Beautiful Sunsets

We are lucky to be able to finally see over the horizon here. Took some gorgeous sunset shots yesterday. Here's one.

I've been trying to be healthier here after being lazy about it all of last 2 months, and not doing any exercise. So been making an effort to start the day at the gym whenever I can. I don't go overboard with it, just 30 mins. Yesterday I realised I have been ignoring my problem skin however. Have had a breakout as a result. And our hair needs to be shampooed more often here, probably due to the excess humidity.

We met some people from our home country a few days ago. A lot of kids in the group which is good. However, our friends who had invited us had also invited one catty woman, and I'll be thinking about avoiding her whenever I can. Found her competitive about every small thing, and a know it all. She even proceeded to do a ranking of schools for children, (even though no one had asked for her opinion on the topic), putting her son's school at the top, and our daughter's one was not even mentioned (not that I care about what she thinks). She would sprinkle in the odd barbed comment into the conversation for good measure. Lovely!

Saw an episode of Oprah which I found really eye opening. I always felt the first year or 2 of a child's life is really key to their future, and it turns out I am right, except it goes as far as 3 years! This episode showed that if a child is neglected in early childhood (i.e the first 3 years of life), their brain does not develop as well as a child who gets plenty of care and physical attention. Apparently touch is key for neural pathways in the brain to developing to their full potential. Severely neglected children develop serious symptoms like rocking back and forth (remember the Romanian orphans in the state run orphanages?), inability to speak or even walk properly, and avoiding eye contact with others. It made me feel so justified about my decision not to go back to work after my daughter was born for the first few years. I'd always instinctivley felt that the sacrifice to my career was needed by my child, but here was proof that any child really stands much to gain from love and attention being showered on it the first years of its life (and who would this job better or more energetically than the parent?). If one leaves a child with a servant/maid for 8 to 10 hours a day, (which incidentally is what Cat woman does), how do you know they are not ignoring /neglecting your child/or showing any real love to him/her? Just feeding the child is really not enough to make sure they develop their full potential and are happy. It's not entirely fair to blame the woman of today for going back to work, as laws are so lenient towards inadequate maternity leaves in most countries except in the Nordic Countries and in some East European Countries, where up to one year is given off to the new mother. Even Canada has long maternity leaves and UK is following suit. The rest of the world is quite far behind. I think, if one has to, it is far better to leave a little 3 month old baby with a good day care service rather than in the care of a single untrained-for-emergencies individual.

The expert on the show, Dr. Bruce Perry, a world renowned child psychiatrist, also spoke about how youngsters nowadays are growing up without the ability to empathise which is a direct result of not getting enough attention when they are infants/young children. He spoke of how parents nowadays just spend a few minutes communicating/holding their children (and the youngest of children are almost spending the whole day in front of the tv or at the care giver's, or asleep) and that results in these children growing up without ability to have real feelings of empathy, a generation that constantly turns to machines such as ipods, laptops and blackberries as a substitute for human contact, or worse still to drugs. I personally theorise that this is why so many children in the States, where it is common for single parenting to go on, join gangs, as they finally get to belong somewhere, as they lacked that in their own family. That spells pretty much disaster for the family unit of the future. How does a person with relationship skills like this make a marriage last for example? What kind of parent will they turn out to be to their child? Food for thought indeed. The pressure to keep up with the Jones', not losing out on the climb up the career ladder etc, and inadequate maternity leave, all to blame I feel.

Clicking here will show you details of what the program talked about.

And this is a theoretical article illustrating the concept, which clearly shows the difference in the brains of a child who does not receive loving care and stimulation and one who does.