| Welcome to Baby Club! |
By: By Susan Swindell Day - July 2008
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Posted: Monday, June 30, 2008 4:39 pm
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When you find yourself wondering if there really is good to be found in everyone, just take a look at an infant.
Newborns are the embodiment of innocence and purity. While it may be impossible to imagine it at times – especially with unkind people or criminals – everyone was a baby once. It is the outside forces of the world kicking in as we grow older that causes us to start whining about this or that, what we do or do not have; that causes us to think we deserve more than we do. We don’t deserve more than life; it is a great enough gift simply to be born. Just ask any new parent whose firstborn has arrived: it’s magnificent! The earth shakes with family joy and the new mom and dad instantly join the parent manifesto known only to parents: having a baby is the best thing that ever happens to you.
But people without babies don’t believe that, of course. You can’t tell someone who doesn’t have a baby that it’s the best that ever happens to you because that would mean that what they have isn’t good enough. People without babies can feel sorry for parents schlepping Baby and baby paraphernalia on outings, glad that it’s not them. People without babies poo-poo abject messes left at restaurant tables where a baby has been as they pass on the way to their sleek corner table for dinner and drinks before an R-rated movie. People without babies look at the diaper aisle in the grocery store like they might a foreign country: they don’t know the language, the culture, the terrain. People without babies can actually be afraid of them!
That was me 14 years ago. And then I had baby #1. Then #2, #3 and #4. And let me tell you: the fear disappears and the love begins. Everything you thought you knew goes out the window. It remains the best thing that ever happened to you as the years go by and other big and small things happen. People with babies know the joy of unconditional love coming from something else besides a dog. People with babies get the chance to see themselves through the eyes of an innocent; we become better people thanks to that. People with babies get to go through childhood again only this time around, they get to know the healthy joy of putting someone else before yourself … it is how we know we are supposed to be and yet it’s hard to do if you don’t have a baby.
So welcome to the club! Welcome to the messy side of life where you get to dig in, have fun, get lots of hugs and kisses and … oh yes, pay attention: You will come face-to-face with the way you were raised. Time and time again you will work from what you know and what you were taught. Your little innocent baby is his own person; he is not you, so don’t confuse the two. Realize that most of what happens to him will be the result of what flows from your hands – the hands that you now realize are the luckiest hands on earth.
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