If like us you have been horrified at some of the treatment of babies in programmes such as 'Bringing Up Baby' you may wish to add your support to an E-petition (electronic petition on the on the Prime Minister's Downing Street website)
Birthlight as an organisation endorses the wording of this petition and is in total agreement with this wording. There have been no allusions to the importance of communication between parents and babies in the programme as shown so far. Great shame that there is so much ignorance being flouted as the way of 'bringing up' a baby.
An E-petition has been raised by Clive Dorman of The Children's Project calling for ...
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to take urgent action to protect infants and their parents from television programmes that promote outdated and discredited parenting theories.
Detail of the Petition:
TV broadcasters seem unable to embrace current knowledge of early brain development and how babies form secure attachments.
Channel 4’s Bringing Up Baby explores three different parenting styles, most worryingly, Truby King. The programme showed seriously distressed infants, and sobbing parents being told to neglect their new baby as part of a routine (“it will soon stop”). It felt close to viewing child abuse. It is neglectful in 2007 to advise a new parent to bring baby home from hospital, shut them in their room at 7.00pm and leave them to cry.
The Children's Project, Unite/CPHVA and others wrote to Channel 4 / Silver River Productions. They refused to say who their experts are, yet feel confident they are protecting the best interests of infants.
BBC's Baby Borrowers removes infants from their parents so that teenagers can pretend to be parents. They too don’t see anything wrong.
This being the case, there is either an ignorance of the emotional needs of children, or no will to embrace current thinking. Whichever it is, there is an urgent need to regulate how babies and children (and their parents) can be portrayed in the media.
To sign up to the petition, simply follow the link below. You will be asked to fill in some information. You will then be sent an email. To add your signature to the petition, you need to click the link in this email. If you don't receive the email you may need to check your spam folder in case the message went there by mistake.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/parentingshows/#detail