Category: Babies (Documentary)

The documentary ‘Babies’ documents the development of four newborns from different parts of the world ranging from Namibia to Mongolia, Japan and America. It depicts the child’s development processes and how cultural, social, emotional, and family ties play a crucial role. The documentary has no voice over narration, but we see sparse dialogue throughout its duration, which allowed the audience to pay close attention to the development of the babies and their interactions with the surroundings.

It can be observed that Ponijao and Bayar lived in ‘poverty’ conditions, as compared to their more well-off counterparts Mari and Hattie, who lived privileged lives in Japan and America. This aspect displayed the differences in cultures and socio-economic status. However, it should be noted that, despite the socio-cultural differences, the same degree of love and affection was being showered on the babies. The differences in status did not affect the level of love the mothers showered on their babies.

However, there were vivid distinctions in the ways, the mothers displayed affection on the four babies. For instance, Ponijao, a Namibian girl, was allowed to crawl around, eat dirt, drink water from the river and put anything and everything in her mouth that her little hands came in contact with. Ponijao was always seen on her mother’s lap or crawling around the area rather than being swaddled like her counterparts. Ponijao’s mother was attentive to her needs but at the same time she did not interfere in her process of discovering herself. Hattie and Mari were living a more privileged life compared to their counterparts. Their parents worked hard in order to enrich their children’s lives and bless them with the same privilege they were born with. Ponijao wandered around on the ground all day long out of curiosity and started to learn and adapt to her surroundings. She started to learn how to walk and talk without the privilege of reading books and writing and being forced to imitate animal noises in order to understand the differences. Despite her not being privileged, we witnessed that she developed just as prudently as Hattie did during her development process.

The documentary ‘Babies’ did not aim to show the differences in supervision, or the famous ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate but instead placed emphasis on how different roads of development could lead to the same destination.

Erik Erikson used the psychosocial theory to explain the term ‘identity crisis’. He defined the first step as ‘trust vs. mistrust’, which is experienced, from the ages of 0-1 years of age. He stated that new born are completely dependent on their caregiver to fulfill their basic needs for survival. He explained that the way a child builds the concept of trust depends on the way someone satisfies his needs and cares for him. If the baby is given less attention and is not adhered to, the baby will develop a sense of mistrust. However, this was not seen in the case of Ponijao, whose mother although was less attentive to her, but always made sure she was around her and took into account of her whereabouts. We did not see an element of distrust in the baby maybe because the close proximity to which the mother was giving the baby the assurance of warmth and love. The second stage is ‘autonomy vs. doubt’, which appears at the age of 1-3 years. At this age the child begins to explore his environment by the support and encouragement provided by his parents. This was evident in the case of Ponijao, however the other babies lacked this aspect and this may have created doubt in the child in their capacity to do things and may be reluctant to try new experiences in the future. Bayar had very little interaction with his parents and was often isolated. This may cause him to feel isolated and withdrawn from society in his later years in life, according to Erik.

Moreover, Ainswirth’s ‘strange situation’ theory of attachment styles can be used to explain why Bayar felt upset when his mother tried to breastfeed him. He did not build the connection with his mother at a young age and this goes on to further explain the avoidant attachment issue. Children with an avoidant attached tend to become distant with their caregivers and learn to avoid seeking help and may grow up to avoid other people in general. On the flip side, Mari and Hattie would always be in some sort of contact with people, and would often find themselves surrounded with other babies in classes where they would sing and interact with one another. These examples showed the cognitive development of the babies in the documentary and how each child had a different environment to interact with.

This documentary showed major culture differences in the child’s development processes. The four babies grew up in completely different environments with different socio-economic backgrounds. Hattie and Mari played with actual toys as babies because they were brought up in industrialized cities where they had easy access to material goods. Whereas, on the other hand, Bayar and Ponijao played with animals on the fields and were in contact with nature. They never had materialistic goods as compared to Hattie and Mari. They explored and learnt through their own mistakes of trial and error.

This documentary showed that despite having significant cultural and social differences, the road to development is more or less the same. The babies develop in the same way by starting to crawl and then eventually beginning to walk and talk. Some begin to develop faster and quicker, but eventually the rest catch up walking and talking. When Bayar was born his mother would wrap him in a cloth which affected his physical development and he turned out to be the slowest baby. The point to be noted is that environmental factors can only affect the rate at which a baby develops. As the California Department of Education explains, the social emotional development of a child looks at child’s experience, expression, and management of emotions and the ability to establish positive and rewarding relationships with others. Each child’s temperament, or reactivity and self-regulation showed from the time they were born.

In the documentary ‘Babies’ by Thomas Balmès, four newborns who live in different cultures and the environment from various regions of the world—Ponijao (Namibia), Bayarjargal (Mongolia), Mari (Japan), and Hattie (USA). The documentary visually shows each child’s developments with respect to perceptual, motor and cognitive perspectives which may be diversely influenced by diversified cultures and environments during their infancy. Ponijao and Bayar interacted with natural resources with the natural environment, whereas Mari and Hattie have accessibility to innovative technological resources. Differences of child’s experience not just depends on the distinctive customs to bonding with their surrounding environment but also their caregiver parenting styles.

The film demonstrated the cognitive development of babies in the first Piaget’s cognitive development called the sensorimotor stage (birth to two-years-old age). At this stage, infants form reflex action to symbolic processing by exploring and adapting to the environment. Piaget suggested that children show greater interest in the world around them and pay more attention to the new object to contribute their metacognitive knowledge. Bayarjargal (Bayar) and Ponijao live in the rural area which gives them the opportunities to interact with natural resources such as rocks, soils, woods, and animals. In contrast, Hattie and Mari have a lot of toys and objects that their parents provided. Furthermore, the basic principle of Piaget’s theory explained that children create their own theories to understand the world and to make the world seems more predictable. For example, the scene that Mari was placing a wood stick upright by fit it into the hole of the ring-like structure toy indicated that she was exploring and accommodating. Language and communication developments also evolve as infants get older. Each baby in the documentary had different experienced in bonding with their caregivers who help them contribute their communication skills. Mari and Hattie had their parents around to communicate and speak with them for the majority of the time. Likewise, Ponijao was likely to cooing and babbling first in comparison to all other babies in the documentary due to the fact that she is always surrounded by her parent or sibling and they often interact with her. Nevertheless, the only boy in the video was frequently being alone by himself as his mother went to work at the farm. Hence, Bayar tends to be the slowest in all four babies to start cooing and babbling.

Infants begin to reflexively responding to movements early in life—as infants’ motor skill improve, they experience their environment differently. Babies use common motions as clues to identify materials. Newborns’ growing ability to hold and manipulate objects allow them to learn more about the properties of objects which transforming how they perceive the world. Motor developments are illustrated throughout the documentary. Fine-motor skills appeared in all the babies. Hattie and Mari have shown grasping by using fingers including their thumbs to manipulating the object: Hattie was peeling a banana and Mari was trying to place a sticker on paper. In the same way, Ponijao and Bayar also holding and manipulating objects, as Ponijao was rubbing one rock to another and Bayar was holding the plastic bottle. Infants do not master balance just once, but they learn to balance for each posture because the body rotates around distinctive points with particular muscles. Since Ponijao always held in her mother’s arm or lap, she seemed to be the first of all four babies who master balancing as she walks with a can on her head. Bayar had experience swaddling; a strategy of soothing a crying baby by wrapping the baby tightly with cloth or blankets which restricted their movement, on the other hand, appeared to have a difficult time to keep his balanced and develop his motor skill slower than other infants. Moreover, Mari may either have an easy time or struggle in mastering her balance since she had exercise by playing in the baby jumper while her parent was cooking. The jumper could encourage the child to master correct posture but it’s could be a risk factor which might result in poor posture because some muscles were stretching when others were not. Thus, different culture may be delayed or promote motor development; however, they all eventually learned how to crawled and walk.

Newborns are aware of perceptual experiences via learning and memory as their important part of perception to begin interacting with the world. Early sense developments are useful as clues for newborns and young babies to respond to the stimuli. At the very beginning of the film, we can see the development of perceptual of touch as Ponijao started to pain cry as when she was hit by her older brother who was sitting beside her while they were playing with the rocks. Likewise, Bayar shown the same development as his older sibling was hitting him with a piece of cloth. According to the video, even Mari and Hattie also did pain cry as they fell because newborns are already capable of sensing perception of pain at this pace. Babies paid attention to the sounds that they perceived by the surrounding environment. Ponijao and Bayar pay attention to sounds such as the sound of toys, animals, and instruments as well as Hattie’s overt attention to the sound of a vacuum machine as her eyes followed the vacuum when it’s moved. Meanwhile, Mari had attended a music class with her mother that link body movement to the rhythm. In addition, we can see habituation when Hattie loss interested and walk away trying to open the door as her father sing the song along with the music class.

In conclusion, the documentary implied that the four babies live in discrete part of the world with their own unique cultures and parenting styles. Bayar and Ponijao live in countryside which surrounded with nature. Hattie and Mari, on the other hand, live in the urban region and have more access to technology. Regardless of various origins, they all develop in the same step. Therefore, these four newborns finally learned to coo, crawl, walk and tried to speak in the same manner despite the fact that some children develop faster and others due to both biological and environmental factors.

The movie ‘Babies’ allows us to view different developmental emergences of motor, perceptual, and intellectual capacities of four different babies. A major milestone that is demonstrated is the motor movement of each baby. In the first few months of a baby’s life, they will prone, lift head to prone chest up and use arms for support (Church-Lang, Lecture 7). This was demonstrated in the movie by mostly Ponijao, Hattie, and Mari. Bayar was more swaddled laying on his back instead of resting on his stomach like the other babies (Thomas Balmes, 2010). Then around 3 to 6 months, the babies will begin to support some weight with their legs and eventually get to sitting without support (Church-Lang, Lecture 7). This is demonstrated throughout the second half of the film when the babies begin to gain motor control and strength in their limbs. Then they begin to walk and use objects to help get them to stand up for support. By knowing these different motor movement milestones helps us predict around what age the child in the film is. Also, the environment around each baby impacted how easy it was for the child in their development to walk. Ponijao was always in his mother’s lap or roaming freer. This allowed him to explore more and have more trial and error when it came to be standing and walking. On the other hand, Bayar was swaddled since birth, so he had a harder time balancing and standing up. Eventually they both walked, but this shows how the environment could impact the development.

In addition, we were able to see the four babies’ languages develop throughout the film. Ponijao Mari, and Hattie all began cooing and babbling before Bayar. The three babies that begin the utterances before Bayar have more interaction between them and their mothers or siblings, while Bayar was normally laying down by himself. This shows that mothers talking and singing to their babies helps work towards the production of sound (Church-Lang, Lecture 12). It also shows that the environment plays a factor on the language development of babies.

Furthermore, the movie allowed us to see the social emotional development of each baby. Mari and Hattie’s parents took them to different classes where they could interact and sing with other babies. They were both from an industrialized place allowing them to have resources and toys to play with. While Ponijao and Bayar were from place of low income and limited resources. They only had sticks, dirt, leaves, and rivers to play in. Ponijao also had the community to interact with and socialize with, but Bayar only had his brother. His brother would hit him with a cloth which causes him to cry. Then he shows aggression toward the cat when he was petting it by being rough with its fur. This aggression could stem from the lack of socialization and attention Bayar received from his mother.

After analyzing the emergences of motor, perceptual, and intellectual developments of the four babies in the movie, we can see that there are cultural and environmental impacts that play a role in the development of the baby. This helps strengthen the sociocultural approach of Lev Vygotsky stating that children are social beings that are surrounded by others trying to help them learn more.

References

1. Billot, A., Chabat, A., Rouxel, C. (Producer), & Thomas, B. (Director). (2010). Babies [Motion picture]. United States: NBC Universal.
2. Church-Lang, J. Lecture 7: “Motor Development”. PSY 333D, Fall 2019.
3. Church-Lang, J. Lecture 10: “Infant Intellectuals: Big Theories”. PSY 333D, Fall 2019.
4. Church-Lang, J. Lecture 12: “Baby Talk”. PSY 333D, Fall 2019.

Thomas Balmès documents the early phases of the lives of four culturally different newborns from birth until infancy in the documentary ‘Babies’. The experiences of Ponijao from Namibia, Bayanchandmachi (Bayar) from Mongolia, Mari from Japan and Hattie from California, provide insight into the influences culture has on cognitive development in the first years of life. This movie did not include narration nor subtitles which allows the focus to be on the infants and their interaction with their surroundings and allows viewers to interpret and analyze the ways in which cultural customs influence interactions within the different environments and how they contribute to early development.

The documentary begins with Ponijao, a young infant raised in Opuwo, Namibia. Viewers are introduced to a very natural environment with limited resources. The village of the Himba tribe, the community she is raised within and the cultural customs she will become accustomed to, is located in a very rocky and dusty geographical location. Babies are born in their hut in which they live. From the very beginning of the film, the concept of guided participation was demonstrated between two Namibian infants mimicking a traditional cultural activity, as the older peer is seen using a rock to perform a hitting and rubbing action on a larger rock while the younger infant observes and imitates her more skilled peers’ actions. It is then shown the mother, who is also using a rock to break down a red powder carrying out the same motion previously seen by the younger infants. This ‘red ochre’ is culturally used to distinguish between men and women and also used to bathe (Coussement, R., 2015). This demonstrates that at a young age, these babies are able to interact with a tool that will provide cultural knowledge to later assist them in specific cultural activity. Next, we are introduced to Bayar, an infant from Mongolia. Similar to the physical characteristics of Ponijao’s environment that is open and natural, there is lots of barren, hilly land as well as livestock animals such as cows and goats surrounding the yurts where the individuals of this culture live. The audience is then introduced to the next two infants, Mari from Tokyo and Hattie from California, both babies who are raised in large, busy, industrialized cities where the culture is more Western.

One development that was documented throughout the movie is the baby’s’ gross motor skills. These skills develop universally among infants however there seemed to be differences between cultures in the way this physical development occurred. Bayar was brought home tightly swaddled as a newborn and remained swaddled for most of his infancy. Swaddling is a traditional practice in Mongolian culture during the colder seasons where babies are kept tightly wrapped for the first six months after birth (Tsgot et al., 2016). Once mobility is increased after the first three months, the intensity and duration of wrapping are gradually decreased. Consequently, although Bayer developed the skill to walk, compared to the other three babies, Bayer found the development of gross motor skills more challenging and took the most time to develop. Unlike Ponijao, she was never swaddled as a newborn, instead, spending the majority of her first few months in her mother’s arms or lap. Ponijao was given much more freedom to be mobile at a much earlier time than Bayer, crawling around with other infants in their community once she was able to. Ponijao’s ability to learn gross motor skills (sitting up, crawling, walking) was at a faster rate than the other three babies, with much less of a struggle.

Additionally, the cognitive development of each of the four babies varied depending on their interactions with others as well as their environments. Hattie and Mari, both reared in industrialized modern cultures, had access to multiple interactive toys and books that were introduced to them as newborns by their parents and were continuously used throughout their development in collaboration with their caregivers. Both Hattie and Mari were constantly surrounded by their parents, bathing together, sleeping together, and much differently than Ponijao and Bayar, attending playgroups or daycare with their mothers as a means of interaction and socialization with other infants. Hattie was often seen being interactively read to by her mother. Here, guided participation is again illustrated as Hattie’s cognitive abilities began to increase, her mother would continuously ask her questions and direct her attention to the literature. Much differently than Bayar who was left alone for most of infancy with little interaction with his mother during the day. Mari was as well regularly surrounded by her parents and was more often seen interacting with toys that serve as cognitive tools in a Western culture where direction and instructive play is more common. However, the constant presence of parental supervision shows to affect the development of Mari’s problem-solving skills as a result of her dependency on her parents which is seen when Mari is easily frustrated and throws a tantrum after her attempt to fit her toy stick in a ring it is not executed as she wanted or expected. As a result of this dependency, both Hattie and Mari will be less likely to work through problems on their own. Compared to a more independent Ponijao, whose mother rarely intervenes in her play activities, Mari and Hattie will find problem-solving more challenging. It is important to recognize that Ponijao was similarly always in close contact with her mother, however, she was also in constant interaction with other children and mothers from their village. Her days were spent observing and interacting cultural activities of her more skilled peers and mother and imitating their cultural work in her play, reflecting an apprenticeship in thinking as she develops an understanding of her culture in collaboration with the peers in her community in cultural activity. This difference influences the way in which children reared in a more traditional culture, such as Bayar and Ponijao, are more attentive to what adults do rather than children reared in a Western culture where more direct instructing is involved, that are more attentive to what adults say (Lancy, 2015; Morelli et al., 2003).

Balmès captures a distinct array of cultural settings following the progression of these four babies in order to emphasize the importance of sociocultural explanations in regards to cognitive development. The ability to observe infants in both a traditional environment and W.E.I.R.D environment can allow for differences and similarities to be made regarding the development of universal abilities and inferences in how culture plays a role in this development. It is important to recognize the value of taking a sociocultural perspective when studying psychological development.

This documentary provides evidence that learning has an emphasis on the interactions between not only caregivers but as well as the interaction with culture and how cultural customs influence when and how learning takes place. The development of babies may seem fundamentally the same within the first few years of infancy, however, the development of higher-order skills and personality traits may diversify substantially in later years as a result of cultural influences. Taking a sociocultural approach to understanding development can provide reasoning for why Ponijao in Namibia will be more independent and labor-oriented, yet find challenges with communication whereas Hattie or Mari will have more opportunities to excel cognitively yet more challenges with independence and problem-solving skills. The experiences of culture will ultimately lead to different life experiences as a whole.

Childhood experiences are defined through the environments in which they are raised in. Regardless of their environment, a child will thrive through natural survival instincts, coping skills, and will exhibit resiliency characteristics throughout their childhood. Throughout the films ‘Kony 2012’ and ‘Babies’, it displays childhood from two very different views, and how childhood can manifest differently according to geographical habitus.

‘Kony 2012’ was a film produced by the organization Invisible Children, and was made to create awareness about a Lord’s Resistance Army leader, who had abducted children to become his child soldiers and sex slaves. This film gives a good insight to what these children experienced throughout their childhood, and how they coped through their trauma and became empowered through speaking about their experiences. In comparison, ‘Babies’ is a documentary that observes the lives of four babies in the first two years of their lives, showcasing the contrasts of the four cultures without using any narration. Although these two films are shown to be very different in which environments the children are raised, they all experience similar characteristics as they move through phases of life. This analysis will expand further on the connectors that these two films have by looking at how all these children grew through their struggles with their natural instincts, even though they all come from separate environments.

Coping Skills

In the film ‘Kony 2012’, they talk about what they did to help communities affected by Kony and his army. With the help from people all over the world donating money, the workers of invisible children were able to rebuild communities. They rebuilt schools which meant providing them with education, jobs, and built a warning network system to alarm if soldiers were entering their area. Although the children were aided by the workers of invisible children, this in turn helped these children cope, and played a huge part in helping these children re-gain their inner strength. These children wanted to go to school and learn to be independent, they had hope within themselves. Okot, mentions in the film that “the best you can offer a child is by letting them in independent”, and this really helped bring out the sense of empowerment these children had to rise above. Comparingly, in the film ‘Babies’ we also see some sense of coping and ability to get through challenging situations. We see Mari in her home trying to self-sooth while left alone in a room, appearing to be very frustrated with her toys trying to put together two objects. She copes with this by trying her best to make it work, and eventually throwing herself on the ground rolling around, and crying. Again, we see this play out with Bayar as he tries to keep himself occupied while tied to the bed alone in a room. Evidently, these scenarios are on two ends of the spectrum, however it reminds us that children from both films still exhibit similar characteristics in their abilities to cope.

Survival Skills

In ‘Kony 2012’, a clip showing all the children stationed in a community that is considered safe for them. One of the children said: “We fear that if we sleep in our home, we can be abducted by the rebels. They will catch us then they will take us, so we come here to save our life”. This scene is not only heart wrenching but definitely visualizes that their survival instincts had kicked in, and they needed to flee their home towns in order to be safe. In ‘Babies’, in a scene where Bayar is with his sibling, he is receiving a little bit of tough love, as his sibling is hitting him with a piece of fabric. Interestingly, Bayar does what he knows best on how to defend himself. He does this by turning his head trying not to get hit, closing his eyes protecting himself, and crying because he knows someone will hear it and hopefully come to help him. Although this shows what our survival instincts are on a smaller scale compared to the scenes shown in ‘Kony 2012’, it still gives a good baseline on where we start psychologically even as babies trying to protect ourselves.

Resiliency Skills

During the film ‘Kony 2012’, the film director forms a strong relationship with one of the children directly affected by Kony’s abductions, Jacob. Jacob talks briefly about how watched his brother die, and cannot bear the pain from experiencing that, and goes on to say he doesn’t want to live because it would be better than what he is facing now. Fast forward a couple years Jacob is now in America and speaking at events to help advocate for children back in his home land, and wanting to empower others to help in an effort to stop Kony. This is a great example that even through the wrong doings and life’s hardships, he had come out on the other side through his resiliency. Comparatively, in ‘Babies’ we see Mari learning how to walk with no verbal instruction from her mother. She falls down a couple times, yet without encouragement from her mother, gets herself back up and continues to keep walking. This shows that even without encouragement, Mari was instinctively teaching herself how to walk. Gaining resiliency skills like this to keep moving forward, much like Jacob in ‘Kony 2012’, really gives some reason as to why Jacob continued to survive and go through the hardships he experienced.

Conclusion

The beautiful discovery about both these films is that childhood cannot be solely defined. Childhood presents itself in many different ways throughout the world culturally and environmentally, but the common connector is that we all have natural abilities and skills that help us evolve. Through the good and the bad things, we experience throughout childhood we all have the strength to survive, cope, and be resilient. These two films were perfect images to show just what we as tiny and grown humans, are capable of.

Works Cited

1. Kony 2012. Jason Russell. Invisible Children. 2012. Film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc&t=772s
2. Babies. Thomas Balmès. Studio Canal. 2010. Film.

The movie ‘Babies’, produced by Thomas Balmes (2010), is a documentary that follows the lives of four babies from different parts of the world as they interact with their surroundings for the first year of their existence: Ponijao from Namibia, Mari (Japan), Bayar (Mongolia), and Hattie (America). Although there is no narrative in this movie, the similarities and differences in both the parenting practices and children’s development is apparent. The movie utilizes a naturalistic observation approach, choosing to stand back and observe the babies as they would naturally behave.

Parenting Practices Across Cultures and Environments

Despite cultural and environmental differences, all four mothers in the film chose to breastfeed their babies. Ponijao being breastfed was no surprise; one would not expect formula milk to be readily available in Namibia. As for the infants living in Mongolia, Japan, and America, the movie presents the mothers giving birth at a facility where formula is likely available, yet all three opted to breastfeed.

The first difference I noted was the level of supervision. Two of the children were watched closely while the other two had very little supervision. Ponijao is seen in the dirt, drinking puddle water, and putting objects found on the ground in her mouth. Similarly, Bayar is seen playing and sitting with the other farm animals with his bare bottom exposed. While it appears that both Ponijao’s and Bayar’s mothers are comfortable with their children in these seemingly unhealthy conditions, people from other countries would perhaps consider this unhygienic. Based on my experience when I traveled to Japan, it is a very clean environment (sanitary napkins are passed out on the streets, hot towelettes at restaurants before you eat, and clean streets), they take pride in it.

The second similarity is that the mothers of the babies were the primary caregivers. Although it is a common cultural and societal norm for mothers to be the main caregiver in many parts of the world, I did observe some differences in the movie. Despite being unsupervised as stated above, Ponijao’s mother is, on occasion, seen close by and had other family members nearby to keep an eye on her. This is an example of ‘attachment parenting’ and is characterized by 6+ months of breastfeeding and continuous skin-to-skin contact with their child. In contrast, the Mongolian mother is often not home to look after Bayar as she is pre-occupied with chores and unable to commit as much time to look after him. The Japanese mother is seen taking her child to group exercise activities with other mothers and other social activities. Similarly, Hattie’s mother is constantly by her side, reading books, bathing, and shopping in a one-on-one setting.

The third difference is that in Namibia and Mongolia, the fathers were barely seen or not seen at all. Ponijao’s father was never shown and Bayar’s father may or may not have been shown during his birth; it was unclear who the male figure in the movie was. In Japan and America, the fathers were present figures and performed at least some caregiving. This may be a cultural difference or a lifestyle difference, however I strongly suspect the former. Belsky (2016) mentions this as ‘variations in fathers’ involvement’, some fathers favor being involved in caregiving, while some value traditional roles of a man and woman.

Lastly, the third similarity I noticed throughout the movie was that the mothers were all teaching their babies the essentials they need to be well integrated into society. We hear Ponijao’s mother and Bayar’s mother syllable babbling, and Hattie is seen speaking ‘ma-ma’ and ‘pa-pa’. The film showed clips of the mothers helping their children learn how to walk with Ponijao’s mother holding her hand and Mari’s mother cautiously watching her.

Play Patterns

All babies play but their methods differ depending on the environment they were raised in coupled with their own unique personality. Ponijao is frequently seen with her mother and other children outside; her play pattern involves a lot of social interaction. Similarly, Mari’s mother often takes her to group activities with other mothers and their children and even cries when left to play alone with her toys. Contrasting this, Bayar is often left alone while his parents work, the movie capturing him happily playing by himself with a roll of toilet paper. As for Hattie, most of her scenes are with her parents but barely any notable interaction with other children. When her father took her to a group activity, she clearly wanted to leave indicating that she was used to spending most of her time with her parents. Nevertheless, all four reflects the concept of sensorimotor stage (0-2 years old) by Piaget’s Cognitive Theory which involves the baby utilizing and experimenting all their senses with their surroundings.

Reflection

The most challenging part of this assignment was to fully understand the different family situation, lifestyle, and their perspective and beliefs on child-rearing approaches given the interpretive nature of the movie. Overall, Ponijao and Bayar shared many similarities with each other, and Mari and Hattie also shared many similarities with each other. I believe this is greatly due to environmental and cultural differences between the two pairs as well as the resources available to each of the families. It is interesting to note that although the babies lived in different environments and were raised by different parenting styles, they all reached important milestones relatively around the same time.

References

1. Balmès, T. (Director), Balmès, T. (Writer), & Chabat, A., Billot, A., & Rouxel, C. (Producers). (2010). Babies [Motion picture]. United States: Focus Features.
2. Belsky, J. (2016). Experiencing the Lifespan. New York: Worth.