Nature: We are Accepted How We are

When I was a child, I thought that to be an adult meant to be independent in actions, but I was wrong. The older we are the more dependent we become on the social events because we have more bias in our finances, relationships, and lifestyle. I remember I wasn’t accepted by my friends and parents because they wanted to change my identity to conform to society’s lifestyle. My friends said that weighing 130 lb was too fat, and thought I should lose weight. Also, my mother said I needed to dress differently to look more like a girl. I felt that I was abused and not accepted as I was. At times, I would go to the forest situated behind my parents’ house, and there I found a way to relieve my pain when I saw nature in front of me with all its imperfection and beauty, independent of others ‘criticism. I understood how superficial society is with all its changing rules, stereotypes, and conditional relationships. Nature, on the contrary, never changes and holds the meaning to understanding life, the universal truth. It knows its importance in the world and can not be deceived to conform to society’s lifestyle. The pressure that society places on people causes much unhappiness, but the natural surrounding is the place where we can feel the freedom and the satisfaction of being a part of nature that loves and accepts us how we are, unconditionally, as a parent.
We need the connection to nature – that is the opinion of ecopsychology, a brand new field of science which is used to heal mental illnesses. It is essential to us because when in contact with nature we feel and understand the universal truth of being ourselves, independent of the false society’s conceptions of society of perfection. This ideal dictates us to be rich, beautiful as models, and famous. Nature created and can teach us to be satisfied with the life we have. Jeremiah Creedon “The Greening of Tony Soprano” , William C. Brisick in “The Steep Cliffs of Life”, and E.B.White “Once more to the Lake ” present the opinion that nature is essential to human life. They appreciate its importance in human life.
Creedon uses the popular Television show The Sopranos to illustrate his thoughts about the importance of human contact with nature. Tony Soprano, the principal character of the show, has a problem in dealing with his psychological state of panic and doesn’t understand that ecopsychology is the only way to relieve his pain. Creedon quotes Andy Fisher about birth of this new method, “ecopsychology has emerged largely from a sense of loss”(696) of the contact with nature. In addition, he points to Theodore Roszak the author of “Voice of the Earth” and Paul Shepard of the book “Nature and Madness” as first ecopsychologists who found this correlation between our well- being and contact to nature. He argues that people are separating from the natural world to achieve social benefits like recognition and money, and as a result, they forget about the universal truth nature teaches us. Inexistence of this contact causes a “psychic numbing” (Creedon’s quotation of Robert Jay, 696). The energy and feeling nature gives us is absolutely important to our mental health because we came from nature and its way of living will make us happy. We have to live a life dependent on our purpose of creation; therefore, society cannot live in contradiction to the rules of nature.
The social world created by us is very far from the true one that is essential for our happiness and self-understanding. Only by being in contact with nature can we understand how we can return to nature. Brisick experienced the power of nature over his son. In his essay, he describes the moment when his son found the meaning of his life. Before the trip, he says the following about his son: “Kevin, after some minor triumphs in school, sports and music, had stopped taking life so seriously. He was drawn to shading rather than black- and-white. In my own youth I thought it important “to hit life head-on”; my son, as I’d observed, was approaching it on slant”(126). He felt very bad about the influence of the new friends in Berkeley had on his son when he went to college. This trip helped his son to understand the meaning of his life; we can say he found his soul. Brisick presents the changes he had just before getting back home: “Kevin found the blue-and-white flagged walk again … He showed some sense of purpose now. I like to think he was heading toward something, a new goal, one he might have put aside”(129). The simple contact with nature made Brisick and his son’s life better than the uncountable number of psychiatric sessions Tony Soprano had. Therefore, we have to take seriously our relationship with nature because it can create an emotional balance, and with this, psychological health in our life. So, only a few moments in nature can give sense to our life that all institutions created by humanity cannot do in years.
In addition, nature gives us unforgettable moments in our life after we are in contact with her. White recognizes the power of nature he felt when he went to a lake. He enjoys the pleasure of seeing the beauty of nature with its currents of wind, bird’s songs, the aroma of trees, and the cold draft of the lake which remained unchanged to his senses. He points out the universality and stability of nature that makes him happy: “It seemed to me, as I kept remembering all this, that those times and those summers had been infinitely precious and worth saving. There had been jollity and peace and goodness”(181). Also, he contrasts it with the society’s changes: “The only thing that was wrong now, really, was the sound of the place, an unfamiliar nervous sound of outboard motor” (181). The sound made by these outboard motors disturbed the natural atmosphere of the nature. He illustrates how the experience he had in nature is unforgettable and gives a lot of pleasant moments.He remembers days when he went to the lake with his father, and those moments gave him peace in his soul and pleasure that society could not provide him; therefore, he is coming back to the lake with his son. In view of that, we can say that our natural world is in front of us peaceful and stable. It is a total contrast to the social world where everything is in motion that makes us conform everyday to new technologies, stereotypes, and lifestyles that can make us really unhappy. Unfortunately, we become psychologically ill because we are stressed by keeping up with all social changes, and we lose the most essential thing: ourselves. We can not find our purpose in life because we are doing what entire society dictates for us. As a result of being successful in society, we are not happy with ourselves. Nature makes us take a break and think about what we really want to do, so we can make our own purpose in life and can gain satisfaction.
Many will not agree that the contact with nature is essential. Many people are mentally healthy without having any contact with it. However, another benefit along with pleasure from having a close relationship with nature is becoming more aware of the changes society makes on the natural world. Ecopsychology makes us think more about the ecological problems of society. Our natural world is an ecosystem that if it dies, all species, including human beings, will die. For example, if global warming keeps going at this rate, we will not have an earth to live on and oxygen to breathe.The contamination of rivers is also harmful for our health because we eat contaminated fish. The contact with nature is essential not just to our mental health, but also to take care of our environment because destroying it means our own death.
The ecopsychology is a new science that appeared as a necessity for people to find stability and universal truths in the ever changing society. We can learn from nature to live our life for us and others, not for things like money and recognition. In this way we can keep ourselves and our natural world healthy because the ecological problems have become acute these days. Nature created us and we have to take care of it and learn from it how to live our life in “[p]eace and goodness and jollity”(181).It is one of the easiest ways to achieve happiness.

Our Virtual Babysitter

From an early age, I grew up watching Tom and Jerry cartoons which were very funny. After that, influenced by Cinderella movie on TV, I was dreaming of meeting my prince and living happily ever after, but as I became older I understood that it was just a dream. Therefore, I switched my attention to the reality shows similar to “Survivor” with the idea that one day I would participate on such a show. I watched it day after day to get the experience, so I can be one of the show’s heroes in case I get selected. However, I was upset when they asked the participants to eat bad smelling, nasty bugs. It was awful! I didn’t desire to be there anymore. At last, I understood that TV is just a virtual show that is used to entertain the masses, so I started to spend my free time watching science fiction or documentaries without dreaming to be a celebrity on TV. I stopped to dream in this virtual world and started to use it in to escape from the stressful life and learn something useful for me.
Television is part of our everyday life. We can sit all day long switching from channel to channel. Television is appealing for many reasons. For example, Barbara Erenreich in “Spudding Out” states that “we love television because television brings us a world in which television doesn’t exist. In fact, deep in their hearts, this is what the spuds crave most: rich, new, participatory life, in which family members look each other in the eye, in which people walk outside and banter with the neighbors, where there is adventure, possibility, danger, feeling, all in natural color, stereophonic sound, and three dimensions, without commercial interruption, and starring … us” (702).In other words, we can switch from boring everyday life to an interesting one. Also, Steven Reiss and James Wiltz in “Why America Loves Reality TV” illustrate the point why people love reality show: “The message of reality television is that ordinary people can become so important that millions will watch them. And the secret thrill of many of those viewers is the thought that perhaps next time, the new celebrities might be them” (736). In the article “The Shameless World of Phil, Sally, and Oprah: Television Talk Shows and the Deconstructing of Society,” Vicki Abt and Mel Seesholtz declare, “Television talk shows create audiences by breaking cultural rules, by managed shocks, by shifting our conceptions of what is acceptable, by transforming our ideas about what is possible, by undermining the bases for cultural judgment, by redefining deviance and appropriate reactions to it, by eroding social barriers, inhibitions and cultural distinctions”(171). As a result, people become addicted to TV because they want to have a different life from a real one: a more interesting, rich, unrestricted by rules, and famous one. They enjoy the virtual world created by TV and spend most of their time on that. However, we have contradictory opinions about TV. For instance, many resources like ones published online at www.media-awarness.com warn us about bad influence TV has on children. At the same time, television is blamed for making people less interactive with real world, obese, and poor heart health. Even so, TV didn’t become less popular; I would say it became more popular because the number of TV channels has increased in last 10 years. So, if it became more popular, it has to be useful in some way in our everyday life. Who will spend their money and time on watching it for no reason?
TV is our everyday companion in life, but how did we start to watch it? Did it happen one day between two and five years old when we put on TV and started to love it? Do we love TV from our birth? I don’t think so. My one year old son would play around with the ball and run from the kitchen to the bedroom instead of seeing “Dora the Explorer,” a popular educational cartoon for children. Furthermore, when I am studying, he prefers to tear off pages from my books instead of watching TV, or when I am doing my house chores, he “helps me” by sweeping the floor or taking out everything from the kitchen cabinets. The time when he plays with me or outside is the most exciting for him, and he won’t stop to play soccer with his father because the Oprah’s show started. However, because of shortness of time I, like most of the parents, encourage him to play on his own. This is boring, and as a result, TV starts to be useful for him to escape from boringness. For example, now he likes to dance when a music program is on TV. Soon, he will start to lose his precious time watching other programs on TV. The virtual world will become like a babysitter that entertains him, and he will learn more from it the about the world than he does it from me.
We watch TV because we were accustomed from an early age to it. Nowadays, our social life has become so active that we don’t have the time we need to play, teach, and entertain our children, so we have found a virtual babysitter, Television, to do it for us. Therefore we have a lot of companies that creates product for children like Walt Disney and Nick JR, and programs on TV with children’s characters Dora, Diego, and Bunny. They all have an educational goal and parents encourage children to see them, instead of explaining everything by themselves. In our culture where time costs money, we use TV as a way to save it when we need it, so people will entertain themselves, instead of bothering us when we have work to do. This is right, in special, for children who have a lot more free time than their parents and need someone to play with. Thus, TV is our best, low price babysitter when we have work to do at home and take care about children. It is a tool used by us to deal with shortness of time.
The negative opinions exist about using TV to entertain our children. Different surveys show that TV has a bad influence on children because they lose their precious time on watching TV instead of reading a book or doing their homework for class. Yes, it could be right if TV would not offer useful programs. It, on the contrary, offers a lot of educational series oriented to different ages: preschoolers, teens, and adults. For example, the cartoons “Dora, the Explorer,” “Go, Diego, Go!” are very useful for preschool age children because they can learn there about the natural world. The adult’s channels “How it is made,” “Discovery,” and many others have a lot of technical and practical information for people of all ages. It can be more useful even than the school because of illustrations and images it has. Thus, television has a good influence on our children if parents know which channels and programs to put on. Our virtual babysitter can be good or bad depending on what channels we allow our children to watch.For this reason, it is not the fault of TV to have a bad influence on children, but of negligent parents.
Television became our best tool: a cheap, virtual babysitter for our child. It has so many educational programs that parents use it as a virtual childcare to entertain their children when they have work to do or are very tired. Therefore, because television is people’s companion from an early age, its popularity won’t decrease. It will improve itself to fit better in our life, so the society will keep it as a virtual babysitter for a long time.

Works Cited

Ehrenreich, Barbara. “Spudding Out” Reading Life. A Writer’s Reader. Eds. Inge Fink and Gabrielle Gautreaux. New Orleans:Thomson, 2005. 700-702.
Reiss, Steven. Wiltz, James. “Why America Loves Reality TV.” Reading Life. A Writer’s Reader. Eds. Inge Fink and Gabrielle Gautreaux. New Orleans:Thomson, 2005. 734-736.
Abt, Vicki, and Mel Seesholtz.. “The Shameless World of Phil, Sally and Oprah: Television Talk Shows and the Deconstructing of Society.” Journal of Popular Culture 28.1 (Summer94 1994): 171-191. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 9 July 2009 .

Breastfeed: Don’t let them change your mind!

According to statistics in recent years the number of mothers who are breastfeeding in USA decreased. In “Why primiparous mothers do not breastfeed in the United States: a national survey” is stated , “[I]n 1998, only 64% of US mothers were breastfeeding at hospital discharge and 29% at 6 mo post-partum”( 1308). This is very sad because the importance of breastfeeding is high. Breast milk has antibodies that increase the immunity of children. This can not be reproduced and added to formula milk. According to a survey conducted in Ghana, 16% of neonatal deaths could be prevented if the children were breastfed within 4 hours after their birth (London,102). Also, “Several recent studies have found better cognitive development among breastfed children… [longer breastfeeding led to ] greater … gains in the cognitive development ”(Population reports, 12). This happens because the formula milk is artificial and may not even contain the same necessary nutrients and in the right amount as breast milk. For example, on any Similac and Infamil’s formula products we can read that the DHA and ARA brain fats (discovered in breast milk) that affect the brain development of children were added just recently. In addition, Gunilla Eklung and Agneta Oskarsson  have done research on the cadmium levels in different kinds of milk. They found that infant formula has high levels of cadmium, which has a toxic effect on organisms due to an accumulation in kidneys and can lead to tubular dysfunction and the intoxication of the nervous system. In other words, breast milk is more beneficial and healthier for infants than artificial formula. For this reason, the woman has to be economically and psychologically stimulated to breastfeed.

Most of us know about these benefits of breastfeeding, but even so choose to give formula to our children. Why does it happen? I think women are pushed to give up this idea because they are not helped. The government cares more about the economy than about the growing of a healthier future generation. So, while there are so many advertisements to stimulate woman to breastfeed, nothing really is done to help a woman to do that. Therefore, she doesn’t have a choice. In United States, a woman after delivery is expected to come back to work as soon as possible. The new born care and breastfeeding is not an excuse. If a woman uses this as an excuse she could be fired. It is a real discrimination going on, isn’t it? The economical problem pushes a woman to take the decision of formula feeding. For instance, I lost my job because I was taking 3 breaks during my work period to express milk, so I could feed my child with breast milk. A woman has to struggle to benefit her child. Married woman often find financial and emotional support for her husband, but single mothers do not have this. In my country, a woman after delivery has a break of at least 6 months before she starts to work. During this time she is supported financially by government. It is an example of care about a woman as an symbol of new life

Another point that has to be taken into account is that the companies that produce formula are giving the hospitals their products for free to feed newborns. At delivery, even if a mother said that she is going to breastfeed her baby, in the nursery the child is fed with formula from the bottle. It is a hard experience for a mom to change the child’s habit after coming back home. It took me about 3 days. I had to resist my baby’s cry and keep him a little hungry, so he will give up his laziness and start to suck the milk from breast. Many of my friends just gave up after one or two tries. The hospital nurseries have to change their habits in attending the patients so the rate of breastfeeding women will increase. The strategies these companies use to make their money are terrible. They think more about money than about the number of unhealthy or less intelligent children.

Obviously, the defenders of government would point to WIC( Woman, Infants, and Children) program and Medicaid that provides a pregnant woman and an infant child with food and health insurance. I single mother has to pay the rent of about $600 along with eating food provided by WIC of $20 value during 10 days. Moreover, if she doesn’t have a house to live in, her children will be taken away from her. Therefore, she doesn’t have another choice than go to work and feed her child with formula which is also provided by WIC program. Moreover, the hospital nursery does its job very good that for a mother that is so tired after delivery is hard to deal with the influence they had on feeding habit of child. It is a great challenge. Even if women are encouraged by so many survey to breastfeed their child, they have to face a high economical and psychological barriers to do so. And this great gift nature gave us, possibility to breastfeed and has our children healthy and happy, is spent on nothing.

Consequently, the government should do something to help raise a new generation of healthy and more intelligent people. In the hospitals the breastfeeding has to be encouraged and not discouraged. Also, a woman after delivery has to have a flexible schedule, so she can be able to express her milk or go for a ride to breastfeed her child. Also, companies should be aware about the future of the world and that this future is in hand of women. Women are always mothers, a wives, a sisters, and  daughters, so men should take special care of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

“Breastfeeding Is Best.” Population Reports 33.4 (June 2006): 12-13. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 17 July 2009 <http://ezproxy.uno.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=24235830&site=ehost-live&scope=site>.

 

Eklund, Gunilla, and Agneta Oskarsson.. “Exposure of cadmium from infant formulas and weaning foods.” Food Additives & Contaminants 16.12 (Dec. 1999): 509-519. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 17 July 2009 <http://ezproxy.uno.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=5513666&site=ehost-live&scope=site>.

 

London, S. “Starting Breast-feeding Soon After Birth Lowers Infants’ Risk of Neonatal Death.” International Family Planning Perspectives 32.2 (June 2006): 102-102. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 17 July 2009 <http://ezproxy.uno.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=21644658&site=ehost-live&scope=site>.

 

Taylor, J. S., P. M. Risica, and H. J. Cabral. “Why primiparous mothers do not breastfeed in the United States: a national survey.” Acta Paediatrica 92.11 (Nov. 2003): 1308-1313. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 17 July 2009 <http://ezproxy.uno.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=11759260&site=ehost-live&scope=site>.