2024-10-06 04:00:25
Boris Cyrulnik, 87, has established himself in France as a specialist in resilience and early childhood development. His was marked by the Shoah. The current resurgence of anti-Semitism worries him deeply.
I wouldn’t have gotten here if…
…If, before a multitude of encounters that have guided my life, I had not met my mother for the first time. Really met. And it was decisive. Because in the very short time we spent together – she was deported to Auschwitz when I was 4 years old – she managed to convey to me the appetite for the world, the desire for exploration, the taste for encounters. I don’t know how he did it, but he instilled in me something that proved crucial to my survival in the heart of the war and beyond: self-confidence.
The first thousand days of a child’s life are of capital importance, you always tell yourself that…
Essential! It is during this short period of time, even before the word appears, that the brain is sculpted, that the temperament is built, that the propensity for trust, audacity and optimism comes into play. And it begins in the womb, where the child, in total osmosis, experiences well-being or unhappiness, security or stress. Circumstances related to war, social insecurity, domestic violence or life accidents obviously influence the experience of pregnancy and transmission to the child. An insecure mother will also be insecure for her child, who will remain centered on himself and will have no disposition to meet.
But wasn’t the environment your parents lived in, before you were born, particularly unsafe?
It is true. I was born in 1937 in Bordeaux into a family of very poor Eastern European immigrants, and at a time when it was not good to be Jewish with war looming. But my mother played her role as a reassuring mother figure wonderfully. He seemed to get along very well with my father. They were “friends in love”. And if I have few memories from before the war, they are joyful.
I have in my mind the image of my mother playing with me, talking to me, accompanying me to school, always extremely cheerful. I also have some images of my father, a carpenter, working in the small room next to the kitchen, or reading the newspaper saying: “ouch ouch ouch”. He joined the Foreign Legion as soon as war was declared on Germany and my mother found herself alone, with no income. He had to sell the items in the house one after another. He was certainly in a very vulnerable situation and could, logically, have conveyed his anxiety to me; yet, it instilled in me an immense sense of protection.
#mother #time #give #selfconfidence