Baby Talk

I’m not a fan of baby talk.

Can you blame me? Think about it. 

Isn’t it condescending? We speak to this category of human being, it seems to me, as if they can’t understand what we’re saying. In my parenting experience, the baby has always known more and understood more than I thought it could. Why treat them like they’re stupid?

What is intelligence, anyway?

It’s not as simple as something you have or don’t have. If that were true, what would be the point of education? Intelligence is just a person’s capacity to learn. And no one is learning more than babies. They are, in fact, learning at a faster rate than adults. 

And here we are, talking down to them. We should be the ones envious of their expanding intelligence.

Sometimes, that baby talk, I sense, is more appropriate for when two grown ups are having an argument. 

When adults are arguing, they usually turn off their capacity to learn. Instead, they simply rehearse what they already know in order to impress upon the other adult that what they know is more accurate or more righteous.

When you really stop to think about it, acting like a baby is not really how babies act. These are adult characteristics that we associate with the behavior of babies. Yes, toddlers, like mine, throw a fit when they don’t get what they want, but that’s often because we act like we don’t understand them, while speaking to them as if that’s their fault.

I also don’t like baby talk because I hate to let other people tell me how to think.

I was very reluctant, for example, to read a book about parenting when my wife was pregnant. My mentality was that I could lean on instinct, and, when in doubt, ask God. How would reading a book on the latest fad in parenting style ever surpass millennia after millennia of knowledge inscribed into my bones. You’ve got it written in your bones, too. To be alive means to descend from a long line of survivors — human beings who passed on all sorts of crazy skills and philosophies and experience — without the luxury of a self-help section at Barnes & Noble. 

I take this mindset too far, sometimes, I admit.

I relish in explaining complex situations to my kids even though they are too young to understand.

Just the other day, my daughter asked to download a game that was advertised inside a lollipop wrapper. I did. Free with in-app purchases — right. 

She quickly became frustrated with how difficult it is to play a free App. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. 

“Why does it do that?”

“Because the people who make this game don’t care about you. That’s why the game is frustrating.”

“But I like it.”

“That’s how the game is designed. It feels fun, but it infuriates you if you don’t let it have its way. That way, you’ll give in, eventually, and pay them more money.”

It is at this point that my wife usually interjects. “Mark, just let the girl play candy hair salon.”

What I explain to my wife is that these little humans may not understand what I’m saying yet, but the more I give them to think about, the fast they’ll come to understand such things. Isn’t that what parent is all about? Preparing our children to face life’s complexities with a simplicity of good nature and earnest ethic?

So yes, okay, I speak to my kids as if they can understand what I’m saying. I don’t sugarcoat it much.

This may come across as cold to you. I get that. I’m a softie, at heart. I promise.

I’m an alcoholic in long-term recovery, too.

So I have an unstoppable urge to dwell in the past or project to the future. I’ve heard other addicts suffer from similar struggles.

Like, when my wife was pregnant with our first child, I would feel for him to kick and then fantasize about a young man helping me mow the yard and going to the basketball court to put shots up.

“You know they come out a little smaller than that, right?”

Apparently, my wife’s early-mothering fantasies were a little more right-sized than mine.

The baby phase is hard on parents. It’s crushed me. Three times! Parenting a newborn is a seismic shift in lifestyle, free time, mindset—everything changes. And the world doesn’t allow you to grieve for that loss you experienced. You’re too busy hustling to find more money to pay the new day care bill which you didn’t know would amount to the same amount you pay each month to mortgage your house.

A running joke in our house is that my wife will, half-jokingly, talk our kids into staying kids forever. She mourns each change in foot size, bemoans the loss of baby fat. Whereas, I’m usually like, “It’s about time!”

But this last baby of ours is changing me in ways I can’t yet fully process. She’s magic. I’ve said it ever since she was born to anyone who cared to ask. She’s the nugget, man.

For the first time in my life, I am understanding, even commiserating with the futile hope of keeping her a baby forever. It’s this bizarre closing of one of life’s major timeframes. My son is now actually helping me with the yard, and putting shots up with me at the park. It’s awesome, but it’s also easier to realize that I might be in a bit of a rush to help these kids grow up.

If I could, I just might freeze time in this stage of her life in some runaway Hallmark delusion. Maybe I could soak in these precious years the way a soul swims through the ether. It’s the way she digs her chin into my beard, and asks “Go-gle” to play her song: Chicken Nugget by Nick Bean. How she has this giddy-up dance that takes her galloping through the house. It’s the way she is so decided that “fork” and “truck” and “book” are all pronounced fuck. It’s the way she loves being outside. She requests hugs from everyone before taking a nap. She calls our tickle fests “Aush” because I take of my “Auhes,” my glasses. Every time she falls, which is often, she says, “I’m okay” before hitting the ground.

I first realized this—that I have grown into a complete sap—when my wife and I caught our baby stuffing her face with cereal one morning. She was having at it! We laughed with each other and looked her. She got quiet, and turned to look at us. Then she smiled and laughed with her mouth full of milky wheat mash. It was like she was in on the joke.

I had to brace myself that it will likely not get any better than this. So I better enjoy whatever this is before it’s gone.