“I heard an interview with Oprah and that neuroscientist she just wrote a book with, who said that the biggest impact on an infant brain is in the first two months of life,” one of my clients, a mother of two young children, said to me last month. “And all I could think for days was: the first two months of life, the first two months of life,” she continued, frantically. “I felt like a ghost their first two months of life. What was I even doing? I barely remember it, I was so sleep deprived!”
More and more research is emerging to confirm the impact of early childhood, pre-natal, and even pre-generational experiences on the developing human brain, (after all, the egg that created a granddaughter was present inside the womb of her fetus mother and pregnant grandmother). Stressful, traumatic, or positive experiences in utero and early infancy become part of the child’s neurology, shaping the way that child sees the world and themselves for years into the future.
While new knowledge in epigenetics and neuroscience may be a fascinating evolution in understanding human psychology, it can also be a source of overwhelming stress for new and expectant mothers, as it was for my client—and for me.
My client was doing the thing that I had done for so long: accepting sole responsibility for every instant of her children’s early lives, trying to remember any possible negative experience that may have scarred them forever. This response makes sense in a highly individualist culture, where parents (mothers in particular) are told that they are morally responsible for every aspect of their children’s lives and then sent home to figure it out by themselves without organized or subsidized support.
“Ya know,” I said, “If all this new research is true, you’d think our culture would take better care of pregnant and postpartum mothers and their children.”
“Huh,” she said. “You’re right. I guess I never thought of it that way.”
Without a shift from individual to collective responsibility for our children, the burden for mothers will continue to grow as scientists confirm the lasting impact of adverse experiences on children, grandchildren, and beyond. Until mothers critically consider and reject this burden, we will amplify and reinforce our feelings of failure and not being good enough.
If you want to explore this shift in perspective and many others like it, take my online course The Meaning of Motherhood, which returns this October!
What does this bring up for you? What were your first two months postpartum like? How could our society do a better job of caring for mothers and children?
Come post your thoughts in my free online community Mother Den.
Danielle LaSusa Ph.D. is a Philosophical Coach, helping new moms grapple with what it means to make a person. She is the creator of The Meaning of Motherhood course, and co-creator and co-host of Think Hard podcast, which brings fun, accessible, philosophical thinking to the real world. To join her mailing list, subscribe here.
© Copyright Danielle LaSusa PhD, LCC, 2021. All rights reserved.
