But there are new studies coming out that are just fascinating about how important, extremely important it is for a child to be with his or her mother until they are close to four years old.
Now, that doesn't mean constantly. I'm not advocating that a mother stay home full time if she's not so inclined.
But there's definite research that's coming out saying that, you know, a mother's role is more important in some regards than we had thought.
And that the bonding process lasts quite a bit longer. In fact, children go into shock oftentimes if they are separated too early.
And that's why I think a lot of us are fighting for parental leave and family leave, that allows both mother and father to have time with their children hopefully within the first two years, not just the first few months.
People need concrete support, and especially nowadays, I did write another meditation about needing the support of community.
Because nowadays we oftentimes don't have our parents close by, or brothers and sisters live in another state or even another country.
And so especially when you come home for the first few months or the first few years, you may feel extremely isolated if you can't hoop up with a co-op, a babysitting co-up or a mother's group.
And this is just a wonderful way to remind mothers that we have what Mary Catherine Bateson calls peripheral vision: the ability to be attentive to multiple demands and to think about more than one thing at a time.
And I think that's a very valuable trait that mothers do have.
And sometimes we think of ourselves as being scattered and airheads because of it, and that's been oftentimes how we've been portrayed,
but this is a wonderful, wonderful trait that mothers develop, especially in the first few years. Well, we have eyes in the backs of our heads, right? Exactly.
But we also are able to keep lots of balloons in the air, which means that what we do is, you get up in the morning and you say "I need to do this, this, this, this and I need to go to work and what's for dinner besides."
Exactly. So you get it all in order before you leave the house in the morning.
Right, and you can take your needs into account as well as the needs of many other individuals, which is extremely important in this day and age.
I mean we no longer can afford ecologically to have a one track mind. We can no longer afford it in the family in the workplace. And I think that's something that women very much have to offer.
I think the "me" generation is over.