The documentary Babies follows four different newborns that are raised in four different cultures. This will show the cultural influence on the development of physical, cognitive and psychosocial of the babies. The babies featured in the documentary are Ponijao from Namibia, Bayarjargal from Mongolia, Mari from Japan and lastly Hattie from California. The documentary delivers the moment of their infancy and toddlerhood, in which their development covers the physical, emotional, behavioral, and mental growth of children from ages 0 to 36 months.
Physical development
Babies are equipped with a variety of reflexes, and they continue to learn new routines to help them survive in and adapt to their environments. Starting with physical development, all the babies in the film are breastfed by their mothers. They are all well nourished from the nutrients of mothers’ breastmilk. The babies also show rooting reflex where they turn towards their mothers’ breast to suck the nipple. This reflex is due to babies having preference towards their own mothers rather than towards another baby’s mother and it becoming a habit.
Motor development occurs gradually from reflexive actions such as sucking to more advanced motor functioning. Finding entertainment in her surrounding, Ponijao can be seen grabbing and eating everything in her vision even if it is a bone or sand. Mari demonstrates fine motor skills when she was placing a sticker onto a piece of paper. Similarly, Hattie was jumping around in her baby chair and able to peel a banana on her own which show motor development.
Among all of them, Ponijao is the first one to be able to walk her first baby step. This may be due to her culture environment, where she has the total freedom to explore her surrounding while her mother watches with care and other siblings play with her which provides a supportive environment. Mari and Hattie follow after, where they progress from holding onto a chair or having their parents support their steps to standing and walking alone. Bayar is the last one to walk, having wrapped tightly in a blanket most of the time, finds it hard to balance on his feet yet still makes effort to stand by himself.
Cognitive development
Cognitive development involves the evolution of their memory, moral reasoning, language, info processing and creativity. To start off, the difference in culture contributes to how the area of info processing is developed. Mari and Hattie come from well-developed cities where they have resources to almost everything and they are surrounded with materialistic objects. They have toys to play with, books to read and cartoon images to see which enhance their intelligence. At some point, Mari can be seen trying to fit a ring into a wooden stick which displays tertiary circular reactions where she performs an action to get a result. On the other hand, Ponijao and Bayar only have nature and surrounding environment to interact with such as rocks, animals, streams and grass.
Other point to note is that we can see their cognitive development through daily interaction. Mari and Hattie mostly play with their toys and cats. Hattie knows in her mind that she does not enjoy the bubbles in the pool. Ponijao is aware that she has a different sexual organ than her brother which shows info processing. Bayar entertains himself as he discovers his toes and watches the rooster that comes onto his bed. Last but not least is the language development. Crying and fussing are the major forms of communication for infants. “Baby talk” is considered essential to language development. Hence, Ponijao, Mari and Hattie are developing their language development every time they have interaction with their mothers or siblings. Most of the time Bayar was lying down by himself with no presence of his parents around.
The babies with the most interaction will start to communicate through cooing and babbling because they have someone to interact with.
Psychosocial development
It occurs as children form relationships, interact with others, and understand and manage their feelings. In social aspect, it can be seen that Ponijao and Bayar are raised in a culture where they engage more in work activities whereas Mari and Hattie engage more in play activities. For example, Ponijao follows her mother everywhere she goes or when she is doing some work around. Bayar is able to witness his parents cleaning internal organs of an animal (perhaps a cow) for perhaps dinner preparation. Mari and Hattie are brought to education class to interact with other babies, and most of the time their parents provide toys for them to play with instead of bringing the babies to their workplace.
Each child’s temperament expressed ever since they were born. Ponijao seems to have a close bond with her community. Her mother takes good care of her and her siblings always interact with her which provide secure attachment. She is able to express her emotions as well when a sibling takes away the bottle from her hand. She is dealing with the emotion of anger when they begin hitting each other. Bayar, on the other hand, has very little interaction with his parents and is mostly by himself all the time. This may be why he is aggressive when the mother is trying to breastfeed him as they have not bonded yet. He is also expressing his emotions of upset and anger when the brother hits him with a cloth continuously. This shows that he has insecure attachment with his family. Other time the babies show their emotions are when Mari throws a tantrum when she fails to fit the ring into the stick or when Hattie hates the bubbles in the pool. Another aspect that is addressed in the film that convey social development is gender differences. It shows when Ponijao discovers that her sexual organ is different than her brother.
In conclusion, all the babies grow in different cultures which will affect their environment differently in the future. Mari and Hattie may grow well in industrialized cities working an office job, while Ponijao and Bayar have advantages over their nature intelligence to work in a more resistant environment. There are also statements in which people with lower socioeconomic status may have lower IQ but higher emotional intelligence while vice versa for higher society people. Babies like Ponijao and Bayar are given the freedom to explore freely on their own, hence their senses are developed better and they can interact well without the feeling of insecurity. Thus, culture and environment influence the development of babies in different, good ways.
References
Armaganliyan, K. (2018). Babies – Film Analysis. Retrieved from http://klivworld.blogspot.com/2018/06/babies-film-analysis_4.html?m=1
Blackwell, A. (n.d.). Babies Analysis. Retrieved from http://sites.gsu.edu/ablackwell4/course-work/epy-2050/babies-analysis/
Purdy, E.R. (n.d.). Infant and Toddler Development. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/science/infant-and-toddler-development
Stages of Development (n.d.). Introduction to Psychology. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wsu-sandbox/chapter/stages-of-development/
BCCampus Open Education (n.d.). 7.2 Infancy and Childhood: Exploring and Learning. Introduction to Psychology- 1st Canadian Edition. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/6-2-infancy-and-childhood-exploring-and-learning/
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