They Are Not Just Cute: Seeing Babies with New Eyes
"There are hundreds of different images of the child. Each one of you has inside yourself an image of the child that directs you as you begin to relate to a child. This theory within you pushes you to behave in certain ways; it orients you as you talk to the child, listen to the child, observe the child. It is very difficult for you to act contrary to this internal image. For example, if your image is that boys and girls are very different from one another, you will behave differently in your interactions with each of them." These are the words of Loris Malaguzzi, the founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach, a curricular philosophy of early childhood education that I spent years studying...
The theories within us about babies...
How do you see a baby? Here are a few things I heard:
"A bundle of joy" (A bundle of something)
"Kissable squeezable eatable" beings
"Princes" and "Princesses"
"A strong independent baby woman"
"A baby with a bad boy kick"
"Mommy's girl", "Daddy's boy" "Mini me"
"A meatloaf"
"A (insert profession) in the making"
"Vulnerable"
"Inefficient compared to other mammals"
"Needs to be held all the time"
"Can be damaged forever if we let them cry"
"Can't understand language"
"They hate ......"
"They love ......."
Now let's go back to Malaguzzi's image of the child definition and think about how would the perceptions on the aforementioned list could inform our day-to-day interactions with a baby.
I have observed a big variation:
I witnessed in shock our nurse at the hospital handle my newborn son like a newly unfeathered chicken being prepared for refrigeration while giving him a bath. She didn't say a word to him. He screamed the whole time. This nurse was actually a lovely person. She just believed that "babies hate baths" so she wanted to end my son's "suffering" quickly. Turns out he doesn't actually hate baths. In fact he loved them since he was a newborn when done with patience and respect!
I witnessed another nurse storm into our postpartum recovery room abruptly and talk at the top of her lungs like an operatic soprano just because she believed that "babies should get used to sleeping in loud environments."
I saw babies on Instagram being "dolled up" for photoshoots in a basket of sorts, wrapped like gifts, sitting in a robe on a chair reading the newspaper, being thrown in the snow or a pool. I saw babies being "worn" by their mothers almost 24 hours in a sling while they are doing dishes, cleaning or using the bathroom. I watched tutorials by dads on how "to teach your baby to crawl in simple steps". I came across adults picking up infants from the back suddenly, dads throwing babies in the air and quickly flipping, washing, dressing, and diapering babies as if they were breading some meat cutlets while their babies are screaming...
Because babies come to the world with small bodies and without the ability to talk, many of us tend to think of them as non-thinking beings or dolls with extra features. It seems difficult for many of us to accept that infants join this world with a point of view; a preference that is unique to them!
Now let's think about how we would interact with a baby if we saw them as:
A person.
With preferences.
Competent for their developmental stage.
Born with *some* level self-regulatory skills, a unique plan of development, and a desire to learn.
Collecting data about their caregivers from day 1.
Building their notion of trust and self-concept from day 1.
Able to understand language before they can produce it.
Able to be active participants in their caregiving activities.
Has the right to develop in their own unique way.
Needs free movement.
Able to entertain themselves without adult intervention.
Never gets bored
Able to achieve all gross motor development milestones without being "taught".
Intelligent for developmental stage.
A different person from their caregiver with a different set of preferences.
Cries to communicate a wide range of feelings and preferences.
And most importantly, a person that needs to be discovered, studied, learned about...
Most of the caregivers who hold this perception of infants that I met were in my RIE® classes. You'd see them talking to (not over) babies from the moment they are born. They tell babies everything they are going to do to them. They wait, they observe, they are curious about learning about this specific infant. Does the baby want to be held? Yeah a lot of newborns need to be held a lot. But guess what? Some will stop screaming as soon as we lay them on their back! You'd also see them on the floor at infants' level observing them and watching them move in a safe space without interruption. They offer a very calm yet confident presence that the infants can feel very deeply! They empathize with infants, they don't sympathize. I've never heard a RIE®-aligned educator utter the words "poor-baby". They don't distract babies during caregiving activities, on the contrary, they remove play objects during feedings, diapering, bathing, changing and ask for the infant's participation in every single step. They don't put infants in any contraptions because they respect their right for free movement. They don't teach infants how to walk or talk, they let their motor development unfold naturally.
Here's my invitation to you to see any infant in your care with new eyes. I encourage you to set up what Magda Gerber called a "wants nothing time". On a mat or a blanket sit on the floor with your baby (in a gated area if your baby is mobile). Lay them on their back gently. Place a 3 play objects next to them and watch them. Write what you see. What do you see about the person in front of you? How does your baby move? What interests them? What is their plan of play? Do you appreciate what you see?
