This work is dedicated to and done for my cousin, Dr. Carole Ulanowsky, and her work. It is based on the paper she wrote Sustaining the Family in Changing Times which she wrote for the United Nations International Family Day 2021.
Carole was awarded a Ph.D. for her intergenerational study of Motherhood, she is a mother of four and grandmother of six, an educator and researcher. She explores early life connections between mother and child and the link between attachment, early communication, and emotional wellbeing. New research shows a critical connection between a child’s genetic makeup and their environment of care.
As you all know my original and ongoing theme is "Save the Family". Carole and I share many of the same views so I wanted to share with you, for those interested some of her research findings:
Below is an outline of her speech:
SUSTAINING THE FAMILY IN CHANGING TIMES
Through centuries, faith groups have prioritised and valued the family for its role in the care, education and guidance of children. And now science provides incontrovertible proof how critical it is to do JUST THAT – PRIORITISE THE FAMILY
The needs of our children today are no different from those of the 1920s/the 1950s or any other generation. Increasingly, however, modern lifestyles do not recognise this and undermine the natural processes of family life. And the pressured and fast-changing, insecure, materialistic, overstimulating, insensitive, and often screen-led environments of western society deny the innate need of our little ones to travel at their own pace, in their own time. So, I believe strongly we must not leave our children in the wake of this turmoil. Parents have a critical part to play to challenge and alleviate the ills of modern life. And the family requires renewed recognition, respect and support for the critical part it can, and must, play.
LIFE EXPERIENCE
As an academic and researcher over many years aiming for neutral appraisal of evidence I’m unused to communicating in ‘personal’ mode. And, as a member of a pre-social media generation I’m unused to telling how it was/is for me. However, perhaps just a few words of personal context are in order…
I look back on a long life ‘teeming with children’ and that is how I hope it will continue to be. I am a thankful member of a large extended family. Then, in my late 20s I went on to marry, very happily, and we were blessed with a daughter and three sons. However, early widowhood forced me down a non-traditional route – well, for those times anyway – a mother returning to academic study and building a new career as a single parent of 4 children – the youngest boy just 3 years old.
My key aim at that time was to try to support my children as best I could, to remain positive and to build and sustain positive lives. Thankfully, so far, I’ve not been disappointed. They are all graduates and have developed successful careers and good families themselves. And the
siblings are always there, supporting each other, which gives me a profound sense of peace and contentment
LET’S BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING… in the womb
The focus in what I am to say next is on the first 3 years of life, from conception.
The mother’s voice and her rhythm of life for the unborn child, is an acoustic and emotional link between pre and post birth. Her touch and smell are the warp and weft of early experience which can reverberate through life. In my role coordinating the Science and Research Group for the charity, What about the Children, I access increasingly more research demonstrating the impact of ‘environment’ on the wellbeing children, or otherwise. Here is the science, but everyday accounts from mothers also have much to tell us about their experiences and the environmental nest a mother builds can have impact even before her baby is born. For example, Jane, one of the Mums I worked with at the children’s club told me:
‘Right the way through my pregnancy with Henry, I worked as a hairdresser. Once my baby was born, I noticed that the sound of a hairdryer would seem to have a calming effect on him. Even to this day, if I’m drying my hair, Henry, now a teenager, will remark “You know, I love that sound, it makes me feel really calm”’.
More and more we learn to understand the ways in which a baby’s experiences in the womb can have significant effect beyond the security of the mother’s heartbeat and the muffled sound of her voice …
Once born, early life is experienced through the lens of the earliest relationships. And secure emotional attachment to at least one parent, initially the mother, is a critical part of this
The newly born have an in-built capacity to form attachments - it’s a survival instinct driving the young to maintain close proximity to the familiar and first relationship - generally the mother. Attachment behaviour is at its most intense between 6 and 24 months. When attachment is secure, infants will confidently explore beyond their safe base: moving from ‘fusion’ with the parent, to ‘individuation’ (Ulanowsky, 2019). And secure and contented children feeling at peace become ‘learning’ and sociable children – able to develop to full potential in every way. In summary, the attachment status formed in those early months can impact on the young child’s holistic development, inner security, resilience, and potential to form relationships, life-long.
As the writer Philip Britts put it, the love of a truly caring parent is ‘water at the roots’ of the growing child, sustaining it through life. I personally believe in the transforming alchemy of reliably-available love. And the wonderful Harvard project ‘The Developing Child’ informs us from the science that ‘Children’s emotional development is built into the architecture of their brains establishing a foundation for life… and it all begins with relationships’.
And every human baby would like to say to its parents: ‘I want you to stay around me, I need you to be there in my life, and you need me to be there in yours…
THE NATURE/NURTURE DEBATE. What Science is telling us
The case for committed nurture and reliable care is strongly proven through the fast-developing area of neuroscience and Epigenetics. Be very clear, the nature/nurture debate is now settled. It’s both. As part of my role coordinating the Science and Research group at Whataboutthechildren, I access numerous research studies proving that the child’s genes are in constant dialogue with its experiences. A simple swab of saliva can detect a young child’s stress, for example, if left with an unfamiliar Carer by measuring the level of the hormone, cortisol. If unnaturally high and persistent it seems the very architecture of the brain can be distorted, if only in a small way, through the modification, even silencing, of particular genes. As the scientists put it ‘Epigenetic signatures are left on the genes, for good, or ill’ (Harvard, 2020)
Evidence is so strong that loving and reliable early relationships with a familiar carer, especially in the first 30 months or so is the single most important factor in ensuring a strong foundation. Thus, getting the environment right will be critical for emotional and social well -being. From a state of dependence children can gradually develop resilience and move towards secure independence. If their core is sound, healthy and strong confident independence and positive lifestyles will happen for our young people, going forward.
As Families: What are our values?
As a volunteer Prison Visitor, I devised a programme ‘Making Changes’. This required the male inmates to reflect on their past lives to encourage them to make plans for more positive futures… Sadly, not one of the many participants said ‘I had a happy family life with good parents who taught me well and I feel I let them down’. Not one. The accounts they gave were of neglect and of abuse and lack of moral guidance from those who should have provided good role models for building a positive life – their parents and wider family.
Carrying a baby for 9 months and then, once born, meeting its persistent needs is not for the faint-hearted. The broken nights of sleep and exhaustion at that time understandably can cause some parents to forget that this child, every child, is a work of art and the very embodiment of potential. Parenting is a ‘needs led’ enterprise, requiring supreme selflessness and watchfulness …. Yet our 21st century context can be undermining of parenting and the values parents would wish to establish and sustain. But I believe that very family can resume its role in the shaping of society’s direction. With positive role models from the adults around them lived out day by day, youngsters can develop notions of ‘the good’ – what is best for them, for others and for the society of which they are a part. As Freud explained, they can transform their natural ID and ego in favour of the superego –in other words, to be the best they can be. As one Jamaican grandmother put it : ‘Obey the rules (about how best to live) and LIVE!’
But all this needs recognition and support – critically at government level. We need a Minister for Families. One who can ensure that its not just the Treasury that dictates policy, but the needs and wellbeing of families are absolutely prioritised. It may seem far-fetched, but why not offer ‘ furlough’ arrangements to working parents – Mum or Dad, or a shared arrangement in the first critical 2 or 3 years of their child’s life to care for their own babies if they so wish, without the economic pressures of needing to continue to earn to pay the mortgage. Why not? It’s happened in these COVID times …
But getting all parents to recognise how critical their role is may yet be another massive enterprise. This is called ‘Education for Parenthood’. Don’t get me started!
Centuries ago Aristotle said: ‘ The role of the shared life is human flourishing’
And never more so than in the shared life of the family.
Thank you for your kind visit. Have a wonderful and beautiful day! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
