That statement was my daughter’s stance.
We were swimming or at least I was floating in the Atlantic Ocean when she made that claim.
I said what do you mean?
She said how can babies make mistakes?
All they know is how to cry for food, or when in pain, ask for love, poop and sleep. So if the baby is cranky or sick or can’t tell what’s wrong with her .. she isn’t doing anything wrong mama. She is just a baby.
Why do we then say .. the baby is cranky? Why can’t we say the baby does not know how to speak.
I said, it is the same thing … cranky or frustrated… or unable to talk.
To which she said mama cranky doesn’t even sound good to ears it is as if someone is deliberately doing something .. like purposely trying to be mean.
I smiled, hugged her and said yes you are right, babies don’t make mistakes.
It kept me thinking , it’s us, the adults who do something wrong. We use the wrong language, wrong labels, wrong expressions to describe what might be a natural reaction to the situation.
In our societies we don’t take babies to be innocent , we have this twisted mindset that the baby is smart enough to manipulate a grown up to make them do what they (the babies) want. SubhanAllah.
In the overall parent culture around the world, no mater where you reside, we have a list of things we expect from the moms and their babies.
We want the baby’s head to be made a certain way
We want the baby to take / not take the pacifier
we went the baby to start breast feeding with ease
we dont want the baby to be breast fed all the time so we add bottle feed
we want the baby to be bottle fed completely
we want the baby to leave the bottle and take on the cups ..
we want the baby to walk, talk, memorize, behave a certain way …
and the list goes on.
There is in itself nothing wrong with the above facts.
Whats wrong is when we went to baby to act not like a human, confused, scared , irritated, unwilling .. but instead like a robot
ready, agreeable, changes on demand and command….
What if the baby or the baby’s parent specially the mother is unable to fulfill all of these expectations .. then is the baby at fault?
or is it the mother’s fault?
What about the broken babies? the misfit ones? the odd ones .. the rare ones.. the different ones?
Then what “Advice” do we give?
Then we use language in the most brutal way,
slow, retard, dumb, evil, devil , abnormal …..
Maybe it is the mother’s fault, maybe she did something wrong during the pregnancy, maybe it’s the father’s side.Oh maybe its a punishment.
Judgments, cruel assumptions, vile accusations ……
We talk about love, mercy, peace , empathy ….
When will we walk them?
Not all are bad though .. some among us are so brave, so strong , so filled with sense of duty and love that they compensate for all the hate thrown.
But that shouldn’t be the case. We should all do our part.
Our part to honor, love , build a compassionate home, society generations… .. give security to the young ones …
every baby deserves nothing less than that.
Babies don’t make mistakes mama.
Babies dont know any better.
These words moved my heart today.
I feel as if someone woke me up from a slumber.
I am a privileged mother, and I understand my responsibility.
To be in gratitude, to be humble, to educate myself more than often, to be kind and empathetic, to remind myself and the ones around me. babies don’t make mistakes… they just need to be loved and understood with kindness and patience.