Forbidden Touch

The first sense.
Touch begins to program in at 6 weeks gestation.
At 6 weeks the embryo has no eyes or nose but the touch senses are there.

Touch tells you that somebody cares to pay attention to your needs.
I am worthy, I exist, I belong, I am lovable.

Humans (and rats) do not do well without touch.
Babies actually die without touch.

As late as 1920, almost 100% of orphans died in US institutions.
Dr Fritz Talbot visited an orphanage in Dusseldorf to see why they were the exception to this rule.

The answer was Big Anna.
”when all medical care fails, we turn to Big Anna, and she never fails”.
Her secret?
She held the babies.
Talbot observed her going about her day with one baby or another in her arms.

The lesson took a while to sink in.

During World War II there was no hospital capacity for preemies, so, parents were sent home with their premature babies.
Poorer families had a better success rate despite poor hygiene and over crowding than the wealthy babies in their sterile nurseries because, the poorer babies were held and constantly in close proximity to family members.
Later the kangaroo system was adopted which out performed the isolettes.

Skin to skin is finally a matter of course, but it took it’s bloody time.
What was that all about? Was it some Victorian ‘don’t spoil them’ shit?
As early as the 13th century, Salimbene, had noted that babies ‘could not live without the caresses’

So imagine how counter intuitive it was to find that if Thea were to certify for medicare assistance to pay our workers… we can not touch.

Yes, I get it… I am a woman who lived though the 80s and 90s in an industry fraught with inappropriate (at best) advances… but are we to let those lecherous bastards win the day over basic human comfort?
Surely the lawyers who advised this, went to school for a million years and are capable of offering more nuance. Any twat can take the easy ‘no touch’ approach… but at what cost?

I personally trained over a 1000 people last year and everyone wants to touch me, hug me, hold my hand whilst they thank me or impart their own tragic stories.
The wealthy, the unhoused, the dispossessed. All of them.
One unhoused gentleman always clasps my hand in his whilst he assures me to be safe in the knowledge that his Mother and Jesus are holding Luke safely.
Yes, he has no place to live and he’s offering ME comfort!

If I was to follow the rules of that certification the recommendation is that upon his approach, I am to halt him with my palms and offer him a fist bump!
What message does that send to a man opening his heart to me?
Remember what touch means… I am worthy …
What additional trauma does that add?

Suffice to say that my ride or die Thea shut her lap top on that Zoom and withdrew the application… because she’s a bad ass!
And let’s face it there’s no way I would ever refuse hugs!

And nor should I, after all, I am the Mother of the greatest hugger that ever was… Luke.