ABSTRACT
Anyone familiar with the care of the very young will recognize the concerns and discoveries expressed in these extracts from interviews with twenty young women talking about their babies. Here, care of the infant revolves around care of its body. Such care of the body-body ‘management’—is an inescapable element of human existence left, of course, neither to chance nor to instinct. It is social as well as biological. Not only is the expression of human biological functions and needs culturally shaped and socially organized, but so too is people’s awareness (whether a matter of active consciousness or of culture and symbolic expression) of those functions and needs. Their conceptions, thoughts and beliefs about the matter are also cultural products-and can be investigated as such.
