Raising Stone Age Baby

Being called a “white devil” first thing in the morning can be quite disconcerting. I usually think of myself as a typical Northern Californian tolerant, open minded individual, but sometimes, you’re just a white devil. That’s what we were called by one mother in a remote Hmong village – scaring her son, telling him that if he misbehaves, these devils will kidnap him and take him far, far away from his family. Was it the North Face adventure pants that gave us away? Having people come up and touch your nose was also kind of strange.

That’s what happened when Jaclyn and I spent time last year in Laos. We signed up for a mountain trek among the Hmong hill people. Our first option was the common, easy hike two hours into the mountains. “Any other options?” my intrepid wife wanted to know. Yes – a very long, hard, hot slog through 6 hours into one of the most remote places I’ve ever been to: a village from medieval times: One spout of water as the communal drinking fountain / shower, huts gathered round an open dirt plaza on a windswept hill, chickens, dogs, and pigs cavorting, and kids, lots of them, everywhere. We asked our tour guide about visitors to this village – they get about two Western tourists every three months or so. This place was definitely off the “Lonely Planet” circuit.

Not a single stroller in sight. No “Happiest Baby on the Block” DVD. I didn’t see a car seat, since there were no cars, nor a nasal aspirator. As far as I know, definitely no cribs in the huts. All the kids were basically running around, day and night, making lots of noise. The infants were carried around by the older siblings. The only toys I saw were old-school flashlights carried around at night at this electricity-free village.

This is how most humans have lived communally since the dawn of our species, and most of us in the world still live.

We weren’t jarred awake in the pre-dawn hours by crying babies, but rather, the cry of a rooster strutting around our hut we shared with one of the families.

This got me thinking about all the hysteria surrounding sleep in our modern industrial civilization. What’s the real reason for putting baby in a separate room in its own crib? Why put a baby in a stroller immediately after birth, instead of being carried around close to a body? The Hmong babies slept in the same mat as the parents, and were carried around constantly by either the mother or the siblings, and they seemed contented enough.

It’s culture – we have a notion that to raise a successful person, one must be independent, and the idea of sleeping in the same room, let alone, the same bed, as the parents leads to dependency – something that our culture frowns upon. Also, the notion of the “sacred bedroom” in the West is simply not shared among other cultures. We are social beings when awake, and that idea of being together extends towards sleeping hours as well. Some other cultures don’t place the same exaltation for sleep privacy, or for that matter, the cult of happy baby, sleeping baby, as we do.

In fact, one new parent in our class specifically said that they transferred baby to a crib and a separate room at two weeks since they were afraid that the baby will turn out to be dependent on the parents – that’s culture talking, not biology – babies are still learning how to regulate their breathing during sleep – and the best way to learn this is by observing and being close to another sleepyhead.

So for now, we’re going to have a little Hmong village in our San Francisco apartment – no strollers, and no crib, for at least a few months. It kind of makes me feel like a white devil.