Re: models of mother-child communication

Eugene Matusov (ematusov who-is-at cats.ucsc.edu)
Wed, 31 Jan 1996 12:21:07 -0800

Hello everybody--

Judy wrote on 1/29/96
>Eugene, it's also possible for a mother to be an activity theorist,
>to be aware of the "as if" status of her infant's "understanding" - of
>the discrepancy between her own and her infant's understanding - and
>to respond to baby's cues "as if" they made sense within a "shared" social
>context that the baby can not yet interpret on her own, without believing
>or even wanting to believe that the baby "really" understands.

I think this is both a very interesting and risky proposition. If taken
seriously by the mother it can destroy all mother's basic skills of a
traditional middle-class parenting. For example, Barbara Rogoff teaches
undergraduate class on Children and Cultures. She explains in much details
how children in many cultures sleep together with parents and what are
benefits of that in the context and ecology of these societies. But she
does not sleep with her own children. Middle class parents learn how to
sleep alone and do not learn how to sleep with babies. Not careful move in
sleep can harm or even kill the baby.

There are many things of doing things but those ways based on history of
socialization in them. Focusing just on technology and benefits of how
people do what can overlook ecology and history of socialization in these
diverse ways of doing things. I'm not saying that experimentation or
innovation is a bad thing, I just warn that it is risky business and should
be approached carefully with full expectation of unavoidable (and even
desired) breakdown of your mastery of doing things -- the only mastery that
you know and socialize in.

Another question will be how much your experimental "voluntarism" will be
supported and tolerated by your ecology and environment. By breaking
practice you can break your own ecology and even safety net.

Let me finish on this conservative note :-)

Eugene Matusov
UC Santa Cruz

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Eugene Matusov
UC Santa Cruz