An Exploratory Study of the Ways in Which Mothers Keep Their Infants Occupied

The mother child relationship can help or hinder the social, emotional and intellectual development o f the infant. Research has shown that the interaction between mother and child can a ffect the child's cognitive development. Research has shown that mothers from the lower socioeconomic groups do not stimulate their babies optimally and that this may affect the children negatively. In this study 86 underpriviledged mothers from two different cultural backgrounds were asked to describe the ways in which they kept their infants occupied during the first year o f their infants ' lives. The differences between the two groups are discussed and recommendations are made. There is some indication that certain types of experiences may facilitate infant developm ent more than others. Emotional involvement and physical contact between mother and child are important for the formation o f attachment and for a healthy emotional developm ent in the child. Parent involvement is also important for the stimulation of cognitive skills in the infant. Several stu d ies have found that cognitive developm ent is strongly related to maternal in v o lv em en t (G o ttfried , 1984; S tev en s & Bakeman, 1985). There is evidence of a strong a s s o c ia tio n b e tw e e n c h i l d r e n 's m e n ta l developm ent and the quality o f stim ulation available to them in the first three years of life (Bradley & Caldwell, 1982). Escalona (1968) found that frequent contact with the mother and a s t im u la t in g h o m e e n v ir o n m e n t w e re associated with accelerated developm ent in infants. Thus it would appear that the infant is in effect programmed to react to the stim ulation offered by the mother. The notion that stimulation is synonym ous w ith bom barding the in fan t's se n se s is erro n e o u s. S tim u la tio n m ay be regarded as including everything the parents do with the child, such as touching, talking to, playing with and picking up the infant. C o le , G ay an d S h a rp reg a rd " c o g n itiv e developm ent as …


IN T R O D U C T IO N
There is some indication that certain types of experiences may facilitate infant developm ent more than others.Emotional involvement and physical contact between mother and child are important for the formation o f attachment and for a healthy emotional developm ent in the child.Parent involvement is also important for the stimulation of cognitive skills in the infant.Several stu d ies have found that cognitive developm ent is strongly related to maternal in v o lv em en t (G o ttfried , 1984;S tev en s & Bakeman, 1985).There is evidence of a strong a s s o c ia tio n b e tw e e n c h i l d r e n 's m e n ta l developm ent and the quality o f stim ulation available to them in the first three years of life (Bradley & Caldwell, 1982).Escalona (1968) found that frequent contact with the mother and a s t im u la t in g h o m e e n v ir o n m e n t w e re associated with accelerated developm ent in infants.
Thus it would appear that the infant is in effect programmed to react to the stim ulation offered by the mother.The notion that stimulation is synonym ous w ith bom barding the in fan t's se n se s is erro n e o u s. S tim u la tio n m ay be regarded as including everything the parents do with the child, such as touching, talking to, playing with and picking up the infant.
C o le , G ay an d S h a rp reg a rd " c o g n itiv e developm ent as prim arily a social process whereby children acquire social sk illsa sa result o f interaction with others in culturally defined situations" (Jahoda & Lewis, 1988, p .12).By two months o f age infants actually anticipate in te ra c tio n w ith b o th m o th e r and fath er according to the type o f interaction that they hav e h ad p re v io u sly w ith th e ir p a re n ts.Trevarthan (1988) discusses research projects with infants from a few w eeks of age to the middle of their second year.I Ie notes that when confronted with unfamiliar toys infants look to their mothers in order to be shown what they should do and in what manner they should manipulate the toys.When they are presented with toys w hich are fam iliar to them they respond to the toys in familiar w ays (the basis o f which they presumably learned from family mem bers in the past) and they appear to engage their mother in interaction with them if she is sensitive, flexible and supportive o f their own independent efforts.If the mother does not respond to the infant's efforts in a co-operative m anner the infant is inclined to ignore the mother.Stem ( 1985)discusses the interpersonal comm union between mother and infant.He states that al about nine m onths o f age a new d im e n s io n is a d d e d to th e m o t h e r 's im itation-like behaviour when interacting witta the child.The m o th er's new category o | behaviour is termed attunement.By this Stern m eans that the m other matches the infant's behaviour in intensity, rhythm and shape when interacting with the infant.This emotional exchange forms certai n cogni ti ve processes and is seen as the precursor to sym bolic action and thought.
T h e stra te g ie s th at m others display when teaching or stim ulating their infants seem to be the same across cultures and classes.However the extent to which mothers engage in teaching their infants appears to differ markedly.In a study i n the U ni ted States of America wi th black mother-child pairs Hess, Shipman, Brophy and Baer (1969) found that mothers in the lower socio-econom ic groups were not inclined to explain activities to their infants or to provide a rationale for their instructions for the infants in contra-distinction to m others from the middle class.Strcissguth and Bee (1971) report that m iddle-class black mothers talk to their infants three tim es as much as do black mothers from a lower social strata.Middle-class infants also had more mobiles, toys, and rattles within view and within reach.The middle-class mothers orientated the child to the task with which he/she w as occupied with more care, used more praise, and gave more specific feedback to the child.Among the underprivileged those w ho made use o f the more "middle-class" strategy in teaching their chi Idrcn appeared to produce children who were more competent socially and intellectually than were the children o f their counterparts.It should be kept in mind that the aforementioned investigations were not carried out in South Africa.
In South Africa Richter, Grieve and Austin (1988) found in an investigation of a group of 14 bl ack mothers o f infants aged 6 to 12 months that the mothers used the same methods to stimulate and teach their infants as had mothers in a similar study in Edinburgh.The mothers in their study regarded the task o f teaching their infants as an innovation and they stated that they had not played with their infants in this way previously or consciously tried to teach them skills to help them manipulate toys.Richter & Griesel (1986b) conducted an investigation involving 135 m others.T hey found that mothers with adequately nourished children also tend to play m ore actively and more frequently with their children and to make more active attempts to teach their children skills or activities than do mothers with malnourished children .Richter and Griesel (1986a) found that black South A frican preschool children perform marginally below the American mean on a test of general psychological abilities (N=300).Caution should be exercised when drawing co n clusions from stu d ies in w hich group cohesiveness has not been specified and where the sample size is relatively small.A greater understanding o f the interaction processes « w e c n the infant and the parents is needed in order to bring about change in those children for whom a poor prognosis might be forecast.With this in mind an exploratory investigation was carried out in order to gain information on the ways in which South African mothers kept their babies occupied during the first year o f the babies' lives.

M ETH O D
Two groups o f mothers, one black (Tswana speaking), and one white (Afrikaans speaking), living in an urban area, were interviewed in respect of their methods of interacting with their infants in the first year of life o f their eldest child.Each group consisted o f 43 subjects (N=86).The mothers were paired according to age and academic qualifications, ranged in age from 18 to 32 years and had an average of 9 to 12 years of schooling.The mothers had lower status white collar jobs such as clerks and cashiers.Income was not used as a variable, as m an y o f th e b la c k f a m ilie s liv e d in multi-generational families, in which there are many incomes and often the mothers do not know what the income o f the family is; in addi tion blacks usual ly earn less than thei r white counterparts.The average income o f a black person with 10 to 12 years of schooling in the metropolitan area of Pretoria is R6378,20 per annum (Martins, 1986).This figure is not a reflection o f the multiple income in the family.The annual income o f the white families in this study was R36000 per year.The mothers were interviewed by trained fieldworkers all o f whom in terview ed the resp o n d en ts in their first language.The mothers were asked to describe how they kept their infants occupied during the w hole of the first year of their infants' lives.This is a retrospective study.At the time of the interview the child being discussed w as between one and four years o f age.This project formed part of a larger study and additional biographical information and other details are available in Cleaver and Botha (1990).

R E SU L T S
The protocols obtained were subjected to a content analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1984).Two independent raters coded the protocols and the d o u b le -c o d in g o b ta in e d w as used to compute reliabi I i ty.Pearson's product-moment coefficient revealed an inter-rater reliability of 0,96 (Statgraphics, 1986).The SAS-program was used in order to process the results.The chi sq u a re test w as u tiliz e d to co m p u te the biographical data.When expected frequencies are less than 5, and when there is a 2 x 2 contingency table Fisher's exact test is more accurate than the chi square test (Siegel, 1956).Therefore Fisher's exact test w as utilized on the remaining data.The results are listed in Tables 1 and 2.
Approximately three quarters (76,7% ) o f the white mothers were the pri mary caretaker for the infant while in the case of the black mothers approximately half (46,5%) were the primary caretakers (p < 0,01).In the case o f working mothers the black grandmothers played a much more prevalent role as caretakers than did the white grandm others (p < 0,01).The white mothers w ho worked made proportionally more use o f childminders.The family structures of the tw o g roups differed m arkedly in that significan tly m ore black m others lived in extended families than did white mothers (p < 0,001) (Table 1).
The results listed in Table 2 indicate that on the w hole the m others in the two groups used sim ilar methods to keep their babies occupied.Most of the mothers gave their babies toys to keep them occupied (91% of the black mothers and 86% of the white mothers) or they used verbal comm unication in that they sang and talked to them (70% o f the black mothers and 84% o f the w hite m others).There w as a significant difference between the two groups in respect o f playing with the infants; 47% of the w hite mothers mentioned that they played with their babies, while only 5% of the black mothers made mention o f the fact.The other areas in w h ich th ere w ere sig n ific a n t d ifferen ces between the two groups were taking the baby for walks, reading or telling stories to the baby and exposing the baby to music.There were no significant differences in the other methods the mothers used to keep their babies occupied.
The types o f toys/objects given to the babies during the first year were by and large similar, except that the w hite m others made more mention o f soft toys and educational toys and the black mothers made more mention of dolls and cars.
In view o f the fact that there w as a significant difference betw een the tw o groups for the variables primary caretaker and family type an analysis was carried out in order to determine the role played by these variables.The results obtained indicate that in many cases these variables played a minimal role.The results given here involve only those variables where significant differences did in fact occur.Taking th e b la c k s an d w h ite s to g e th e r p rim ary c a re ta k e rs m e n tio n e d p la y in g w ith their children significan tly m ore often than did w orking m others (X 2 = 5 ,3 8 ; p < 0 ,0 5 ).However, black mothers w ho were primary c a re ia k e rs m e n tio n e d p la y in g w ith th eir children markedly less than did white mothers who were primary caretakers (X 2 = 12,01; p < 0,001).As far as readingor telling stories to their infants w as concerned the only significant difference that w as found w as that w hite mothers w ho were primary caretakers engaged in (his activity far more than did white working mothers(X2 = 5,38; p < 0,05).
Mothers from extended families and mothers from nuclear fam ilies differed significantly in rcspcct of playing with their babies (X 2 = 8,97; p < 0,01) in that those in the nuclear families mentioned playing with their infants more than did those from extended fam ilies.B lack m others from e x ten d e d fam ilie s d iffered significantly from black mothers from nuclcar families in that those from the nuclcar family played more often with their babies (X 2 = 6,68; p < 0,05).B lack m others from extended fam ilies and w hite m others from extended families differed significantly in that the white group mentioned that they played with their babies more often than did the black mothers (X 2 = 15,86; p < 0,01)

D ISC U SSIO N
By and large there is little difference between the w ays in which the mothers in the tw o groups keep their infants occupied.Some o f the differences that do occur may be the result of econom ic difficulties or cultural differences.The white mothers tend to be more affluent and would be more likely to own a perambulator.In addition the roads and pavements in the white suburbs are better cared for than those in the so -calle d black su b u rb s and are easier to negotiate, making it easier for whites to take their babies for w alks in perambulators.It should be kept in mind that a peram bulator is a w estern invention used for taking children fo ra walk and that black mothers tend not to use perambulators.Although there is no significant difference b etw een'sw im m ing' as an activity as far as the two groups is concerned 'sw im m ing' is not a culturally accepted practice for black people.Therefore some of the differences could be explained by cultural norms.More affluent people are m ore likely to ow n books and therefore activities such as reading and showing pictures in books to children would be more possible for whites.
Less than half o f the mothers in both of the groups mentioned that they played with their infants in order to keep them occupied.The babies in both groups were given objects with which to amuse them selves but very I ittle actual play w as engaged in.Although the white m others engaged in this type o f activity more than did the black mother, significantly more of the mothers in the white group were primary caretakers.Taking the two groups together the primary caretakers stim ulate their offspring in this w ay m ore than the w orking m others.W orking mothers appear to play less with their children than do the non-working mothers, but it m u st b e n o ted th at th e b la c k prim ary c a re ta k e rs m e n tio n e d p la y in g w ith th eir offspring m arkedly less than did the white p rim a ry c a re ta k e rs.In fan ts are actively involved in the process o f acquiring cognitive skills (Piaget, 1970).The mother has a powerful in flu e n c e on the form and n atu re o f the comm unication and interaction that will take place between her and her offspring.Various studies (Gottfried, 1984;Stern, 1985;Stevens& Bakeman, 1985;Trevarthan, 1988) B rophy & Baer, 1969).Under-privileged children appear to fare less well at school than do the more privileged.Griesel and Richter (1986) found that black pre-school children perform slightly below the levels achieved by th e ir A m e ric a n c o u n te rp a rts on te s ts o f psychological ability.It is possible that this state of affairs could be influenced by, amongst other things, the lack of stim ulating play during the first year.When interpreting these results it should be kept in mind that although black m o th e rs did n o t tak e d e lib e ra te step s to influence the developm ent o f their infants in this manner as often as did the whites, significantly more black than w hite mothers lived in extended families and the possibility exists that other adults in the family may fulfil this role.
A few m others in both groups m entioned feeding their infants as a way in which they kept them occupied, but mostly considered feeding as part o f the normal daily routine.
A great deal o f stress occurs when a mother is struggling to provide for her fam ily's health (C leaver & B otha, 1989).U nderprivileged women would, in accordance wilh M aslow 's hierarchy of needs, focus on providing (heir babies wilh basic needs such as food and shelier rather than on other factors.Although this is an exploratory investigation and the results should be treated with caution it would appear that the children in both the group» could benefit from more active participation in play on the part of their mothers.Mothers therefore should be informed of the importance of playing with their infants and they should be taught appropriate skills for this purpose.Cotterell (1986) found that functional support in child rearing (defined as the giving o f inform ation and advice) en h anced p aren tin g sk ills for A u stralian working-class mothers.Nurses, psychologists, educationalists and other health professionals in contact with mothers both before and after the birth of their babies could, through instruction o f m others, facilitate the intellectu al and emotional development of infants.It should be kept in mind that many grandmothers are the primary caretakers of their grandchildren as their daughters work and therefore they could also benefit from instruction and information.

BIB L IO
highlight the role played by the interaction between m o th e r an d c h ild in th e d ev elo p m en t of cognitive skills.Richter, Grieve and A u stin (1987) noted in their investigation in which t h ^i studied 14 mother-infant pairs that the mothers stated that they had not previously engaged in instructive play with their infants.The findings in the present study were similar.Studies indicate that middle class mothers play actively and en g ag e in in stru ctiv e play w ith their chi Idren more often than do mothers from lower s o c io -e c o n o m ic g ro u p s (H e ss, S hipm an, G R A PH Y BRADLEY, R.H. & CALDW ELL, B.M. 1982.The consistency of the home environment and its relatio n to ch ild d ev elo p m en t.In te r n a tio n a l J o u r n a l o f B e h a v io u ra l Dex'elopment, 5, 445-465.C L E A V E R , G .& B O T H A , A . 1 9 8 9 .E xp erien ces o f m o th erh o o d am ongst a group ofTsw ana mothers.Paper read at 7th A n th e S o u th A fric a n P s y c h o lo g ic a l Association.Durban.September.COTTERELL, J.L. 1986.Work and community influences on the quality of child rearing.Child Development, 57, 362-374.E S C A L O N A , S .K . 1 9 6 8 .T h e r o o ts o f in d i v id u a l it y : N o r m a l p a tt e r n s o f development in infancy.Chicago: Aldine.GOTTFRIED, A.W. 1984.Home environment a n d e a rly c o g n itiv e d e v e lo p m e n t: Integration, meta-analysis, and conclusions.In A.W. Gottfried (lid.)Home Environment a n d e a r ly c o g n it iv e D e v e lo p m e n t: Longitudinal Research.USA: A cadem ic Press.GRIESEL, R.D. AND RICHTER, L.M. 1986.The influence o f fam ily background on the growth and dew lopm ent o f black preschool children in South Africa.Paper presented at the 18th W orld C ongress o f the W orld O r g a n is a tio n fo r E a rly C h ild h o o d Education, Jerusalem, 13-17 July.

TABLE1 CHARACTERISTICS OF FAMILIES IN EA CH OF THE TW O G ROUPS
** p < 0,001 Curationis, Vol. 15, No. 2, 1992 T A B L E