an entry not about my ex!

here's something that's bugging me. one of my cousins, who wants to have a big family one day, and is very kind-hearted, loving, and absorbed by modern technology (she's the kind checking in on her phone while hiking a mountain), is of the mindset that people are NOT supposed to sleep with their newborn babies. that it is dangerous, and you can crush them. to death.

i think about all the other mammals in the world, all the mothers sleeping with their offspring, orangutans with their infants clinging to them while they sleep in the treetops (now THAT'S dangerous. get that baby in a crib!), and i feel desperately dismayed by the realization that human beings are being taught not to trust their instincts anymore. my heart has sunk. love, contact, touch, presence, warmth--it's all up there with the requirements for raising a child. it goes hand in hand with food and changing the diaper. studies prove this, but we shouldn't need these studies to know that we are supposed to carry the babies around wherever we go, awake or asleep, when they are brand new. if mama was in the wild and set that baby down to sleep somewhere other than her side at night, that baby wouldn't be there when she woke up in the morning. but having caves with locks doesn't mean that baby doesn't need love through the night, in the cold and frightening dark.

who is telling people these things? human beings are forgetting that they are animals, and then we wonder why we and our children are suffering from crippling emotional problems???

i feel rather outraged.