The movie ‘’BABIES’’ is about babies from San Francisco, Japan, Namibia, and Mongolia and It showed how they interact with people and things around them. It helps people see how the parents take care of their babies in different cultures and how they are similar in some ways. The documentary shows the four different cultural babies from right after birth until they can walk. Everyone has a different way of how to take care of their babies; people don’t have the same cultural background so people take care of their babies differently. The 2010 film Babies demonstrates example of cultural universals and norms while viewing the distinct cultural differences between the cultures of Namibia, Mongolia, Japan and the United States from the conflict …show more content…
People can be ungrateful and they always want something or always complaining about what they eat, that their clothes are ugly and always buying stuff for their babies that they don’t need. The Movie BABIES shows how the other people parents when they have hardly anything they only care about taking care of their kids. Perspective is a way of regarding situations or topics; from the viewer. A sociologist would use the perspective I have used to explain what a Perspective is; by how the sociologist him or herself looks at how all the culture is different himself or herself. What the sociologist noticed while watching the film. For the functionalist in Namibia the mothers stayed home while taking care of the babies. Once the boy gets older he wouldn’t stay home with his mother anymore. In Mongolia one parents work home and takes care of the child. In Mongolia they chop the meat at home and prepare the food while taking care of the children. Conflict theory is Namibia babies and parents vs the environment; Namibian don’t have much and they struggle every day for survival. They don’t have much food and drinks, clothes, and shelter. In Mongolia it was parent vs child; the child was into everything and the parents being hard on him for getting into things like the pee bucket. The symbolic interaction for all of them would be environment and people. The environment definitely would make an impact on the baby’s development and life because it is important what kind of environment the babies grow up from. In Namibia the babies need to adapt to their environment because they need to learn how to get food, water, how to make shelter, clothes; basically they need to learn to survive in that environment. Hattie would be developed differently from Ponijao because Hattie’s environment is more
There are also cultural differences in the four attachment theories and this is possibly based on different countries where infants are either separated more or less from their caregivers than in the United States (Broderick, P., & Blewitt, P., 2015). However, it is good to know that maternal sensitivity and attachment security has been successfully replicated across cultures so it seems as though with infancy that there are not too many cultural differences when it comes to these relationships (Broderick, P., & Blewitt, P., 2015). What needs to be kept in mind about cultural differences is the differences in context across cultures and how different meanings and connects can be
Monday morning, Sally, a twelve-year-old American girl, is woken up by her father. As she gets ready to go to school, her mother hands her a backpack and lunch with a quick kiss goodbye. Meanwhile, Zarina, a twelve-year-old Sierra Leone girl, wakes herself up to get ready for work. Her aunt says good morning as they both head from their home to the cassava fields. Both of these girls have a traditional family setting. In America children in a traditional family grow up with both biological parents and any siblings they have. In Sierra Leone, the setting for both The Bite of the Mango and A Long Way Gone, children of traditional families live with aunts and uncles as well as many children from different parents. These different views of what is traditional create uniqe children in many ways. Children who grow up in Sierra Leone are more self-reliant than American children.
In different countries and cities, infant caretaking styles can differ widely due to varying cultures and values. For example, the study done by Morelli, Rogoff, Oppenheim and Goldsmith in 1992 revealed differences in the infant sleeping practices between Mayan parents and U.S. parents from Utah. While more Mayan parents preferred to let their infants sleep on their bed to develop a close mother-infant bond, more U.S. parents preferred to keep their infants on a separate bed and to let them sleep alone as soon as possible in order to allow their child to become independent (Morelli et al., 1992). The purpose of this study is to examine the caretaking practices of a current parent through an interview and to compare and contrast the parent’s
Newborns do not contribute much to society at large. In fact, they do not do much in general. It is impossible to know the details of what goes on in an infant’s mind. One of the things we do know about newborns is that sleep is crucial and they spend an average of 16-18 hours each day sleeping (Ward, 2015). This paper will examine the experiences of one mother’s decisions in regard to sleeping arrangements and the values, both cultural and personal, that support these arrangements. It will also compare her decisions to the decisions of U.S. and Mayan mothers discussed in the research article “Cultural Variation in Infants’ Sleeping Arrangements: Questions of Independence.” The mother who was interviewed for this paper is 54 years old and
“Babies”. Is a documentary made by the Thomas Balmés. It offers a window on the lives of four infants in four completely different cultures. This is not a usual kind of documentary; there are no narration, no subtitles and actual dialogue was very minimal. The film explores childhood rituals, enculturation, socialization and parenthood. I will try to explore each of these themes and try to make the case that behaviors, values and fears are learned not something congenital. It has, in my opinion, comparative perspectives and different methods in rearing children in different societies. It achieves this by cutting the scenes in certain ways to show the differences between these different children. For example, in one part of the film, both Bayarjargal (the Mongolian child) and Mari (the Japanese child) were playing with their pet cats and then the two scenes were edited to a shot of Ponijo (the Namibian child) looking interested in flies. The four children developed in somewhat similar ways. However, there are differences in their behaviors due to the enculturation by seeing their parents or siblings who were doing what they thought to be the norms and the obvious landscape in which they are brought up. Two of the kids were born in rural areas (Namibia and Mongolia) and two were born in urban areas (the United States and Japan). The mothers of these infants were interviewed and chosen to be in the film
“I am not a social worker. I am not a teacher, even. That is my fear, you know, that I really can’t do anything. Helping them to get and education is not going to do anything, but without help they are doomed (Born into Brothels, 2004).” Zana Briski made this statement in her documentary Born into Brothels, referring to the children of sex workers in Sonagachi. This statement exemplifies child saving, a dominant theme in children’s discourse, that portrays children as vulnerable, innocent, and in need of “saving” from poverty and immorality according to a view of a universal childhood (Wells, 2009, pg.28). Child saving efforts remove children from their homes and families and place them in new homes or schools to discursively separate them from their parents (Wells, 2009, pg.28). Therefore, they would have the opportunity to be successful. Saving children based on the western conception of childhood has proved to be ineffective and culturally inappropriate when applied to international circumstances. By examining Zana Briski’s method of saving the children in Sonagachi and reviewing the criticisms of the film, it can be determined that her method of saving the children was unnecessary and contributes to the dominance of western political discourse based on the concept of a universal childhood and what western culture considers to be the “best interests” of the child. This essay will address Briski’s method of saving the children in Sonagachi, explore alternative options to child saving through structural reformation and rights based approaches, and examine how the use of images to save children and the globalization of childhood create political problems on an international scale.
Infanticide is a way to alter the reproductive stream before the child has the status of a real person, which is culturally defined (source). The deaths of weak, illegitimate, excess, deformed and unwanted infants are not defined as murder when the infants have not yet been born into the social world. Infanticide occurs cross-culturally for a multitude of causes. The reasons for infanticide can be summed up into three categories: biological (including the health of the child and twin stigmas), economical (relation to other children, women's workload, and available resources) and cultural (preferred gender, illegitimate children). This essay will examine cross-culturally the biological, economic and cultural factors for infanticide.
The French documentary Babies shows the first year of development of four different babies who live in four completely different environments. The film follows Ponijao, a little girl from Namibia, Bayar, a little boy from Mongolia, Mari, a girl from Tokyo, and Hattie, a girl from San Francisco. Even though the babies live in very dissimilar parts of the world, their physical, cognitive, and social development seem to all follow a set pattern. On the other hand, the babies learn to do some activities distinctive to their environment by watching their parents and siblings. Therefore, Babies provides evidence to support both the nature and nurture sides of the debate.
After reading the book which mentions the maternal and neonatal situation in Mali, one of the poorest countries in the world, is pitiable. (1) Child birth takes place under lantern light, in Mud bricks with profuse sweating without electricity, no running water, no emergency backup. With only the grace of God and the skill of a midwife that child birth takes place in remote villages in the country of Mali, West Africa, having the third highest total fertility
While all societies acknowledge that children are different from adults, how they are different, changes, both generationally and across cultures. “The essence of childhood studies is that childhood is a social and cultural phenomenon” (James, 1998). Evident that there are in fact multiple childhoods, a unifying theme of childhood studies is that childhood is a social construction and aims to explore the major implications on future outcomes and adulthood. Recognizing childhood as a social construction guides exploration through themes to a better understanding of multiple childhoods, particularly differences influencing individual perception and experience of childhood. Childhood is socially constructed according to parenting style by parents’ ability to create a secure parent-child relationship, embrace love in attitudes towards the child through acceptance in a prepared environment, fostering healthy development which results in evidence based, major impacts on the experience of childhood as well as for the child’s resiliency and ability to overcome any adversity in the environment to reach positive future outcomes and succeed.
Babies is a 2010 French film, by Thomas Balmes, that follows four babies from birth to their first steps around the world. Two of the babies are from rural areas: Panijao from Opuwo, Namibia, and Bayarjargal from Bayanchandmani, Mongolia. The other two babies are from urban areas: Mari from Tokyo, Japan, and Hattie from San Francisco, United States. This documentary is different because the whole film is from the babies perceptive. Everything that is shot is at the babies level. There is very little dialogue throughout this film. The focus is not on the parents at all. You will see the parent’s faces through out the film. But mostly all you see is nipples, arms, hands and their chest. You see the parts the baby tends to have the most interest
“The Help” is a white mock feel good movie, which seems to feature amnesia of racial conflicts in the South as its primary theme (Stockett, 2009). Author Natasha McLaughlin suggests that ‘The Help’ focuses upon the home and the relationship between African-American domestics and the laws of Jim Crow’s neglected ‘other half’: Jane Crow (McLaughlin, 2014). The American Civil Rights Movement mainly accommodates the public with a view concentrated upon a male dominant perspective but appreciations to Stockett and her moving interpretation of the relationship of Caucasian housewives and their African-American maids the public gets a rare white-washed version of events dealing with the civil rights movement going on within the interior of the households
In every country of the world, different cultures are seen. Each culture has a different way of raising children and that is seen in the film Babies. Kids are raised differently depending on the resources available and the economic situation of the country and that is clearly seen in this film. The methods of childrearing are completely different in each of the countries covered in the film, but that is because in each country the kids are being raised for different types of futures. Babies are raised differently depending on the culture and location, however, the one thing that does not change throughout the film is that the mothers care extensively for their babies.
Babies is a documentary that centers around four diverse infants throughout their first year on Earth. These four babies are born in four different areas of the world. The film demonstrates how people from different parts of the world can grow up completely different than other parts, while still sharing many similarities. Ponijao is an African baby who is born in Opuwo, Namibia. Mari is a young Japanese girl who was born in Tokyo, Japan. Bayar is a baby who was born in Bayanchandmani, Mongolia. The fourth baby’s name is Hattie, born in San Francisco, California. While viewing the documentary, many theories and concepts in psychology are portrayed.
The film Babies is a film that follows four babies from San Francisco, Tokyo, Mongolia, and Namibia through their first year of life. The film has no talking or narrative. In many scenes, you don’t even see adults. This helps you get to see a baby’s perspective on the world. This movie showed how different cultures are when it comes to raising children.