is food and what are meals like today?

We are designed to depend on each other for all our most important needs - That gave us power and a place. Who do we depend on now? The state? Soulless corporations? Is this why we have no power of self respect?

We are designed to use our bodies all day and to be outside a lot. How do we use them now and what is our relationship with the natural world?

The good news is that I am seeing people step away from the brink. My dear son has done this and several good work pals have just done this. They cannot reconcile the needs of their kids for a human upbringing and the modern workplace.

So they are making the choice to be poor freelancers. They are giving up the bondage of the job - now that is love!

But my hope is that more and more are waking up. At the centre of Euan Semple's new book is the idea that we might be "Growing Up". For is there not something childish and immature about modern society?

I have been exploring touch over the last few days. One of my aha's is that while we think we are so modern, we are primates. We may have been homo sapiens for 40,000 years and we may have been "civilized" for 4,000 years but we have been primates for 4 million years. How important is touch to primates? Harlow's famous experiment some monkeys were given a wire mummy. The others a cloth fuzzy mummy. The wire monkey had food the cloth fuzzy monkey did not. The babies huddled with the cloth monkey. Grooming is at the heart of the social welfare of primates. Robin Dunbar's thesis is that language itself arose from grooming. Gossip is in effect long distance grooming.

Yet we are so frightened of creating dependency and maybe also of the sexual aspects of touch that most of us hardly touch our babies much when compared to primates and to most traditional human societies. Car seats, strollers, cribs and playpens are now the essential kit that we have as parents.

Our babies are in effect born six months premature. Our brain is so big that if we went to term, women would have such wide hips that they could not walk. Only marsupials, who have nice pouches, have more helpless infants than humans. I was brought up the traditional way and we brought our kids up the same. We were taken at the moment of birth and "cleaned up" by the doctors and nurses. Then whisked away to the nursery. We were presented to our mothers on schedule for feeding. At home the separation continued. I still recall biting my hand as we heard Hope cry for us from her room.

What I have been reading recently, The Continuum Concept, The Vital Touch and What's Going On In There is quite clear. Babies need as much touch as possible in the first 6 months of life.

Bottom line if we fill the touch need of an infant, she will be quite independent. It's a paradox that I see so clearly in our two dogs. Jay was abandoned as a puppy and spent 4 months in the pound. He is by my feet as I type this. He cannot stay away. Mildred was raised with her mummy and then moved off with her litter mates and then into our bed and into the bed of her foster mum Ann while we away. She is the most independent dog out. Always on her own and not "needing"