Which being translated... Oh!

Bon, j'espère que ça ne va pas continuer comme ça longtemps. Voilà qu'à nouveau c'est tard, et je n'ai toujours pas traduit en anglais ce que je vous avais partagé dimanche.

Donc, on va faire court.

Cette photo montre Kalia en train de faire une drôle de tête.

Ce qui n'aurait pas d'intêret particulier, sauf que c'est une des rares expressions que même Daddy est capable d'interpréter. Je ne sais pas si c'est commun à tous les bébés, mais chez nous ça signifie "y'a du nouveau dans le pampers".

Translating oneself two days later is a bit difficult, (especially as I don't know whether I agree anymore?), I'm afraid I'm going to have to do a paraphrased version - my attempts at 'proper' translating were just too french.

Basically, my post on Sunday was the fruit of some musing on my part about the relationship between how I handle (or not) Kalia's crying, and my own infanthood (back in the dark ages of "it's good for his lungs"). Even nowadays the notion that you need to 'lay down the law' as early as possible ('break his will') is fairly common.

I wonder whether the notion of 'original sin' isn't behind that somewhere - that from the very first days a baby's 'sinful nature' appears and needs to be stamped out quickly.

I guess that original sin isn't bandied around so much these days (and personally, I don't think that applying it to newly born babies is good theology, nor that it makes much sense), but its legacy lives on.

Of course the problem is that given that babies can't tell us, we're left to our own interpretation - and that interpretation depends a lot more on what's going on inside our heads than anything that may be going on in baby's. In that kind of situation, we will always interpret things in such a way as to confirm what we already believe. (A bit like all the 'human' thoughts that people attribute to their pets).

I'm personally more convinced by the approach that sees the baby as a tiny little being who's just been torn - naked and screaming - from the cosiest and securest place he'll ever know, and who is confronted with myriad experiences and feelings, some of which are terrifying, and others painful. He only has one 'panic' button to press. And two wet-behind-the-ears parents are all he has to depend on for his survival.

I don't think that there can be such a thing as an excessive amount of holding your baby.

Which is not to say that parents can survive without sleep - but that's a different question. Let's not hide our own limitations behind some 'principles' about not spoiling babies.

What led me to think about all this was the shock I had at discovering the strength of the reaction that some of Kalia's crying provoked in me. Irrational 'sub-verbal' anger. The very fact that there doesn't seem to be any words or reason attached to these emotions makes me wonder if it isn't related to my own 'prehistoric' dark hours of 'lung development'.

And thus my little daughter turns up to kickstart my 'therapy': and in order to bond with her, I'm going to have to look back at the baby I was ... and face up to his influence on the man I am.
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I worry about this last bit being too 'personal', but I figure that all those who are likely to read this blog probably had a similar infanthood, so hopefully I'll be just holding up a mirror to your own experience.

(A link about baby crying)