Processing

A couple nights ago at dinner, I reprimanded Esther for eating with her fingers (which she tends to do when she's tired).  She asked why babies eat with their fingers and I explained that babies don't have the fine motor coordination to use utensils, so they have to use their fingers, but big girls are capable of using forks and spoons.  That apparently got her thinking about what babies are and aren't able to do for themselves, because a few minutes later she was asking, "How come mommies and daddies and grandmas and grandpas and great-grandmas and great-grandpas and...birth mothers and fathers, can't take care of their babies?"  (Just the kind of conversation I like to start two minutes before bedtime.  Not.)  I said something about some parents having situations in their life that don't let them take good care of a baby.  Leaning forward, eyes wide and serious, Esther suggested, "What if a birth mother was deaf?  She wouldn't be able to hear her baby cry!  She wouldn't know when it needed to eat, and the baby would get so hungry!  And she wouldn't know when it was tired, and it would just fall asleep crawling on the floor!"  I agreed that babies need parents who know what they need so they can take care of them.  Esther thought of more examples: "What if a tornado came?  The mother wouldn't know about the tornado because she couldn't listen to the news, and the baby might get blown around!"  [Here the conversation took a detour into the topic of tornado safety.]  I will confess that I had to bite my tongue in a couple of places to keep from smiling as the story got wilder and more elaborate.  But she was intensely earnest, and I couldn't do that to her.  Eventually (I'm just reporting the gist of the conversation here), Esther wound up with, "If parents can't take care of their baby, they need to find a family that can, quick!"  I agreed with her that if parents aren't able to meet a baby's needs or protect it, then it is a very responsible choice to let the baby have a family that can.  I suggested a couple more likely circumstances that might prevent parents from taking care of a baby, and then the conversation turned to other topics and we headed for bed.  (I decided this was not the time to educate Esther on the abilities of people with disabilities.  I have no idea where the thought of birth parents being deaf came from!)

Much as I'm bemused by some of the details of the scenario Esther came up with, I'm relieved by the broad strokes.  In her story, there is nothing wrong or bad about the baby.  It's an ordinary baby, that has the same needs as any other baby and deserves to be cared for and protected.  And there's nothing bad or mean about the parents.  They are ordinary adults who care about the baby even though circumstances prevent them from caring for it.  Is the real story more complicated?  Probably, and Esther will no doubt process those complications as she gets older.  But for now, this is a healthy foundation to build on.