Apr 15th, 2009
Foster Parents of Humans in the Wild : Fact or Fiction?
http://www.singularitynetwork.org/files/images/FeralChildren.jpg
Now, we all know that parenting is a tough job. Let’s list down some qualities of a good foster parent:
1) Provides food
2) Patience
3) Time
4) Care
5) Commitment
6) Responsible
7) Flexible
8) Resourceful
9) Love
10) Growth and Development
How about being a foster parent to a child who is biologically, psychologically and emotionally different from you?
In that case, how do we determine what makes a good foster parent? Are the criteria similar or not?
In the first place, could animals have raised humans? Do we see only what we want to believe? Or, are animals merely just companions of these children?
Oxana – www.homeworking.ws/children/oxana-malaya.jpg
John – www.elanso.com/ and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1398515.stm
In April last year, I watched an interesting national geographic documentary about Feral children, with particular focus on Ukrainian female Oxana Malaya, who lived in a kennel with mongrel dogs and Ugandan teenager John Ssebunya, who was reportedly taken in by a troupe of Vervet monkeys when he was aged just four. Inspired by the documentary, I decided to write a post about it! Feral children are children who have spent much of their formative years in the wild, due to reasons such as blatant neglect or abandonment by their parents. It is useful to note that they live without any contact with other humans for a significant period of their lives. This impeded their developmental progress as they missed the critical period for language acquisition from birth to around five years old. Therefore, being deprived of stimulation, most of them never acquire the ability to have normal speech patterns or hold a proper conversation. Even if they are rehabilitated, some never quite adjust to the society and even show signs of wanting to go back to the original environment they once belonged.
I know the topic of feral children is somewhat controversial but is especially intriguing to me. Sadly, there is not much serious scientific data and research done on this topic. Practically nothing is known about the life of a feral child before his or her discovery. According to Bettelheim, there is no such thing as feral children. He believes that humans imagine too much and that these children “stopped existing as human beings” in order to protect their lives. He prefers to take an extreme view that these children have some form of psychological disorder, for instance, he explained that Amala and Kamala, two wolf children has symptoms similar to schizophrenic children who were insensitive to heat and cold.
In the documentary, some scientists cast doubts regarding this topic. Is it was a genuine case of paternity care for the feral child by the animals or a case of the child being an outcast, eating leftover food and cohabiting with the animals sorely on survive instinct? In the media, there are many uncorroborated, documented feral children who have been portrayed in such light that the “foster parents” such as wolves or dogs took the children under their wings and took care of them. Many cases involve wolves as “foster parents” due to their intelligence and nurturing ability. One famous case include two wolf girls, Kamala and Amala who remained all fours, bite others when provoked and consume raw meat as their diet. What the media fails to mention is that these children are as likely to, due to basic survival instinct, follow and learn from their “foster parents”, eating leftover food and living with them, behaving more like a social outcasts than part of the “family”. In other words, perhaps it is not that animals raise children but that somehow, animals overcome their aggressive predatory behaviour and are persuaded to ‘help’ or allow humans to co-exist with them. This can be seen in the case of John in the documentary: Observing the boy’s interactions with a group of the primates, Professor Candland concluded that John had spent time “living among” the animals, “but there was no way to know for how long or what they did for him. He points out that “there is no evidence that any species of animal will provide for and raise a human infant.” The Vervets certainly didn’t care for him in any real sense.” In the documentary, John is seen to be able to point to various places where he forages with his monkey friends and has a conviction that he is looked after by them.
I have several questions: Is it possible for a child to even survive under such unfavourable conditions? Humans, unlike animals in the wild, is fragile and extremely dependant during infanthood and early childhood. It seemed to be that it is highly unlikely animals in the wild possess the necessary qualities to take care of a being as fragile as infant/young child. If the feral children cases are true, proving the possibility of such phenomenon occurring, why aren’t other animals taking care of other lost animals that are different from them? One example of such occurrence is mentioned during lecture, where we learnt that brood parasites are birds that lay their eggs in the nests of other species (the “hosts”) have their offspring raised by the host parents. However, this is merely a form of ‘cheating’ but in the case of feral children, animals are thought to be deliberate in their intentions to’ raise’ the human child.
On top of that, one questions how do they interact in the wild? In other words, how do these animals (‘foster parents’) communicate with humans? Do they rely on chemical, audio, visual or tactile channels of communication? Does the behaviour of one individual affects the behaviour of another individual and generally improves both participants’ fitness? How do these children take on particular characteristics of their ‘foster parents’ as seen in Oxana who barks and crawl on all fours before she was rehabilitated? Do they show a marked sexual attraction towards the same species of animals?
At the end of the day, we can only speculate and let our imagination about animal behaviour run wild. We cannot conduct any experiments on this topic and we also cannot interview these feral children as they cannot speak and normally die at a relative young age. I shall end this long post with a quote by EL Doctorow:
“When ideas go unexamined and unchallenged for a long enough time, they become mythological and very, very powerful.”
For more information and case studies on this topic, visit:
http://www.feralchildren.com/en/index.php
References
BBC News, Children in Wolves’ Clothing, (2001), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1398515.stm Accessed on 21 March 2009.
Bettelheim, Bruno. “Feral Children and Autistic Children,” The American Journal of Sociology, 64 (1959), pp. 455-467.
Horton, Jillita. Feral Animal Children: Childhood Trumps Genes,(2008), http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1227066/feral_animal_children_childhood_trumps_pg4.html?cat=47 Accessed on 20 March 2009.
National Geographic Channel, Is It Real? Feral Children, (2008), http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/is-it-real/2706/Videos#tab-Overview Accessed on 14 March 2009.
Nonnekes, Paul. “Wild Play Unbound: A Critical Investigation into the Eccentricities of the Feral Child,” The Humanities and Social Sciences, 53 (1992), p. 316.
Serena Dubois, Feral Children in Fiction and Fact, (2007), http://www.docstoc.com/docs/1081307/Feral-Children Accessed on 15 March 2009.
Zingg, Robert M. “More about the ‘Baboon Boy’ of South Africa,” American Journal of Psychology, 53(1940), pp. 455-62.
