The Documentary "Babies"- thumbs down! Your opinio

ChutzPAh

Wed, Oct 20 2010, 9:07 pm

Did any of you see this movie? I had seen the trailer posted on here a while back, so when I took a recent flight, I decided to watch it.
Hated it! I couldn't even watch the whole thing. It just got under my skin.
It just made me annoyed that they glorified the African woman (and showed her way more than anyone else) and her kids while they were swarming with flies and swimming in and eating mud, while showing the horrible american mom who was on the phone and cooking dinner while her clean and well kept child was in a jumper.
Just wondering if any of you have seen it and what your opinion on the movie was.

cookiemilk

Wed, Oct 20 2010, 9:16 pm

ChutzPAh wrote:

havent yet gotten around to this however when I was taking child development in college my professor also expressed the unfortunate veiw that baby care in third world countries was so great! Such as the fact that babies travel on their mothers backs all dayso they are rocked to sleep and cosleep in their mothers beds all night.. I wrote to her that I disagreed that cosleeping in a mosquito infested overheated mat on the mud was a better alternative to learning how to sleep in a well ventilated quiet room on your own. On the contrary babies learn how to sleep in their own if they are not constanty hot, wet and hungry and if the mother hears their calls and visits to feed and care for them. As for being carried on the mothers backs, these women have hungry children who would cry terribly if they were not constantly rocked and need to work all day without childcare, hence the backwearing.
I told her I had no idea why we were being vilified for providing our babies with morea dn better resources, and keeping them safe, dry and well fed. She had nothing to say to that. It seems very au courant to glorify the third world cultural practices without giving credit to the fantastic advances science and modernism brought as well.

MaBelleVie

Wed, Oct 20 2010, 10:14 pm

I can't say I hated it, but I am glad I didn't pay money to watch it (it's available instantly on Netflix, in case anyone is interested). I agree that they glorified the African family and made them appear much more happy and wholesome than the families living in civilized countries. Of course they neglected to show all the OTHER children in Africa- you know, the thousands dying daily of preventable causes. And the fact that most of those who live have a very limited future ahead of them.

I just tried to ignore the rather ignorant message, and focused on learning how parenting happens in other places. It was pretty interesting, if you don't think too much about all the editing. . .

ChutzPAh

Wed, Oct 20 2010, 10:17 pm

louche wrote:

ChutzPAh wrote:

I don't know what's so wonderful about filling ones days sitting in the dirt almost naked and playing with rocks.

HEY! Women pay a LOT of $$$ to do just that at spas that offer mudpacks and hot-stone treatments.

Yes, but there you get nice music and herbal tea, not flies and mosquitos.
(and hot stone messages are one of my favorites.)

melbee

Thu, Oct 21 2010, 1:44 pm

I also watched it through Netflix, and agree that I'm glad I didn't pay for it. I thought it was interesting that, despite all the differences between the babies, they all seemed to hit the milestones at around the same time. All were walking by 1 for instance, and all crawled, stood, etc. I did feel that they glorified the African family a bit more than any others (I noticed only the Japanese baby ever threw a tantrum, and she was left alone screaming in a room filled with toys), but chose to focus on the baby's physical developments all being similar instead of any message they were trying to convey.

manhattanmom

Thu, Oct 21 2010, 1:51 pm

I also watched it.
I do agree that they kind of glorified the family in Africa (with true attachment parenting.)

What disturbed me a drop--is that the baby from somewhere in East Asia (maybe Malaysia??) spent a LOT of time alone--meaning not in a language-rich environment like no interaction with other babies, adults, etc.. It showed a lot of the baby playing with rocks, dirt, sticks, the cat, etc. by himself with the occasional older brother hitting him or something like that if I remember correctly...

kitov

Thu, Oct 21 2010, 1:52 pm

melbee wrote:

How can they compare baby milestones? Between Americans alone there is variety, even my kids all reached their milestones at an individual pace. How would being of a certain nationality impact that?

Tablepoetry

Thu, Oct 21 2010, 1:54 pm

I didn't get the feeling anyone was glorified. If anything, I came away stunned that people still live in such basic conditions today. The African family practically lived in the dust and dirt, the baby played with dust, ate dust....the film did seem to hint that a baby can grow up happy even like that. But it did nothing to hide or glorify the very primitive conditions there.

I was so afraid for the safety of one baby (was it from Tibet?) He crawled about stark naked with the rams and horns of all sorts of animals all over his little body, no mommy seemed to be around, it was a miracle he grew up in one piece.

They did juxtapose the above baby with either the American or Japanese girl (can't remember) and showed how one was ecstatic chewing on just toilet paper, tied to a post like a dog, while the other threw tantrums although she could move as freely as she wanted among a thousand toys. What's wrong with the message? That one can be happier with nothing, than with everything?

And then there was the scene where the baby from San Francisco is trying to escape a parent-child group who are chanting some Mother Earth song with an African beat. She tries to get out the door, and the irony is heavy - how far this privileged group really is from Mother Earth.
But there's no idealizing Mother Earth in this movie, and I think most viewers will be overjoyed they aren't sitting in the dust in such close proximity to Mother Earth. The movie made me very grateful for western culture.

elaela

Thu, Oct 21 2010, 1:58 pm

I only saw the trailer, but I realy ant to watch this deocumentary.

I hear your point, it might be VERY biased and I am sure that none of the arguements are scientifically proven or anything ...THEREFOR... lets not have a general impression of "africa" . we have here in europe a huge diversity of lifestyles and every parent has his/her own approach. I believe the same is true for "african" parneting Smile

I doubt that there is THE african, just like there is not THE american etc. so eventhough the movie points our one example only, which most of you seem to dislike, I wouldnt generalise that all african parents sit in mud etc. I know you didnt write anything like that, I just want us to be careful thats all (I am quite sensitive to this subject, cos I have has several very strange and sad experiences that dealt with this issue).

I would really be interested what the movie showed about the mongolian family /baby. I saw several documentaries about mongolia before, and I have to say that some things I saw absolutely fascinated me (especially the nature, I dont know too much about the culture).

I wuold be happy to read some comments about the mongolian baby. thank you in advance and kol tuv everyone.

melbee

Thu, Oct 21 2010, 2:17 pm

kitov wrote:

melbee wrote:

How can they compare baby milestones? Between Americans alone there is variety, even my kids all reached their milestones at an individual pace. How would being of a certain nationality impact that?

I suppose what I meant was that, although I don't know the exact ages they hit the milestones, they all hit each one by what a ped or something would consider "on time". I didn't expect anything different, it just impressed upon me how little walkers, jumpers, etc. can really make a difference in encouraging walking, crawling, etc.

ariela - I think out of all the stories, the Mongolian baby's was the strangest for me to watch. As Tablepoetry and Manhattanmom pointed out, the baby was left on his own pretty much the entire time, and at one point flipped a stroller onto himself and there were no adults around (don't know for how long obviously, since the camera changed to another baby at that point). It was rather disconcerting to me that there were no adults around at all for pretty much all of the Mongolia scenes, despite what antics the infant was getting up to.

Does anyone know how it was taped? At times I was confused whether they just left cameras around an area and took footage after picking them up, or whether there were actually people behind them.

Inspired

Thu, Oct 21 2010, 4:04 pm

I'm with TB and melbee.

I am far more horrified by the mongolian baby's existence than the African baby. The African baby always had his mother around and was within a community. The Mongolian baby was left alone most of the time, tied to the bed, left to wander the property. I understand the mother was busy working on the farm to feed the family but I do think it should be possible to at least find a better solution than baby alone in the house, tied to a bedpost. The African women seem to lead a more leisurely life- hey no laundry to wash! but despite sitting in the dirt they are actually caring for the babies. The Mongolian family was way above the African in modern conveniences, but I would rather forgo the conveniences, I think and not be tied to a bedpost alone in a house (tent?).

I really don't think anything was glorified.

cookiemilk

Thu, Oct 21 2010, 6:56 pm

Inspired wrote:

I read this article in Motherhood mag about how mongolian babies get breastfed until they are 5-6 yrs old. And that all the women living in the family unit can pop out a breast sometimes in public... and feed the baby or if they had no milk just let them suck I guess... and that they do it to soothe like we would give a paci. I thought that was a bit strange when I read it.

chavamom

Fri, Oct 22 2010, 3:10 am

manhattanmom wrote:

Mongolia. Yes, there was an awful lot of unsupervised mischief there. And it certainly wasn't glorified...it just was. I felt the same way about the child in Africa. It was what it was. If someone wanted to glorify "attachment parenting", they certainly would have presented a prettier picture of the Californian couple.

OK, obviously I saw it. I organized a whole group of nursing students and friends to see it and pretty much everyone loved it. I'm shocked so many here had such a negative reaction.