Covers of books, redux

[walkitout]

Robert Karen's book on Attachment (0195115015) and Sroufe's book (0521629926) have covers
with airborne babies (Karen's all the way airborne; Sroufe's being lifted high in the air by a mama).

This is bizarre. It's right up there with that evil book I mentioned months ago (0838576656 -- discussed on May 10, 2005. Took a while to find that post. That would be the book about birth that completely erases the mother. And I do mean completely.). Why would, not one, but _two_ books about attachment depict a baby being held up/thrown up into the air? This is _not_ something that one does to a baby most days (I don't think, anyway). Sure, exciting fun, but not primary caregiver exciting fun. More like, energetic non-parent exciting fun.

What the fuck.

Someone please explain this to me.

Comments

[volkhvoi.livejournal.com]

Babies being held up that way I have seen. No idea if it has an especial emotional trigger, though. Ask me in a few months! :)

Being airborne, though. An airborne baby is intrinsically alarming, and it's also visually "unattached". I would guess, then, that the idea is to reenforce wonderfulness of of attachment theory by showing its scary visual (and implicitly its conceptual) opposite.

As an ex-baby-thrower myself

[walkitout]

And having held Teddy up in the air to entertain him, I definitely understand some of the motives for doing this to babies. Assuming the baby is feeling mostly okay about who is doing this to them, the baby finds this exciting fun (until it's too much, or they start puking, anyway); you can get some freakishly intense laughter out of small babies this way. Let me know when you have yours. ;-)

To be fair, I don't think I ever tossed a baby. I tended to toss toddlers and young children instead. They're bigger, but they seem much less breakable.

There is a whole category of games (including peek-a-boo and pursuit/catch/release) about separation and reunion. It's possible the cover used baby-tossing as the most visually compact of this universe. Possible. Not likely, but possible. I play peekaboo with Teddy (most mamas do), and I play pursuit/catch/release (some mamas do). I don't know too many baby-tossing mamas. The mamas I've seen lifting their babies were generally doing it for a specific, non-attachment purpose (exercise with your baby programs often involve lifting the kid to develop the arms -- as if one doesn't do this enough already! Toddler swim class involves a lot of baby-lifting/moving in the water).

For the record

[walkitout]

Zero to Three, an organization that firmly believes that Attachment is Good and has all sorts of guidelines for raising young 'uns is modestly opposed to baby-tossing:

http://www.americanbaby.com/ab/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ab/story/data/AB0904TossingBaby_10012004.xml&catref=cat4490014

Re: For the record

[walkitout]

http://www.dontshake.com/Audience.aspx?categoryID=8&PageName=RelationshipSBS_Play.htm

Who knew that so many people had issued official statements on baby tossing?
These ones are at pains to note that baby tossing does _not_ cause Shaken Baby Syndrome, and are trying to get propaganda about SBS to stop saying it
can.

[(Anonymous)]

Isn't it just a way to get an exciting, picturesque shot? I don't see anything especially odd about that. Plus it expresses that the security of knowing that someone will always catch you is what frees you to be most fully yourself, or something like that. (pardon the pop-psych tone)

Some babies are way more into being tossed than others, and some parents are definitely way more into tossing (I hate it myself, but then I have a fear of falling/heights -- which I don't think I had as a child: I don't remember getting tossed, but I did like to be swung about by the arms).

Lots of ballet dances about intimacy have the man holding the woman up in the air, literally at arm's length. I think it's the kind of thing that translates a feeling that *really* comes during much closer touching into a visual "wow" "whee" impression.

Helen Schinske