My Baby Trusts Everyone (And I Don't Like It)

A happy Chinese baby. Image source.

I wrote this when little Square Root was 4 weeks old. 

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The most surprising thing about my newborn baby is how he doesn't seem to be afraid of anything. Emotionally, he seems very simple. He likes when people hold him- and it seems like he doesn't even need to know who it is that's holding him- he'll just go ahead and fall right asleep on them. When he needs something, he makes little sounds and movements, and if several seconds pass and nobody has given him what he needs, he cries.

He doesn't seem to know anything about the concepts of safety and danger. And therefore, I worry about how vulnerable he is. It's not just that he can't take care of himself- of course a baby can't take care of himself. It's that he'll loudly announce when he's in need, and automatically trust anyone who comes along offering to help him.

I look at little Square Root, and I wonder about when children learn fear. When I did start to be afraid? When do children learn that, when you're in need, when you're vulnerable, you don't necessarily want other people to know it, because they might use it against you? You can't just plainly show your emotions to everybody, because they might judge you. They might think less of you. It's not safe to just let the entire world know when you're helpless and vulnerable.

It's an important skill, hiding how we really feel, until we're with people we love and trust and it's safe to break down and cry and let the emotions out. We have to, because that's the way the world is. But is that a bad thing? Can you imagine a world where it's totally fine to just break down crying while interacting with various strangers in public? Or like, cry in front of everyone at your job? How would that even work?

He's so small and vulnerable, and so I worry about him. I want this time to go faster so he'll be a little more grown and therefore less helpless. Parents of newborns are all worried that their child will accidentally cover their face with a blanket and die. But... when he's old enough that I don't have to worry about that, he'll be crawling around and getting into all kinds of trouble around the house, and I'll worry about that. And then when he outgrows that phase, it'll be time to send him off to preschool or kindergarten, and I'll worry because he's away from me. And then eventually he'll be old enough to go places alone, or to stay at home alone, like maybe when he's a teenager, and so I'll worry about that. And then after that, he'll go off to college, and I won't even know where he is or what he's doing every day.

(I say I want the time to go faster... but then I look at photos we took on the day he was born, with his little smushed head, and I feel like his appearance has already changed so much since then. He's never going to look like that again. He's never going to be that small again. And I feel sad about that, for some reason.)

He has no fear at all right now. He doesn't know anything about danger. He doesn't know that we shouldn't trust everyone. Hendrix and I are constantly thinking about his safety, trying to do everything right so he doesn't get hurt accidentally, buying all kinds of high-quality things for him, reading books about how to take care of a baby, and Square Root doesn't care about any of that at all. He doesn't care about his own safety.

Basically I worry about him because he doesn't even know how to worry about himself. 

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