Cry Baby! Cry Baby!

According to Dictionary.com, a crybaby is "a person, especially a child, who cries readily for very little reason" or, "a person who complains too much, usually in a whining manner." Some synonyms for the term are: bellyacher, complainer, critic, faultfinder, griper, grumbler, moaner, sissy, softy, whiner, wimp, wuss.



I remember all-too-well my elementary school years. One of the jabs at certain of my classmates was, "You are such a crybaby." The little girls would sing, "Crybaby, crybaby...so-and-so's a crybaby." And like clockwork, so-and-so would...well...cry. Perhaps the children of which they spoke were not crybabies at all. Maybe the constant teasing and being ostracized made them cry. 



When you hear an infant cry, do you think, "crybaby?" I have heard all sorts of philosophies about when or if one should respond to infant crying by swooping in to the rescue. I will not address that issue here. I will, however, in a coming entry titled, "You Got to Know When to Hold 'Em." Stay tuned... I need to go on record to say that infants, that is, children younger than two years of age, are naturally wired to cry. One of the reasons is because this is their way of communicating. Very young infants are not able to say, "I gotta go potty" or "Father, I think I would like to be held. Would you oblige my request?" So, what do they do? Cry! Our little Josiah uses his crying very judiciously. He cries when he is hungry, sleepy and not able to get comfortable, infrequently has colic, or...did I say is HUNGRY? Simone and I took the concept of prenatal influence very seriously. Those treacherous nine months of her pregnancy were challenging, to say the least, but we worked and prayed hard to manage her negative stress and general comfort. The results of this, along with the positive attitude we have chosen for our household postpartum, have garnered many rewards in Josiah's disposition. Indeed, we will experience many occasions for pain, disappointments, frustration, fear, more hunger, etc. In those cases I say, "Cry baby! Cry baby!" 

I think parents waste too much time stifling appropriate occasions for children's emoting. Some choose to threaten and censure crying babies instead of attending to and nurturing them. It is true that, as children grow, there are increasing instances of melodrama. However, it is in parent's best interest to nurture and appropriately console crying children. In the long-run, they will know that they are loved and will learn to cope with difficulties in appropriate ways. There is an obvious difference between tears and tantrums.


I have intentionally oversimplified this issue to resist the urge to turn this entry into a DSM. Infants cry. Get over it!