By Rhishja Larson •
September 21, 2009
A pair of male vultures at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo who successfully reared two chicks together have split up and started new families with female vultures.
Ten years ago, two male Griffon vultures met and fell in love. They built a nest - as vultures do - but couldn’t produce an egg.
The situation prompted Israeli zoololgist Shmuel Yidov try an experiment: A newly-hatched vulture chick was carefully placed inside a swan’s egg shell and slipped into Dashik and Yehuda’s nest.
Recently, we’ve received a lot of information on products claiming to be great parental substitutes to compensate when mothers feel guilty for having to leave their anxious babies. These range from stuffed animals with beating hearts to literally, a stuffed hand called Zaky.
The greatest concern for me personally is that these objects may be misconstrued as a replacement for a live human, and there is not a good alternative to having a consistent mothering person available as often as possible in the first year of a child’s development.
While it may not be possible for a parent to stay home with the child at all times, there are other options:
- If you or your partner cannot afford to take time off of work or work from home to be with your child, you are certainly not alone, but several employers may be willing to work with you to telecommute a couple of days a week. This not only helps reduce the cost of daycare but also give you more time with your new baby.
- Hiring a nanny is the next best option, although it is also expensive to have full time private care. By having one other person fully focused on caring for the baby, the child is allowed to feel merged with the mother and father in the morning and evenings and isn’t jarred when he/she is left in the hands of a familiar nanny, who acts as a stand-in “mothering person.”
- If daycare is the only option for you once your child is old enough, then make sure that you take into account the ratio of daycare helpers to students. A good rule of thumb is three children per day care helper so that you know your child is not being neglected during the day and is getting enough personal attention.
