All About “Babies”

May 10, 2010 · Filed under Unschooling · Tagged Unschooling

Today is my birthday (I’m 52!) and I love going to the movies, so Stephanie and I went to see Babies. It’s a non-fiction film—I wouldn’t really call it a documentary in the classic sense—and it’s about, well, being a baby. There is no narration, and the closest thing to a plot is the fact that the babies get older as the film goes on. It’s simple, fascinating, entertaining, and extremely thought-provoking, especially if you are interested in how children learn.

Babies records events in the day-to-day lives of four infants. One is a boy: Bayar from Mongolia, and three are girls: Ponijao from Namibia, Mari from Japan, and Hattie from the United States.

Beginning with the birth of each child, the film shows that life in different cultures is the same and different, at the same time. For example, baby Bayar is swaddled tightly and left to lie on his back, while baby Ponijao leans, naked, against her mother’s body. Both are loved and cared for by devoted mothers, but in different ways that reflect their particular climate, economy, and family dynamics.

Mari and Hattie live in worlds much more cosmopolitan than those of the other two children. They attend “Mommy and me”-type classes and have age-appropriate toys. Bayar and Ponijao play with their families’ animals, with dirt, and with their siblings. The interplay between Ponijao and her brother is more informative than a stack of child psychology books if you want to explore the issues of rivalry, support, mentoring, and competitiveness. Many times throughout Babies, the truest emotions are revealed in a few minutes of film, without a word being spoken.

Babies is a mostly silent film. You hear some mothers’ voices and some babies’ noises and (very exciting!) some “Mama” and “Papa”  utterances as the little ones learn to talk. The film ends with each of the four children rising up and taking his or her first steps. It’s a glorious finale and a statement of universality, too. No matter what kind of furniture we have, what kind of clothes we wear, what we play with, who we spend our time with, we all grow as we were designed to grow—from immobile babies to walking toddlers. And as we grow, our desire to learn is increased by our ability to manipulate our environment. That’s what I took away from Babies.

Watching the film, I wondered about what it would be like to live in Namibia, covered with flies; about whether being able to take a baby to the zoo is any better than having a baby live among goats; about how much babies need from their parents, beyond love and food. When Bayar was crawling alone across the Mongolian landscape, I felt an impulse to pick him up and carry him to a soft carpet. But, when Hattie fell off a kiddie car into the sand and her parent rushed over to pick her up, I felt an impulse to say, “Let her be. She can take care of herself.” I’d seen Ponijao take care of herself, because she had to, because her mother was either working at pounding and grinding something (food?) or taking care of another one of her many children. I never saw Ponijao’s father.

I liked the way Babies made me think about what babies need and what parents give. The movie doesn’t supply answers, just raw data. And lots of chubby cheeks and sweet lips and precious little arms and legs. And tenacious, curious, energetic baby minds. Whether on the dusty sand in Africa or the hardwood floor in San Francisco, babies are constantly seeking to learn. Babies documents that search for knowledge, which occurs every instant of every baby’s day.