Attachment to a baby is a long-term process, not a single, magical moment. The opportunity for bonding at birth may be compared to... falling in love--staying in love takes longer and demands more work.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The common erotic project of destroying women makes it possible for men to unite into a brotherhood; this project is the only firm... and trustworthy groundwork for cooperation among males and all male bonding is based on it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Many people have an oversimplified picture of bonding that could be called the "epoxy" theory of relationships...if you don't get ...properly "glued" to your babies at exactly the right time, which only occurs very soon after birth, then you will have missed your chance.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The bottom line on bonding with multiples seems to be that if you see bonding as a static event--a moment in time at which you mus...t have eye contact and skin contact simultaneously with two or more infants--you may indeed be in trouble.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To insult a friend implies that you respect his masculinity enough to know he can take it without acting like a crybaby. The swapp...ing of insults, like the fighting between brothers, becomes the seal of the male bonding.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
At the heart of male bonding is this experience of boys in early puberty: they know they must break free from their mothers and th...e civilized world of women, but they are not ready yet for the world of men, so they are only at home with other boys, equally outcast, equally frightened, and equally involved in posturing what they believe to be manhood.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Family life in Western society since the time of the Old Testament has been a struggle to maintain patriarchy, male domination, an...d double standards in the face of a natural drift towards monogamous bonding. Young men have been called upon to prove their masculinity by their willingness to die in warfare, and young women have been called upon to prove their femininity by their willingness to die for their man. Women have been asked to appear small, dumb, and helpless so men would feel big and strong, brave, and clever. It's been a trick.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Instead of being a static one-time event, bonding is a process, a dynamic and continuous one. Thus, a reciprocal, loving attachmen...t is still realizable even when early contact is delayed--as it is for many mothers and their prematurely born infants, or when illness of either the newborn or the mother intervenes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We have been told over and over about the importance of bonding to our children. Rarely do we hear about the skill of letting go, ...or, as one parent said, "that we raise our children to leave us." Early childhood, as our kids gain skills and eagerly want some distance from us, is a time to build a kind of adult-child balance which permits both of us room.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »