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 Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 5:07 am
Larmyth You've got a point, Sanguvixen, it is better to poorly nurture the nonliving than to mentally unbalance the undeveloped. But in essence how would one know if those who care for the nonliving are not mentally unbalancing themselves. True being furrie or even a collector can be balanced on the same scale of lifestyles as nurturing the unnurturable. And I suppose it is just as possible that one who takes up this hobby of caring in such a way can easily confided in others that do just as much. I'm only worried for those who believe that the Reborn "is" the child that they lost or want. These poor souls have lost their grip on reality. That they believe that these Reborns are actually alive or that they want them to be alive, the latter being worse. They may deteriorate too far into their delusion that they may soon do nothing but care for the not-child. A human should be productive for the living not the lifeless. I guess I'm worried for others. Shouldn't I try to supply my time and efforts to help those in need, if all it cost me are time and companionship.It's this use of the doll as a surrogate that is dangerous. One of the main couples featured in the show had bought a reborn as a replacement for their grandchild, who they had looked after when his mother was undergoing chemotherapy. They basically said they wished she'd died, because they talked of her recovery against all odds as if it were a bad thing. After she recovered, she moved to America, not out of spite, but because she wanted a new life, away from the cancer and her past. Their doll was a surrogate for the child, and they had it made to look like him, etc, etc. She even said 'I felt as if he was mine.'
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Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 7:45 pm
princess lolifoxxx Larmyth You've got a point, Sanguvixen, it is better to poorly nurture the nonliving than to mentally unbalance the undeveloped. But in essence how would one know if those who care for the nonliving are not mentally unbalancing themselves. True being furrie or even a collector can be balanced on the same scale of lifestyles as nurturing the unnurturable. And I suppose it is just as possible that one who takes up this hobby of caring in such a way can easily confided in others that do just as much. I'm only worried for those who believe that the Reborn "is" the child that they lost or want. These poor souls have lost their grip on reality. That they believe that these Reborns are actually alive or that they want them to be alive, the latter being worse. They may deteriorate too far into their delusion that they may soon do nothing but care for the not-child. A human should be productive for the living not the lifeless. I guess I'm worried for others. Shouldn't I try to supply my time and efforts to help those in need, if all it cost me are time and companionship.It's this use of the doll as a surrogate that is dangerous. One of the main couples featured in the show had bought a reborn as a replacement for their grandchild, who they had looked after when his mother was undergoing chemotherapy. They basically said they wished she'd died, because they talked of her recovery against all odds as if it were a bad thing. After she recovered, she moved to America, not out of spite, but because she wanted a new life, away from the cancer and her past. Their doll was a surrogate for the child, and they had it made to look like him, etc, etc. She even said 'I felt as if he was mine.' In some early african cultures, they had a practice that the whole "Reborn Surrogate" thing reminds me of.
When a child was born, and died during or shortly after child-birth, a wooden statuette was carved out in the likeness of the child. After the body of the child was dealt with, the mother would carry the satuette and baby it as thought it were the real thing.
I don't remember why they did it, but I remember a historian talking about an artifact that was dug up, that would have been used as a substitute for the child. It was said that they even went as far as to pretend to feed the carving.
It is not like something like that hasn't been done before.
Sometimes grief is too great a burden to bear, and so the only way some deal with it is to not accept, and to find an alternate explanation, or an alternate reality. If that is what makes them happy, than so be it. The behavior might be alarming at first, but it could just turn out as a necessary phase.
I remember when I was in middle school/early high-school my whole life was ******** up due to severe family issues. I fell into a depression spurred on by abuse by a sibling and medication that was messing up my body.
I remember the only thing that kept me from hurting myself was long hours of holding on to a stuffed animal, and pretending, if only for a moment, that it was real, and that it could feel, and that it felt for me, and didn't want me to harm myself.
That was a phase. When things got better, I was better. I'm not a mental screw up, as it is now. That just goes to show, different people have different ways of dealing with stress or grief. Sometimes the way they deal with it may be alarming, but in the end there is no lasting damage.
I think if it was not for the ability to escape reality through various means, many people would crack and kill themselves.
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Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:06 pm
Despite my having an open mind to other's desires and requirements, I do not like this 'artificial baby' approach. If you don't have a child, or if a child of yours is unavailable at the moment, you shouldn't just replace them. Perhaps you can find ways to deal with the pain, other than putting yourself into a delusional, imaginary world. There's so many problems that can stem from that. Perhaps talking about it, consulting a therapist, etc. could be healthier alternatives to such things.
I'd also like to use this thread to consider a theory I've considered for quite some time. We see how humans have been getting closer and closer to reenactment and mimicry of our own race in other, artificial beings. Well, what if we are the result of similar personality and form-mimicing methods? What if we were created by some other race, robotic, artificial, or otherwise, trying to remake something from their OWN image?
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Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 6:16 pm
First thought is that they are scamming adults the same way they do small children. Now that I think about what has been said more, I can definitely see the damage this could cause.
Some of these people may have a real psychological dependency on these things. Humans can become very attached to strange things. I couldn't say that they are bad, as taking them away from some people may cause more damage than is already there. I mean think about it. A mother loses her child early on. If she's unstable enough, something like this may be all she has to keep her sane/partially sane.
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