Motherhood on Okinawa

The natives of Okinawa are about as nonneurotic as any people in the world. So reported Navy Psychiatrist Lieut. Commander James Clark Moloney, who studied the mental states of Okinawans while the battle smoke still hung heaviest.

In one village Commander Moloney saw 500 natives who had been thoroughly bombed, shot at, and finally driven to live like animals in caves. Some of the maimed had raw wounds alive with maggots. All suffered from malnutrition, skin diseases, lice. Yet of the 500 who had been through a nerve-shattering ordeal that drove many a Jap to suicide and many a G.I. into the mental ward, only one Okinawan cracked up.-Psychiatrist Moloney, in the current Psychiatry, jumped to a long conclusion. He figured that Okinawans get a good psychological start in life. Until an Okinawan baby is three, his mother 1) breast feeds him; 2) postpones any toilet training; 3) carries him, papoose-like, while she works. Corporal punishment is almost unknown. By the time the Okinawan is five, says Moloney, he has such a sense of security that his mental foundation is sturdy enough to survive catastrophe.

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