Sometimes, I imagine our baby daughter to be a tiny, foreign dignitary from another planet. We are her gracious hosts. She watches, she listens, widens her eyes, sticks out her tongue and makes noises. Expressions of wonder interchange with neutral looks like she’s thinking, this is the best you Earthlings have to offer? In response, we wiggle our fingers and make fart sounds with our mouths. She shows her approval with a smile and a turn of her head. Is she shy or just embarrassed for these strange, big people who have no shame in trying to keep her amused?

At four months old, her inability to speak builds mystery. What’s she thinking? What’s she want? What’s she feeling? Her arms reach out; she leans forward and wants to be held. Her head nestles under chins. Her face burrows into chests.

There’s a passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater that may inspired this line of thought. It follows:

Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies-God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.

So, as we teach this little baby our culture, our values, and what it means to be a human being on planet earth, kindness seems like a good place to start. I’ve been thinking of compassion recently. How can I approach situations with more compassion? What does it mean to be compassionate? But, perhaps, kindness is the richer word here. Kindness seems proactive whereas compassion seems more reactive. There has to be a negative situation for one to be compassionate. Being kind though may prevent a negative situation from happening in the first place. It’s not just babies that got to be kind. It’s us adults too.