There was this theory for a while that professed that the first 48 hours in a baby’s life were massively important. If the baby and the parents remained close, something called “bonding” would take place. This “bonding” would flood the parents with joy and set the course of the future relationship with the baby.
Sounds great, of course. Make a teensy little effort and the entire relationship is destined to be great forever.
This is all a load of baloney, of course. “Bonding” is a purely American, completely invented concept that has no equivalent in other languages I know. A consumerist society loves to believe that if you press the right button, you will be guaranteed a result with no effort involved. There must be an easy recipe to generate a happy relationship with one’s child on the spot. The reality, though, is completely different. Relationships take years and decades, not hours, to build.
Who cares about some stupid concept that is patently ridiculous, you’ll ask. You would be right, if it weren’t for one thing. People who are duped by the bonding-peddlers into expecting a fountain of joyful emotions to accompany their baby’s birth feel enormously guilty when, instead, they feel disappointment, indifference, anger, sadness, exhaustion, etc. Such people have no idea that their experiences are completely normal. As a result, their feelings of inadequacy and fear that something must be deeply wrong with them if the magical bonding has not happened might trigger or deepen their postpartum depression.
I’m very glad that a mountain of evidence on the fictitious nature of “bonding hormones” is convincing people to stop torturing themselves with guilt and fear.
Clarissa's Blog 
In general, of something sounds like it can only be explained by telepathy or magic, then it’s probably not true.
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Having had 2, this is my experience: the first one took about 8hrs to be born, starting at midnight which is quite fast for a first born. When he was put on my chest I definitely felt the waves of emotion and maternal love. Maybe I was on a hormonal high… felt good, anyway.
My second child basically hit the ground running in 2hrs and left me in a state of shock. I was shaking uncontrollably and felt very cold. Maybe I had a hormonal crash…
Neither experience affected any type of bonding. I developed that over time. I just started off with a wonderful dose of maternal love and took it from there with each one.
Americans love labour-saving devices. Perhaps by believing that bonding with your child happens naturally at birth it’ll save them the trouble of making an effort later because they’ll have already bonded. And if they didn’t bond at birth, it’s their fault for being a defective parent.
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It’s fascinating to think of words in one language that don’t have an equivalent in another one. For example, a lot of American feminism was incomprehensible for me until I figured out my native Romanian has no commonly-used word for “bitch” as an insult (there’s an insult word meaning female dog but the connotations are very different) and has a not-uncommon pejorative for a passive woman who goes to pieces, possibly manipulatively, at the first sign of adversity (the literal translation is “mimosa” – someone who wilts at the first touch). Then I could see how many American women spend their lives either avoiding bitchhood or reveling in it, and stuff like women complaining of being silenced when men spoke their minds on a subject started making sense – if they contradict a man(or possibly if they contradict anyone bluntly, not yet sure how that one works), they become bitches, which is something with an emotional cost for them, whereas if I contradict a man it means nothing negative about me by itself, but if I don’t, then play the victim, in a situation any reasonable adult could be expected to solve by themselves, I’m a mimosa and my girlfriends will consider me useless and/or bad at being a woman.
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“It’s fascinating to think of words in one language that don’t have an equivalent in another one”
Happens all the time to me and one of the reasons I’m a language person. I had no idea how english (probably American more accurately) specific ‘bonding’ is though.
“my native Romanian has no commonly-used word for “bitch” as an insult”
Polish didn’t either but thanks to translation pressure from English (and lazy, underpaid translators) it has acquired one 😦
I wouldn’t be suprised if the same has happened (or will happen) in Romanian, most European languages are acquiring or have acquired english translation registers that begin as specialized usages unique to translation but then bleed out into the rest of the language.
“if I contradict a man it means nothing negative about me”
IME if a woman from central/eastern europe contradicts a man it means she takes him seriously (and many western men never get the corrollary – if a woman simply agrees with you all the time she’s either playing you or doesn’t take you seriously).
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“Polish didn’t either but thanks to translation pressure from English (and lazy, underpaid translators) it has acquired one”
Hmm, this could, indeed, happen in Romanian. The laziness of some of our translators (especially subtitle translators) is legendary. I’ve mostly seen people switch to English when they want to call someone a bitch, then switch right back tho – and I’ve only seen the insult applied to fictional characters or Americans. Could be that the guys call us bitches behind our backs but I wouldn’t bet on it.
However,a lazy translation wouldn’t work since the word for female dog is already an established insult of different meaning and intensity. The closest translation based on both meaning and intensity + frequency of use (unfeeling/ignoring others’ unspoken wishes/ignoring the social rules) is used for both genders equally. Just importing the word from English as we’ve done with other words won’t work since bitch doesn’t convert easily into something that could get the female grammatical gender in Romanian, and I can’t think of a female-specific insult that isn’t also grammatically gendered female. So we might very well escape it.
“IME if a woman from central/eastern europe contradicts a man it means she takes him seriously (and many western men never get the corrollary – if a woman simply agrees with you all the time she’s either playing you or doesn’t take you seriously).”
Heh, word. Although, rather than “taking him seriously” I’d put it as “treats him as a person rather than an obstacle to be worked around”. Sometimes I worry about the guys ranting about Western women being ruined by feminism and losing in the sexual arena to the properly submissive Eastern Europeans.
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“Sometimes I worry about the guys ranting about Western women being ruined by feminism and losing in the sexual arena to the properly submissive Eastern Europeans.”
– Yes, the submissive Eastern European women are my favorite myth. 🙂 🙂 Somebody from my family married a Canadian gentleman through a catalogue. The poor guy is now being worked like a dog and ordered about like a servant. But he seems to dig it, so everybody is happy. 🙂
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This is really fascinating. I also still haven’t completely figured out the gender dynamics in the US. My way of relating to men is so different from what I observe among the American women that I’m always puzzled by what I see. I find it a lot easier to be around the US women in their 60s than among women my own age because I get their gender dynamic.
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I’d be quite interested in reading a post on gender dynamics in Ukraine vs USA, or gender dynamic in older US women versus younger ones.
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I do believe in the process of bonding (and that hormone release probably plays a role for many people in getting the process started or cementing it)* but I absolutely do agree that it’s not something that can controlled and made to work like turning on a power switch.
People torturing themselves because they can’t control their feelings at any given time seems like a very foolish and unpleasant way to go through life and will surely cause much unhappiness for those around them.
*On the other hand, I believe there’s something like telepathy and all kinds of other stuff that sensible scientitifically minded people scoff at. I also believe they will ultimately prove to be subject to scientific analysis (we just don’t yet know how) and that they’re largely involuntary and can’t be turned on and off at will.
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*On the other hand, I believe there’s something like telepathy and all kinds of other stuff that sensible scientitifically minded people scoff at. I also believe they will ultimately prove to be subject to scientific analysis (we just don’t yet know how) and that they’re largely involuntary and can’t be turned on and off at will.(Cliff)
I agree wholeheartedly. I know someone who does things that just cant be explained scientifically(yet). It is actually hilarious to see the look on the faces of “science based” individuals when this person.tells them things that only someone who is familiar with them would know. Pretty spooky indeed. 😉
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A new person entering the world would do well to have initimate moments with its loved ones as it arrives. I wouldn’t call it a scam or anything else. I’d just call it a natural response that I’d suggest you not scoff at. Parenting is tough if done well; tougher yet for the new being entering this crazy world – loving moments may be what you will remember the most after the haze of raising a child subsides.
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“A new person entering the world would do well to have initimate moments with its loved ones as it arrives. I wouldn’t call it a scam or anything else.”
The post isn’t about having intimate moments. It’s about a particular phenomenon that some people claim is a universal experience, when in fact it isn’t.
There are also some babies who enter the world and go straight into an incubator. Not exactly intimate, but life-saving. Yet they still have loving relationships with their parents afterwards.
(Also, child-rearing doesn’t have to happen in a “haze,” though I know some days might seem like a tornado has hit your home.)
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I’m all for intimate moments but they are not always possible in the first 48 hours. As hkatz says, there are premature babies or sick babies. There are also adopted children. There are very difficult deliveries where mothers are exhausted and in great pain at the end of the process.
None of this means, however, that anything will be wrong with the babies or their relationship with their parents. Life is long and they will have all the bonding they need in the future.
There is no need to endow the process of birth with mythical qualities, I believe.
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Incubator babies also can have skin-on skin with parent – it’s encouraged because it is soothing (for both). I wouldn’t buy into ANY so-called phenomenon such as this one. I almost lost my daughter after she delivered triplets three years ago and lost most of her blood. Her husband spent his time once she was stabilized with the three babies – soothing them in a busy nursery. I don’t care what one calls that but it made a bond. “What some people claim” is irrelevant to anyone’s experience,
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I’m glad everything worked out so well for you and your family and I’m not trying to devalue this important experience. All I’m saying is that people who, for whatever reason, don’t manage to have any close contact with their babies immediately after birth or who don’t feel anything positive in the process are also perfectly fine and are not doomed to life-long misery.
It must be very cool to have triplet grandkids. 🙂
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Triplet grandkids are lots of fun.. but then, I get to go home!
It is hard work as they are very rough-and-tumble and don’t sleep well.
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The parents of triplets are heroes, there are no other words for them. I deeply admire your daughter and her husband.
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There is no need to endow the process of birth with mythical qualities, I believe.(Clarissa)
I agree. Mystical, Spectacular were so much more accurate for me as I watched my daughter enter the world. 🙂
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Did you hear about “trauma-bonding” ?
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Is it like the Stockholm syndrome?
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In sexual terms, partly.
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“thinking about that post-coital meltdown that so many women have, when their mates “dont call.””
– Why “so many women”? All disappointing sexual partners who don’t get invited for more have this meltdown. This is not a gender issue. It’s an issue of people being lousy in bed.
“as i think has been made abundantly clear by now, women are literally putting their lives and physical and mental wellbeing on the line, every fucking time they engage in PIV.”
– It is sad to see people avoid sexopathologists when they are so sorely needed. What is with this weird stigma attached to visiting a doctor when you are in pain? Do these folks also avoid dentists when they get toothaches?
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And in the last paragraph, you’ll learn the real motivations of the blogger.
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“And in the last paragraph, you’ll learn the real motivations of the blogger.”
– Exactly. Although the whole issue could be resolved much easier by picking up some good sex skills. On this continent, people are so starved for good sex that anybody who is not completely useless is in insanely high demand.
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Did you hear about “trauma-bonding” ?(David)
Was that an old girlfriend of yours talking. 😉
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No, I read an blog post about it.
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