Extra credit- Babies

At the end of the movie and watching the stories of each child I would say in my personal perspective of what good parenting is the child that grew up in Namibia had the best culture in which to grow up in. The child that grew up in Japan was the second best followed by the culture in Mongolia. The child that grew up in the Untied States would have been the worst.
While watching the movie and the different scenes where the producers decided to show a specific act a baby does the child from the United States was scarcely in many of the scenes. The baby that grew up in the American culture had the slowest development where as the other children learned things at an earlier time and progressed faster then Hattie. Though from the bare outlooks it would have been said that the American family should have had the best parenting because they went to all the doctors, read the books about how to be good parents and spent much quality time with their child. There was also a scene where Hattie and her dad went to a class and the parents and children where supposed to be signing and waving their hands, it reminded me of Mr. Marks talking about the music classes he takes his daughter to and how during those sessions he felt stupid but because they are supposed to help development and music appreciation they continue to go. But even all the things the parents had done, going on the kids were around the same age and should have been on the same average schedule, Hattie had the slowest development. She was the last to crawl and walk and also we never really saw her allowed to explore by herself with little toys and her speech development was later. While the other kids were starting to learn their different languages and movements Hattie was still only mumbling and incomprehensible.
The best culture I thought was the child that grew up in Namibia. There were many drastic differences between this culture and the other three. I would have to say that this culture has the most natural way of child birth and bringing up their children. There was no hospitals, no wires and medicines, nothing artificial. The mother also decided to breast feed her child. The main differences with culture it seemed is that there was no adult males in the community. There was also groups or in this movie a pair of two women who always were together and helped each other take care of their kids, the babies grew up in a community where the mother was the dominant figure but there were others who helped raise and take care of the baby and it was not to so much elders doing the watching it was other children who helped. The baby at an early age was allowed to explore and play with things on their own with out such a close and prison like attention from parents. If I remember correctly I believe the baby was one of the first to start crawling but to also stand and walk around. I choose this culture because it happened to be the most natural and there was a faster development but I also feel that there was another deeper connection not so much love cause every mother in the movie loved their child but there was (cant explain it) I guess in a way you could tell the baby was paying attention and learning.

Some of the common methods that the parents choose to use in their parenting decisions were used through out all of them though there were some who did one thing or another. Singing was a common method where the mothers would sing to their babies (though Hattie's parents did not sing to her). Another one was where the mothers would allow their children to room around their houses and explore. Another thing I noticed while the babies where just out of the hospital and in the early development stages, there were a little of little toys and strings and bells to occupy the babies attention. It reminded me of how I am with my cats. I play with my cats by getting them little toys with bells and catnip and they start to kick it around and meow at it, and I thought it was interesting that the same method we use for cats we use with babies. Then of course each household and baby had many interactions with animals. Most of the families had cats and often the baby and cat would be together and cuddle or play or else there was the animals that lived in the same area as the families did. I feel like most of these strategies were what helped their children to have an early development but also a good childhood. Although if you notice that most of the things listed the family from the United States used little to none of these methods.
I think it is important to realize what other cultures do because it can help people relax that in life we really arent all that different. And that if people are looking to raise a baby the best way, it helps to see what common methods are and to see what works so that they can incorpriate it into their own parenting.