Ours is a culture that supports making sacrifices for your kids. Photographers at the maternity ward know this, and can play on your sense of guilt even before you change out of the hospital gown into street clothes. 

 

"You don't want to deprive your baby of these once in a life time photographs, do you? There is the Deluxe package, the Super Deluxe package and the Mega Super Deluxe package."

 

Commercials play on the need to provide the best shoes, or cereal, or bike helmet for your child. What marketing team would go with a mediocre claim? 

 

Once I was leading a workshop at a La Leche Legaue conference about the importance of breastfeeding and its benefits for your baby. I asked each woman to introduce herself and say why she chose to nurse her son or daughter. One woman's response shocked me. 

 

I had no response.

 

Parents buy Mozart tapes, and research soccer team coaches, in the effort to give their child the best. I read about elite New York nursery schools whose price tags would swallow my husband's annual take home pay. And we have twins. Yet in all the swirling hub bub of swaddling your child in the perfect environment, people look the other way when it comes to an influence that trumps all of them. 

 

The effect of your parent's marriage or non marriage has an enormous and measurable effect on your child's emotional and physical well being. One scientist I listened to said that he can tell from your child's urine if there was stress at home last night. Hormones show up that are released when a child's parents fight. 

 

Go ahead and buy organic apples, or spring for a premium tennis racket. But be sure to feed and exercise your marriage first. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emotionally Intelligent Child