It's 5:00 in the morning. I sit at my computer desk, nursing my five month old. I blow at a few stray hairs dangeling in front of my face, I didn't even bother to fix my hair. Blinking a few times, I stare at my computer screen. I begin clicking on junk emails to be deleted. Suddenly DS unlatches and pushes himself away to stare at me. I slowly glance down at him, and a huge smile appears on his face. He shies into me, and starts eating again. It occurs to me that no matter how I look or behave he is always happy to see me in the morning. He gives me smiles just about every time I look at him. My thoughts move to DD, and I realize she's almost the same way. Every morning, she comes down the stairs, and says "Hi Mommy! How are you?"
It's not just because I'm their mother. I can recall times when DS smiles and giggles at other people, and DD becomes instant best friends with them. This usually makes people laugh or at least smile. When a baby smiles at you, for an instant you forget about everything else in the world, and just experience happiness. You don't care what the baby looks like or how he's dressed, and that baby doesn't care what you look like or that you may be dressed a certain way.
I once commented about DD's habit of becoming friends with strangers to a friend, and I was told that she would eventually grow out of it. I now believe she won't "grow" out of it, but be forced out of it. We, as a society and as parents, without even trying, teach kids to behave and look certain ways because they are acceptable in our eyes. We pace along a worry, a constant worry about what others think of us, about how we look in their eyes. So, we grow up, careing what the people around us think about us instead of what we think about ourselves. We spend our how lives trying to live up to other people's standards instead of finding happiness within ourselves. We seem to never be satisfied with ourselves the way we are because the world never seems to be satisfied with us. The person walking around in a clown outfit shouldn't be condemned, they should be admired. They've gotten past caring about what you and I think. They're secure enough in themselves to wear something crazy in everyday life. But childern haven't yet learned to be judgemental. They don't see the outfit you're wearing and look down on you for wearing last season's clothes. They only see you, who you are, and love you for it.
Babies see and feel something in each person that adults have learned to ignore. Some call it intuition, some call it gut instinct. Ever notice how a baby will be fine when people are passing him off to one another, and then instantly start crying when they are held by a certain person? They see something in that person they don't like, it has nothing to do with the way they look, but what and who they are inside. Most of us experience this later in our lives, but how many times do we chalk it up to paranoia? I have, and later this person reveals who they really are. I end up regretting not listening to my instinct.
When we don't agree with or don't like someone we place ourselves above them. We think we're better than them. We aren't. We're just different from them. And that's ok because we weren't meant to all be the same. We just need to see how we can learn this from children instead of passing all our issues onto the next generation.