Babies Documentary Analysis

Throughout the documentary Babies, the main focus consists of documenting the similarities and differences of the lives of four babies from the time they are born until they grow into toddlers. There seemed to be more cultural differences than similarities between the infants when viewing this documentary. One of the main differences I want to draw attention to is child care. The families that reside in Tokyo and San Francisco, seem to have both the mother and father caring for the child. In Namibia and Mongolia, it appears that the mothers are the main care givers for the children, going so far as to notice that not a single father was shown throughout any of the scenes in Namibia. In Namibia, younger children seem to also care for the young children, such as the younger male child who held the infant and let it lay in their lap in one of the scenes of the documentary. Another difference to notice when viewing the different cultures is that the women seem to have an emic view on the age span of breast feeding. It appeared that the women who lived in San Francisco and Tokyo only breastfed for a shorter span of time, breastfeeding is also kept more discrete in these two locations than when the women breastfed in Namibia. In one of the scenes you

It appeared to me, that the babies that had less toys and items to keep them occupied were the happiest or more content. I feel as though the babies who lived in Tokyo and San Francisco seemed less happy, even though they were most coddled and spoiled. The children who had minimal lifestyles seemed to socialize more, possibly due to not having as many distractions such as toys. The child in Mongolia had his older brother to socialize with and the child in Namibia had multiple children to socialize with close to his age and others who were a bit