baby wisdom

The disparity between what parents would like to do and what they have been led to believe they should do results in diminished self-confidence and distances them from their spontaneous, natural responses. Parents' unspoken feelings of incompetence create tension in their interactions with their babies, and babies can pick up on this. Not only are parents less able to trust their own feelings, but they are also unable to trust their babies' expressions of emotions. And since babies rely on parents to interpret the world for them, this baby may end up not trusting him or herself.