Child-Carrying 101

Dedicated to you, my dearest friend.
 
Sometimes you have to go back to basics, back to the old school days where all sounded useless and boring, but today we know that that information captured by us made us whatever we happen to be today.

When explaining a more complex issue, we rarely give credit to those basics that allow us to understand the subject at hand. We’re awed by the new learning and we tend to forget that we could only have apprehended such new knowledge only if we built before a solid structure to implement the novelty. And how we human take for granted that structure. Or any structure.

Today I intend to handle child-carrying basics, or as in American, child-carrying 101.

In this process, we have one constant, the carrier. The adult.

The carried can vary in type, reason and way of handling. These simple variables will determine how we pick up a child and carry it from point A to point B.

There are two type of children one basically has to carry, two different reasons for doing so and two basic ways of carrying the child.

Type of children: TODDLER (T) and BABY (B).

The main difference between them is the cooperation they provide the carrier with by the muscular mass of each type of child.

A BABY does have strong enough limb muscles, but lacks strength in both the back and the neck. Unlike the TODDLER, a BABY cannot stand upright, so, to be transported needs to have its upper body (back) and head fully supported.

One only transports a BABY in the VERTICAL position to have him burp, and return him to the supported HORIZONTAL position as quickly as possible:

On the other hand a TODDLER has much more muscular mass than a BABY, so is heavier and much more tiresome to transport:

Different reasons: SHORT (S) or LONG (L) distances.

There are a multitude of reasons to transport a child, but I want to just focus on these two, as they are what we instinctively take into account when we pick up a child.

Some factors, like being asleep or not, might influence the decision, but, for example, it’s irrelevant if the child is awake or not, sick or healthy, if you know you have to transport it  for 1,000 yards.

The same rationale applies if you have to transport it a dozen of steps.

For example, SHORT is when a child that has fallen asleep in a car and you want to carry from there to its cot or bed, and an example for LONG is if after you had a highly motivating lecture about tennis upon arrival on your overseas holiday at Tapas and wish to go dine at the only possible place: the Millenium Restaurant.

Ways of carrying a child:  over your shoulder or VERTICALLY (V);  across your chest or HORIZONTALLY (H):

So you have the following combinations: BSH, BLH, BSV, BLV, TSH, TLH, TSV and TLV.

Never thought it could be that complicated, did you?

In effect, whenever presented with a decision to make, any decision, the brain always initiates a calculus, pondering all different possible constants and variables and respective effects, coming up with a mathematical result, that we simplify its complexity by calling it “logical”.

Rarely, I repeat, do we give much importance to how wonderful is this machine we’ve been blessed with daily and what it’s able to achieve. We know its good, but don’t really value how good it is.

This post is about just one of those daily calculations. To understand why we choose the way we carry a child and how the other variables influence our decision.

We’re obviously analyzing the transportation of human being by another human being. Trolleys, buggies, strollers, prams and such, invented to facilitate this task, are not the issue, and only will be used as initial points or final destinations for SHORT distance carrying (S).

For a BABY, the HORIZONTAL position is the ideal way to be carried. It supports, and protects, the head and the back, and that is how we carry a baby either for SHORT or LONG distances.

The latter to be avoided at all costs due to the fragility of the body. Just think what would make you carry a newborn baby 1,000 yards. It would have to significant and you’d certainly walk each one of those yards as if you were stepping on eggs…

It’s the fragility, or the lack of cooperation of the muscular mass that is the key to the decision. The weight is not even taken into account. Example of that, is the countless hours some parents do spend with a baby in their arms in that position, desperately trying to get that crying machine into some sort of sleep.

But the HORIZONTAL position is only used to carry a TODDLER for SHORT distances, and only if the TODDLER is unconscious, for example and most commonly, asleep, or if conscious, ailing from some disease that has weakened him.

Here, there’s no fragility, but certainly there’s the weight.

The older the T, the heavier its muscular mass, the bigger the strain on the transporters arms and back. One naturally avoids this and resorts to picking up the sleeping TODDLER to a HORIZONTAL position, but quickly placing him the VERTICAL position for transportation effects.

You ONLY carry a TODDLER in the HORIZONTAL position if you don’t wish to disturb his sleep, and, even then, only if the distance is very SHORT. Otherwise, you’ll just put the TODDLER on your shoulder and away you go.

This has got to do with center of gravity of the bodies involved. The nearer in verticality they are, the less force is required. That’s why we tilt our bodies when transporting a weight. If the weight is in front, we tilt backwards, if on the shoulder or side, we do it sideways
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As weight is almost an irrelevant variant when carrying a BABY, we hardly compensate. But it’s much different when carrying a toddler. Here the carrier compensates much more in the HORIZONTAL position than in the VERTICAL position.

What has this to do with the Smith Sighting? Well, as you know, we have two versions of how was the child seen.

According to the Smith Family, "The Stroller" carried the little girl in the VERTICAL position, but according to the McCanns, via the “Cutting Edge” documentary, he carried her in the HORIZONTAL position.

As you know, I tend to go with the Smith’s version.

That’s the natural position and it means that the girl in question presented cooperative muscle mass, which in turn means that she was alive. But let’s not discard the McCann version. What we know, from them, is that Jane Tanner saw him cross the road, from left to right, and some time later, he was seen heading from North to South by the Smith Family. That means he followed the following route:
 
That makes around about 700 metres (770 yards). Only from the Apartment 5A to the Smith Sighting mind you.

We, in the McCann version, don’t know how many more metres or miles did “The Stroller” walk AFTER having been seen. Also, and also according to the McCann version, I’m supposing that he carried the girl always in the same position, the HORIZONTAL one.

A normal 4 year old girl weighs 16,1 kilograms (35,49 pounds):.
 
That’s almost the weight of 2 cases of beer (20,08 pounds each). Now, you try and carry 2 cases of beer across your chest in your arms for the distance referred above, and then some more.

Do take into account that unwritten scientific rule that says "the same mass increases in weight the further the distance it has to be carried."

I won’t try it because I know I can’t do it.

But if I could've, when I crossed the Smiths I wouldn’t have hidden my face away. I would have my head thrown back, grimacing loudly from the sheer pain of my back and arms that certainly would be threatening  to dismember, as I would probably be slipping all over the place due to the pouring sweat.

I, like "The Stroller", wouldn't answer a "Is she asleep?" however polite it might be. Probably something much, much less polite would cross my mind to answer that question. Or any question, for that matter.

TOTALLY unpractical and unless he was trying to prove a point, I would say impossible.

This is important because when the McCanns place “The Stroller” with a girl carried in the HORIZONTAL position, in their desperate attempt to give credibility to the Tanner Sighting.

And as they have done that, they’re not only lying, but are also definitely interlinking “The Stroller” with Maddie.

And, and this is what is really important, they are, in effect, forsaking all other possibilities for that man to be just a father carrying his daughter somewhere, as no man would carry his daughter in the HORIZONTAL position all the way down Rua da Escola Primária and on towards the “Kelly’s Triangle”.