I grew up in a New York City apartment with five siblings, four of them younger. By ten years old, I was changing diapers, heating bottles, running baths and wiping spit-up from the walls and my hair. So, I have been intimate with the down-and-dirty of infant care for a long, long time. As a result, I am not intimidated by infants, nor am I impressed. The fact of babies is, of course, remarkable and pure grace. No doubt, it affects me to my core. But the mechanics of the package — their impossibly tiny, fragile limbs; their pained expressions and inexplicable, relentless crying jags; leaking diapers and projectile vomiting; their general helplessness – those things don’t rattle me.
When I became a dad, however, while I was prepared for the ‘business’ of fatherhood, the experience was brand new. Now I was in love with a baby, and everything really was a big deal. I could watch that child for hours, even as she slept. I couldn’t wait for her to wake up. I wanted to talk to her, bounce her on my knee, take her to restaurants, travel, and show her off to friends and relatives. And I did. I figured that exposing her to my wonderfully exciting world would help to socialize her, and she might become one of those impressively precocious, comfortable-with-adults kids that steal everyone’s attention at cocktail parties. So, of course it only made sense that my baby’s nap schedule should be adjusted to my work hours so I could enjoy quality time interacting with her.
I bought my baby fantabulous toys made of vibrant colored plastics that I knew she would love once she learned to sit up and got that hand-eye thing working. These toys moved, talked, asked questions and gave answers. I also loaded up on very cool videos made by companies with names like ‘Baby Genius’ and ‘Toddler Titans’. I was careful to read the descriptions and only chose titles that were educational. I wasn’t going to expose my baby to crap.
My favorite purchase was a battery-operated 3-speed swing, an ingenious piece of mechanical child care equipment. I had seen these things in action. If your infant is crying and inconsolable, if it’s nap time, or if you just want a mental health break, you strap the kid in and set the thing on auto-pilot. Within seconds, the baby calms down. Soon, she gets that 10,000-yard, no-one’s-home stare. Eventually, the eyes roll back, the shades come down, and she’s dead to the world. Magnificent!
I meant well. I had a lot of expectations (and fantasies) about my once and future relationship with my infant daughter and how I would manage it. Ultimately, I just wanted to be a good dad – active, fun, available, nurturing. I also wanted interaction and some reciprocal signals that she was as thrilled and adoring of me as I was of her. When she was tiny and lacked the neck strength to do anything but stare at the ceiling, that meant getting in her face with stuffed animals or a whirly-jig to elicit a smile (I know — gas…). Propping her up seemed like a good idea, too – much easier to see her dad do silly dances – though her head usually sagged to one side at an impossible, really ugly angle. If she was bored (yes, I assumed an infant could be bored), I would sit her in my lap and flap her arms or lift them high above her head (“soooooo big….”).
It was around this period in my daughter’s infancy that my wife met infant expert Magda Gerber. I did not become a convert overnight. But after an initial struggle, then a period of tacit compliance to avoid domestic strife, I began to see the innate logic of Magda’s philosophy and insight.
I got in the habit of announcing my intentions before handling my daughter. Our house was gradually cleared of DayGlo plastic and battery powered toys. (My daughter found other objects to fascinate over.) Oral pacifiers were trashed. (She located her thumb and learned to fill her sucking needs herself.) I did not put her in high places she couldn’t reach by herself, most especially (and painfully) playground swings.
And she was happy. Happy staring at the sky without a stuffed animal flying through her limited field of vision; happy manipulating a wooden block rather than building a skyscraper; happy to have me nearby observing rather than controlling her world with my own ideas of fun.
Over time, it dawned on me that real quality time with my daughter meant quality for her, not entertainment for me. I began expressing my love by practicing the selfless art of observation, sitting for hours simply watching and being available. The big ‘ah-ha’ was realizing that my presence was enough. I really wasn’t needed for much else, and by restraining my instinct to massage and control the moment, I was doing my daughter the greatest service of all – respecting her.
As a new father, I believed my job was to prepare my daughter in body and spirit for the big bad world. So, I followed my instincts – not always a good idea — which meant inserting myself into her world of playtime and daydreaming, doing for her what she could not do for herself. Or, more precisely, what she had not yet figured out for herself. Big difference. By interfering, I was virtually robbing her of the experiences of discovery and success — not the smartest way to encourage self-confidence in a child.
So, I have come to believe that the very best any of us can do to love our kids is to nurture their instincts so they grow comfortable and confident in the world. But ‘nurturing’ is not as aggressively pro-active as I once thought. Actually, it is more akin to facilitating, allowing our perfect babies to develop through their own processes of discovery. In my case, this meant learning to butt out. And, to my utter amazement and great satisfaction, my daughter (and then her siblings) managed beautifully throughout their infancies and have continued to flourish — physically, mentally, emotionally – developing natural poise and confidence I could never have engineered. Or nurtured.
Ultimately, I learned to trust my babies and even coined my own adage: “Never turn down the opportunity to shut up, sit on your hands and observe.” I think Magda would approve.
When and how did your baby find her thumb? I would love for my baby to use his thumb rather than a pacifier. He is eight weeks old. Is that too soon?
Hi Mary,
Our daughter never really ‘took’ to the pacifier, so getting rid of it wasn’t a big deal. We first noticed her sucking her thumb when she was around 3 months old. Other parents I know had to stop using the pacifiers to give their babies the opportunity to self-soothe. There might be some fussy periods in the transition, and that’s difficult, but it’s only temporary. What I know is that babies will learn to comfort themselves — thumb, hand, blanket, whatever — if we just give them the chance.
And, of course, please consider this with the caveat that I am a civilian, not a parenting professional, and whatever I know is via experience and Janet’s tutelage. So…
Well that was interesting – the security word I mean – it was Micro!
The article was more than interesting – it came from the heart!I always said Mike was a good dad! And I was the lucky one to see those infants grow and keep growing.. into confident, intelligent children. I remember the difficulty with the swing thing! Lucky Janet found RIE!
love this. so many stay-at-home dads are an inspiration. my blogging shows that we all try, but some of us have to face the fact that there’s no such thing as a perfect parent…
http://househusbandconfessions.wordpress.com
Thank you for the insights in this piece! This sentence really hit home for me:
“But ‘nurturing’ is not as aggressively pro-active as I once thought.”
This made me think of a non-human-related nurturing experience I’m embarking on right now: I have been nervous but excited about growing vegetables as a first-time gardener this year, so I took a beginner gardening class at a local farm. I paid a lot of attention and took careful notes—what plants go well with other plants? What kind of soil is the right kind? What about fertilizer? Will I somehow kill all my plants?
The workshop gave me some helpful tips for my practical concerns, but what was best about it was the “aha!” moment I had near the end: the thought that suddenly flashed into my brain was, “The plants *want* to stay alive, grow, flourish, and bear fruit.” So seemingly obvious, and yet such a relief.
The plants don’t need me to spend all my energy making them grow; growing is what they are doing their best to do on their own. This seems very relevant to people. There are things you can do to support their growth, but you can’t do their growing for them.
Even to say I am “growing” a garden doesn’t seem quite right in light of this realization. I might say I’ve *planted* a garden and am *tending* a garden, but the plants do the growing themselves.
Wow! Thanks for this. Wonderful to get the perspective of a father.
So good! Thank you for sharing this, Michael!
I knew Michael Lansbury in the late 1960’s when he and my brother and I swam at the West Side Y on 63rd street in Manhattan. Michael was a year or two older than me. We swam on the Y team coached by Ed Brennan. My dad John Snook would sometimes drive us to swim meets
Hi, John! Nice of you to write. I do remember you guys vaguely (but of course everything is a little vague these days). Brennan was a sweet guy. Especially following the monster that used coach us… There are a couple of our contemporaries I wonder about occasionally — the Kelly’s? A couple of brothers. And a very good breast-stroker I was friendly with — I think his name was Kevin.
Anway, thanks for that blast, and my best wishes to you.