culture, family, mothering

This Baby Geek has a foreign born husband.  My kids are wee half’n’half creatures of unique composition.  Aren’t they all.

At this moment I am in the home of my bro- and sis-in-law, thinking anew about how our home cultures shape our early experience which, in turn, shapes our brains.  And these shape us.  Our mommas and our food and our home.  How we communicate, how we express ourselves, what we believe.  It’s all in there.

So I’ve spent considerable time briefing my Big Girl (and subsequently my nieces & nephews) to keep an open mind during travel, to think in terms of Different, not Better or Worse.  One of the most elegant illustrations of this is the beautiful movie  “Babies”, which my children watched on the iPad on the aeroplane.  It’s the only movie on there.

Other stuff rool quick before I rejoin the people … an article from Time about Dolphin Parenting … sounds like the Backbone style of parenting my bro Nathan Mikaere-Wallis teaches… but with an arguably cuter name.

Link here to a write up of some research about child abuse and adverse effects on brain development … complete with disturbing photograph … and finally a great resource from Zero to Three about early emergent literacy.

Better get back to the whanau time.