The Myth of Normal 143

biological maturity. The sudden loss of maternal contact is, for the infant, a shock—as we know from animal studies, even creatures whose period of dependence is much shorter than ours.[*] All the Lonely Parents The British anthropologist Colin Turnbull spent three years living with Pygmies in what was then known as Belgian Congo, in Central Africa. Until recently these tribal people followed ways of life dating back, likely with little alteration, for thousands of years. He related his observations in his classic work The Forest People. “The infant,” he writes, “. . . knows his real mother and father, of course, and has a special affection for them and they for him, but from an early age he learns that he is the child of them all, for they are all children of the forest.”[23] In the small-band hunter-gatherer milieu, the extended family and clan formed an indispensable network of warm, responsive support. Far from being a two-person show (much less a solo performance), parenting originally functioned within a broad circle of attachments, the multigenerational clan, where consistent affection was modeled, encouraged, and shared. It was also supplemented, in a manner both merciful and utterly commonsense, by a select group of other caregivers that Narvaez terms allomothers, the Greek-derived prefix allo- denoting “something other than the usual.” Allomothers “take the baby when mom needs a break . . . They carry, rock and play with the child. They take care of mundane tasks . . . They are the buffer for the mother-child, father-child relationship.” We know from many studies that the more support parents receive, the more responsive they can be to their children. “It used to be the tradition in most every society,” Narvaez writes, “to have a ‘lying in’ period for mom and new baby where women of the community wait on the mother, giving her nutritious teas and foods that promote breastfeeding and healing. They took care of everything in the household so she could stay in her bed and give her full attention to bonding with and breastfeeding her baby.”[24] In effect, these cultures had a socialized “Child Care for All” policy, to their great benefit.