How Baby

An interesting thing as kids get older is that you can start to see them really painting in some broad strokes at their eventual adult personality, with all of its strengths and weaknesses, its joys and burdens. It’s neat, to talk to Momo now as a whole person with thoughts and ideas, but it’s also… a little bittersweet, to see the unflinching bravado of toddlerhood slowly become tempered with things like self-doubt.

Keeping a human alive is hard work, no doubt. Between all the sudden-death scenarios of early childhood and the sheer work that goes into, just, keeping them fed and healthy, it’s a wonder we’re still a species. And we’re out of the very hardest, most grueling parts of that, but there’s still this massive project in front of us: making sure Momo develops good emotional skills, that her mental health is taken care of, that she feels fulfilled socially and doesn’t have any weird attachment issues, that she develops healthy habits and a sense of civic-mindedness and also that she is all these things while still preserving some of her childlike sense of wonder and creativity.

It’s a big task, you know?

Look, therapy is great – no disparagement against therapy here, for sure – but something that plagues my thoughts is the worry that, in twenty years, she’ll be unpacking some deep secret sadness with her therapist, like my mom was always telling me to be quiet so now I have difficulty speaking up for myself in my relationships or something like that. Like, something I could be affecting the trajectory of right now, were I only more kind, or more patient, or if I had more time, or if I just was more. More better.