THE " BABY" IN US

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THE “BABY” IN US 

Disclaimer: I am not a member of The Consortium of Ancient nor do I  represent their views (ref The Boss Baby cartoon). ha-ha.


You are such a big baby! Don’t be a baby! Can be some of the most hurtful words which are thrown at us when the other party thinks we are being too fragile, needy, and seeking more attention than necessary. We perceive it as an insult I mean which adult would want to be compared to a baby, a baby who can’t form comprehensible sentences, who crawls towards the fire or a bucket full of water, a baby who wears a diaper. But if we were to look within us, aren’t we all indeed just big babies? 

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that when my baby sister, who is about a year old enters my room, I drop everything and give her my full attention, the case is entirely different though when my teenage brother enters my room. I don’t stop looking at my phone, don’t pause the movies or close my laptop, I don’t turn to look at him, I don’t give him my undivided attention. All he gets from me (if lucky) are “, What did you say?” Huh?” through the entire conversation until he gets bored and decides to leave on his own. 

 if you have ever had a baby in your household or noticed how adults behave around babies it won’t take you long to understand what I am talking about. A baby falls down in a park, everyone around family or not tries to find out how she or he is doing, a baby cries and you try to find out what is wrong with her, try this and that to try to calm the baby down. The case is different when dealing with adults, I mean you see an adult crying you could ask what is wrong and they would tell you right away but you don’t, instead, you might look away and try to ignore them when a baby wants you to drop everything and play, you don’t say you are too busy or too tired, the case might not be the same when dealing with an adult.

I think we would make great adults as well as great communicators if we were to treat each individual as if it were a baby. It could change the world, someone’s world, our whole outlook on the world. We would learn how to speak softly and try not to upset the other human-like we do when we are not trying to wake a sleeping baby, we would listen and quickly respond to our friend’s silent cries as we respond to the baby’s loud cry. We would constantly check on each other to see if everything was fine as we do when we are babysitting, constantly checking the baby’s diaper. We would happy with other peoples achievements like we do when a baby learns how to crawl or takes her first step, we would keep the doors of opportunity open without being asked like we keep the doors open for the baby’s who ant reach the door handle to easily pass through, we would be as patient as we are with babies when it comes to walking or crawling because we are confident that one day they will walk or crawl, we would not compare other peoples achievements as we do with babies we say she will walk when her time comes and not try to rush her because a neighbor’s kid at that age had already started running, no. 

We would pay more effort to make each other happy as we do with babies, making funny faces, being goofy just to make a baby laugh, we would rush over to help our friends up as we do with babies when they fall down, we would hold our friends' hands tightly through their difficult times as we do with babies having difficulties to walk. We would listen attentively to our friends even when we can’t relate to them, they are saying or doesn’t make sense as we do with baby babbling. 

I would like to borrow a term which I read in a book last year by Leil Lowndes (How to Talk to Anyone) “the big baby pivot” she talked about winning people’s hearts by responding to their “inner infant”. It involves pivoting 100 percent toward the new person (or just to add could be any person), could be with a warm smile, undivided attention, total body turn, and any other attention which you give to a baby who crawls up your feet or enter your room.

All I am trying to say is as human beings, we should try to treat, talk, hold or respond to the “inner baby” in our friends, partners, parents, and everyone around us. When they are being “such a baby” maybe what they are really telling us to respond to that inner baby in the same way we would respond to a “real baby”. They cannot cry louder like babies do, wallow in the mud, or drop things to get our attention but they are still babies in adult bodies.

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