12 March Y2K REACH OUT AND TOUCH By shai sangco tamayo

He's now eight years old, but like the rest of mankind, my son once was an infant. Every so often, I would leave him home to the care of his ates and kuyas so I could run down town to fulfill a household COO's assignments. Tormented faces, bursting at the seams with bellicose frustration, would all but consume me at the door when I returned. Their baby brother was hopelessly, hysterically un-pacifiable! I would then cradle the little one in my arms and voila! In a flash, he would gurgle with delight like a lamb in total abandon. His siblings would shoot daggers at mine eyes at the effortless calming of their volatile brother when they thought they might die trying, if he didn't die crying first. Psychologists call this mother's magic "contact comfort". Literally, to cling to and rub against something soft. An integral part of an infant's natural bond to those who give them the most care and attention. By nature's original design, the mother. Again, by nature's arrangement, this same mystical connection blurs, if not erases, the agonies of pregnancy, labor, childbirth, and don't forget, child-rearing.  A fresh new babe in a world awesome and daunting constantly seeks his mother's warmth, her touch, and her nearness. Even her smell could appease the terrifying uncertainty of those first few months of life outside the womb, where he was locked in with her moods, her voice, her every heartbeat, for a good nine months. Thus their instinct to grab a finger to cling on to tighter than tight. To confirm what by nature would seem most logical, the bespectacled folks in white lab gowns would rather suffer poor infant monkeys without their mothers' precious touch. Years and scores of tests watched the rueful consequences on the deprived baby monkeys' manner and confidence in childhood that they brought with them to adulthood. Too, it became their own behavioral template towards their offspring. Those undisturbed from their mothers' embrace were most comfortable with others, confident, and good-natured. They even grew to be loving mothers themselves. Deny an infant this contact comfort, they concluded, and you'll have yourself a troublesome, insecure, less intelligent adolescent who would most likely grow to a likened adult.  For this golden touch-that later value-expands to father, siblings and others close to him-fuels a toddler's security to investigate strange surroundings, to invigorate intellectual activity, as much as it nurtures the seed of loving relationships. It is a primary ingredient that bonds parent to child, that configures his or her own future child-parent and interpersonal relationships. For children of "difficult" specimens, such as I have at home, this kind of touching, hugging and kissing does wonders in taming them. Then without a warning, at the first crack out of their childhood shell, these brave new adolescents chuck aside the hugging and kissing with not a slight disdain. Enter friendship. Parent becomes friend. Affection thus snuggles unnoticed in engaging conversations. The warmth of connection must be kept aglow with encouragement and inspiration just as castigation takes on another attitude.  Of course this sounds all too idyllic when adolescent crazy kicks in. Like, "what did I do to deserve this?!" Not a few times, when swept by the torrents of juvenile inanities, have I cursed life's cruel awards to selfless investments. And oh, I've had more than I care to count. But, like our friend George Harrison said, all things must pass. And they come to pass less grisly when these "bonds" have been invested at the outset. Trust nature; these investment bonds reap interest far deep into life. Still later when the dust of adolescent crazy settles into the threshold of adulthood, they again seem to limber up the hug-me arms and smacking lips. I guess the loving touch-touch stage never really outgrows us. It's a wing under the rain and wind, a shade from the sun, a blanket from the cold. In young bodies or old, the careworn being can never sever himself from wanting love. Water never divorces wetness. Touch commutes love in a special, tangible way. It lends us a sweet glimpse of the perfect love-love for and of the Supreme Being. Love, after all, is what we live for. …. \ Postscript………In the rare silence of a Sunday morning, I hear people say on TV that the intrinsic lunacy of city life leaves no more room for parents to relate to their children… I read in magazines that folks should be more in touch with their children… I read in the papers about the appalling spate of child killings here and abroad…. I witness escalating juvenile trials such as drug dependence, alcoholism, etc.….. I see a deep, painful sadness in countless little eyes 'neath the tint of our car windows. And then it hits me. You think it might have something to do with a lack or absence of TOUCH? Just wondering………….