You would think with the amount of baby props and apparatus we have available it would give children born here a leading edge when it comes to early functional development. But when you compare children born in places where there is no such thing as a pacifier, Pull-Ups, or a bumbo, they manage to get along just fine and excel through major milestones in the first few years of life. It’s only when they reach school age that they get robbed of resources and opportunities, and lag behind continuing their country’s low rank on the Human Development Index ...but that’s a whole other rant.
I am not a parent, but having worked with parents and children in different parts of the world, I’ve been able to observe some major differences in early child development that separate children from the first and third world. I’ve worked in Toronto inner cities, villages of Mali (West Africa), and Tanzania (East Africa) and found that, compared with Toronto born children, those in Africa seemed to be toilet-trained earlier, know how to feed themselves earlier, and more independent and self sufficient at an earlier age. This is also true of many other developing communities in the world. I attribute this to five particular items that have limited to no existence in parts of the world and just seem to slow kids down where they are widely used.
1. The Pacifier
A handy invention for parents to rely on to stop their baby’s uncontrollable wailing. But if it results in 3, 4, or 5-year-old kids who continue to walk around with one of these in their mouth, it not only makes the kid look unintelligent, it’s a terrible crutch. It was never meant to be used as a supplement when a baby is not feeding. And if used to make a baby stop crying, it will just get worse with the amount of gas it creates as the baby swallows, worsening colicky conditions. It also encourages a habit of always having something in their mouth, giving them reason to be thumb suckers whenever it’s taken away.
2. Baby Bottles
I know in fast-paced cities we’ve widely accepted the sippy cup in order to drink things on the go, but baby bottles are unacceptable for any grown kid. In Toronto communities, I’ve encountered 6,7, even 8-year-old kids who are healthy with no developmental delays, but still bottle-dependent and unable to feed themselves simple food items like a sandwich. Whether it’s dependence created by their parents or caregivers, laziness, or just plain incompetence, it’s a sad and kind of embarrassing sight especially when I’ve seen 12-18 month children in the orphanages I regularly visited in Tanzania already feeding themselves rice and beans from a plate with a spoon.
3. Strollers
Strollers are unheard of in villages in Tanzania and Mali. Even the wealthy who tend to be more Westernized and live in the city don’t bother with them. The mentality is once a kid has learned to use their legs, let them use it! Small infants and babies are carried on their mother’s backs using a simple cloth called a kanga. There are no complicated harnesses, padding, holes for the baby’s legs to go through, or buckles to fasten the baby in place, just a simple square cloth that is wrapped around the mother’s midsection to and tied around the front to hold the baby in place. When the child learns to walk they may be carried occasionally but otherwise they’ll travel alongside their mother on foot across considerable distances. In some villages I saw a few kids as early as 9 months already learning to walk and walking independently well before 12 months.
If the child is otherwise healthy, normal and bears no developmental disorder, stroller-use beyond 2 or even 3-years-old is not due to any inability to walk, but because parents are too lazy to have to control their kid who would run around uncontrollably. If a child is old enough to give their parents lip and say “I don’t care” when told to quit screaming, or even swear at them, they have no place in a stroller.
Strollers are already annoying when 3 or 4 are crammed on a packed bus that it reduces the amount of room people have to stand or get on at all, but when occupied by a 4, 5, or heaven forbid, 6-year-old kid who can walk perfectly fine, that stroller should be thrown under that bus.
4. Diapers
Disposable diapers are another luxury in the first world. Cloth diapers are mostly used in both Mali and Tanzania if at all (I’ve been urinated on by a diaper-less baby). There is something about the cloth that makes it so gross and uncomfortable that it in fact encourages children to potty train early.
Keep in mind in both the villages and in the city, toilets are not the porcelain thrones we sit on here in Canada, but holes in the ground. You aim for the hole if you’re male, or squat if you’re female for your number ones, and hover above it for your number twos. Kids not only have to master the art of squatting and aiming, but in the Orphanages I worked in, were able to do so with assistance by 24 months, and independently by 3 years old.
Also there is no such thing as graduated diaper progression like going from a baby diaper to the “Pull-up”. A diaper is a diaper whether it has Velcro to fasten it or an elastic waist so that older kids 4-6 year old or even beyond, who otherwise do not have any physiological or developmental disorders, can pretend it’s underwear.
5. Baby Einstein
And finally Baby Einstein, another sensation that was thought to make kids brilliant if you just sat them in front of the television and run the video. Because teaching a child hands-on is simply too much effort. Well, it just might do the opposite.
I’m no child expert, but I know this much: It doesn’t take much to get a kid to learn basic things like walking, learning to eat, drink and use the toilet in the first few years of life. It’s in fact the lack of luxuries such as being wheeled around in a stroller beyond 5-years-old that will make a kid more independent and industrious.
Children who will never know what an X Box is still manage to be imaginative and animated, and will use whatever is around them to play and learn. They will climb trees instead of monkey bars, they’ll run up and down a hill and jump off boulders in the absence of a playground, they’ll stuff a plastic bag with leaves and roll it up with string to make a soccer ball, they’ll write arithmetic problems and multiplication tables in the dirt with a twig, and spell out words using raw beans.
If only these under-privileged children were given the same chance and opportunity to continue their development beyond these early years and into their youth and adulthood, they could take these stroller-riding, pacifier-sucking, diaper-wearing, baby-Einstein-raised kids to town.
A lot of times, my parents wouldn't buy me certain toys because they are too expensive. So I remember finding scraps of cardboard and using take-out order boxes to construct my own Turtle van.
I have friends who came from refugee camps, and they said if they really wanted something, they'd find creative ways to make them. They'd turn out fascinating lamps, small windmills and other toys all using anything that was lying around.
Anywya, your article made me think of that.
In Zambia the kids would make cars and trucks out of wire hangers. They were pretty realistic and actually rolled on their wheels! Sick
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/780873--father-retrieves-stolen-stroller-in-craigslist-sting
i know we're supposed to sympathize with the parents here, victims of crime, who had their stroller stolen.... but the first thought that occurred to me was, what kind of psychopaths would spend $700 on a stroller?