I saw a great documentary entitled Babies at the Nickelodeon in Columbia yesterday. The film chronicles the birth and development of four babies through the first year or so of life. What intrigued me so about this film was the fact that the babies were being raised in four different countries and totally different cultures. Despite the variety in diet, daily activities, stimulation, toys (or lack thereof) all four of them developed right on schedule. Plus, they all seemed happy, curious, and healthy.
One of the major issues in psychology is nature/nurture, and in this film, one can’t help but see the importance of nurture. Mari in Japan is wide-eyed as she rides on her mother’s back through a giant department store. There’s so much to see and hear, and she’s trying hard to take it all in. Then there’s the precious baby Ponijao in Namibia, Africa who’s never seen a “toy” in his life, much less a department store. Hattie in America bounces up and down in what I call a “Jumping Jack” while Bayarjargal in Mongolia lies motionless on a bed, his legs swaddled tightly in a wrap of some type. He stares intently at a rooster who walks all around him on the bed while Hattie watches her mother who’s working in a sunlit modern kitchen. Ponijao’s mother shaves his head with a knife, Bayarjargal bathes in a big washtub sitting by an open window, Mari gets an “attitude” when playing with a roomful of toys (too much stimulation?), and Hattie listens as her parents read to her.
My grandson (above) loves bananas and has been gumming them for as long as I can remember. Ponijao gnaws on bones and sits in the dirt a lot while flies buzz about. Neither little boy seems happier or healthier than the other. Could the primary factor in development be as simple as love and nurturance? Could it be that whether babies play with expensive toys or cavort with yaks (Bayarjargal) is not nearly as important as whether their parents provide love and a secure attachment?
Check out the movie if you get a chance. If not, you can at least watch the trailer on Google. And if you can’t do that, you can still throw in your two cents’ worth about what you believae is more important, nature or nurture.
Shrink Rapping 
I also believe that nurture is more important. The main reason behind this comes from 2 Corinthians 5:17. The verse says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
Many of us even from socially “good” backgrounds are victims of abandonment, betrayal, and hurt. These feelings may have been caused by childhood or just everyday life, from those close to us or those we barely know. The hurt they leave behind is real and affects how we think, what our relationships are like, and how we live in the future. If we aren’t careful, that hurt can take us from being victims to being villains. We deal with our pain by hurting others with actions or with words; we replace good choices with risky behavior and an “I don’t care” attitude. It’s important to remember your hurt is very real and when we are too embarrassed to get help, or when we just simply choose to stay in an unhealthy state of mind, we allow sin to rule our lives. We become a volunteer, rather than a victim. The underlying issue is our lack of confidence in God to be able to heal us and a fear of facing the pain.
When you accept Christ as your Savior, you become “in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:15-17). He is no longer just an outward god that you know about; He is the Savior of your soul who lives within you. Because of this, you receive a new life, the power to live it successfully, and the ability to influence and impact others. The life we want to live is one of triumph over the pain of the past, whether it was years ago or yesterday. We must make a conscious, definite choice to accept it by faith. This is the ultimate form of what it means to be nurtured.
I also think it is important to see that the failure and mistakes of the past have been used throughout history to show the unconditional love of God, the depth of His forgiveness, and the power of new life in Christ. In reality to believe anything less is to discount the gift of Christ’s death on the cross-a gift so complete that we need nothing more. What I’m trying to say is that I believe God loves you, no matter what you were born into or how many mistakes you’ve made, but way too much to leave you that way.
In my opinion nurture is the most important thing when raising a child. Sure the environment they grow up in is too but nurture is really key to a way kid acts and will continue to act as they get older. Most kids that aren’t nurtured while they are growing up tend to not nurture also, to their kids and so on. Another thing; you can have the best living environment, the latest and greatest things, everything you could ever wish and hope for and still not be happy because you weren’t nurtured while growing up. This is just my opinion though. Some people think that their kids don’t need to be nurtured to learn to do things on their own, and that’s good to a certain extent but all in all i think every parent should nurture their kids.
Im in college with no children but i love to play with kids. Kids these days just want someone they can run around and laugh with. Whereas some kids want to be held and told you love them. There are children out here today that feel that they are alone in this world because their parents are to young to even know how to care for them or show them love because they are still a child themselves. It doesnt matter to me who a child is i will take that chid as if they were my own and love them unconditionally.
Looking at my son who is now 18 months old, I find that nurture is more important than nature. He is very bright for his age, he knows that a screwdriver puts nails in things; he’s tried to copy that. He knows keys go in keyholes in door and tries to take my keys and unlock the door, even though he can’t reach it. He knows the bowl on the floor in the kitchen is for the dogs and cats, and often much to the cat’s distain, picks her up and drags her to the water dish. He also picks up a lot of words from myself or my fiancée teaching him them. He likes to point to objects and we say what it is, and he’ll try to say it back. He knows his Aunt’s by name and tries really hard to say them, but he just doesn’t have that down yet. You can ask him where his nose, eyes, ears, mouth, arm, leg, fingers and toes are and he’ll point to them and say the words. He knows how to put a DVD into a DVD player and that it pushes back in. He knows that the buttons of a mouse click and loves to open a million tabs for Mommy to close. Yes I do believe a child receiving love and a secure attachment does better than a child who is left to discover life on his or her own.
What I particularly like about this post is that you included so many specific examples. By the way, I just have to get in a little plug for nature: he's able to learn these things because his mommy and daddy are smart!I watched the movie tailer and all the babies did seem happy. I am still in high school and do not have children, but as a child i can say love is what has made me who i am today. I am very loving towards babies because that is the only way i have seen them treated. I am sure there are children in foster homes that have nice things, but little love ( not saying that is how all foster homes are) and feel empty inside. To me, it would be better to live on the streets with the people I love, than in a mansion with no one to love at all.
I know what you're saying, and to me, love is the most important part of the success equation. A child needs to feel valuable and wanted.I think more on babies are influenced in the same way both nature and nurture. But I guess nurture is most important compared by nature. Yes, we know that both of this aspect had to something with our babies and mostly influenced them until they grown up. But I could say both nature and nuture contributes more to personality. It reflects more to the babies because of their parents the way they been raised.
Seems to be that you're saying this is a complicated issue!They’re both so important that it’s hard to think about one without the other. A person could have the innate ability of Einstein, but if he lives in a remote area of Africa (like Namibia), his chances of soaring above the crowd are limited. Then too, if a person (like me) has only average athletic ability, it’s doubtful that she will ever be a golf pro.
I would love to see the documentary entitled “Babies”. I am a mother and I think that nurturing is very important in raising a baby, because they are so precious. They need a lot of love and comfort during their growing process. There’s a special bond between a mother and her baby. No matter what country a baby is from, as long as they are getting the love and nurturing that they need, they will be happy and grow healthy.
That's one of the things that struck me in this documentary: All of the parents, especially the mothers, gave plenty of TLC to their babies.I love this article about babies, and I’d like to watch the video. Nurture is the most basic need of a living organism. Obviously, human babies require a more complex system of nurturing than a plant. However, their needs as babies grow as well. I don’t believe that the question of needs can be answered in the full context of a growing baby human, without examination of the levels of need that arise through stages of development. The simple needs of a baby that might require only nurturing are designed to transform into something greater. At what stage can we access greater learning capabilities? Nature might have more impact later on in the growing process, when a baby matures beyond the stage where nurturing is enough.
Truly, it's a tough call (nature/nurture), and I mainly posed the question to get people to think about it more. Here in America we are so accustomed to seeing OUR way of doing things that we lose sight of the fact that other cultures raise children differently and that those children fare quite well. I just had an image of my 7-week-old granddaughter strapped in her carseat as her father scooted around Atlanta yesterday. Two of the babies in the film had never seen a carseat...or an automobile!I also think nurture is more important than nature. Nurture definately helps the child develop on schedule. Also, if a child is brought of with good parenting with love and care, the child will most likely turn out to be a good adult.
In the battle between nature vs nurture i would have to say that nurture wins. Obviously both is needed to raise a well rounded child. It is proven that you do not need material objects or other things to stimilate a good baby. these mothers had different ways of handling their children and all of the babies turn out to be good developed babies all around the time where its supposed to happen.
It's true that material objects are not the only things that stimulate a baby. However, reading and singing and spending time with them are ultra important. In class, I think I mentioned that in Terman's study of gifted children, it was found that an average of 300 books were in the homes of the children in the study.As a mother myself i beleive nurture is the most important. Imean nature is important to a certain exstent. If you nurture a child the right way it will help them develop the way they should. I mean think about it a child who lacks nurture from the parents will not know how to give nurture themselves and will lack that comfort as well. The nature part isnt as close to the child as the nurture part. No matter where you are or whats around you nurture is what helps children develop on schedule because it is also a learning mechanism as well.
And it helps us as adults too, don't you think? No matter what you've inherited, your current environment and choices affect you.