Baby power: Size has little to do with it

Babies are very influential people despite (or is it because of?) their size and dependence on others. If you don’t believe me, just consider the way grown men and women – some very serious and influential in their own right, with accolades that include letters of the alphabet after their names – behave when they are in the presence of these tiny human beings.

Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, was often photographed in various poses – some that were not quite in keeping with his very dignified office – with babies. In many, he can be seen making funny faces while swinging infants up in the air, and I remember one where he was actually down on hands and knees, face upside down, on the floor of the great Oval Office all so he could entertain a little girl.

Let any baby be brought into a room full of adults and immediately they will start trying to outdo each other to see who can make Baby smile or even laugh (quite a feat!), or who can soothe the best if Baby is in a bad mood. If Baby starts blowing raspberries, shooting frothy saliva in all directions in the process, the adults are sure to imitate because they all want the little one to be happy. If Baby attempts to say a word, or even just makes a sound, the adults will follow suit, encouraging repetition even though they have no idea what Baby is saying (maybe she is trying to tell them, “Please, stop already!”).

Alternatively, these adults, who are usually very busy individuals, will spend several minutes making funny faces or sounds just to hear Baby laugh. But I wonder – is Baby laughing with them or at them? I always imagine the tiny tot looking in amazement at all these adults doing weird stuff and thinking to herself, “What is wrong with these people?” before cracking up because of how funny they look or sound! Meanwhile the adults are smugly patting themselves on the back because they have managed to bring joy and sunshine into the little one’s day!

Turning a tough woman into mush

Let’s take my older sister, for instance. She is a tough, no-nonsense woman who sees life in black and white. She believes there is a time and place for everything and that the world would be great if everything stayed exactly in its place. Grey areas confuse her totally, which is why she took science subjects in school. There is very little grey in science; that’s why scientists work so hard daily – to eradicate any last traces of uncertainty and hopefully, one day, restore everything to black and white order.

My sister and I complement each other perfectly because I can handle a bit of grey in my life and have spent many years trying to convince her that there’s nothing wrong with it. But it is her children who have caused her to accept, albeit grudgingly, not just grey but the whole spectrum of colours. When her first born was a baby, she absolutely hated bath time. The little girl would begin to scream as soon as her clothes were taken off and continue to exercise her lungs at top volume right through the process to the very end, when she was clean and dressed again.

Needless to say this was quite an ordeal for the new mother, and she began to dread bath time as much as her baby did. Sometimes I would be present at bath time and one day, I noticed my sister, the science teacher singing a song – in our mother tongue! It was not a tune I could identify and when I asked, she said she was making it up as she went along. And, she added, she had taken to singing every bath time just to help the two of them survive the half hour it took to get the child clean. This black and white lady, who rarely broke into random song and dance, was now singing in different colours just to try and convince her baby (and herself) that everything was going to be alright. Whether it worked or not is debatable, but how’s that for influence?