Our own system of trying to guess what or how much a child's mind can assimilate results in cross purposes, misunderstanding, disappointments, anger and a general loss of harmony.

It's perfectly clear that the millions of babies, who are crying at this very moment, want unanimously to be next to a live body. Do you really think they're all wrong? Theirs is the voice of nature. This is the clear, pure voice of nature, without intellectual interference.

Nobody's born rotten. You just don't have bad kids. It's not true. There is no such thing. But we can make them bad.

Our own system of trying to guess what or how much a child's mind can assimilate results in cross purposes, misunderstanding, disappointments, anger and a general loss of harmony.

This, at last, was where things were as they ought to be. Everything was in its place -- the tree, the earth underneath, the rock, the moss. In autumn, it would be right; in winter under the snow, it would be perfect in its wintriness. Spring would come again and miracle within miracle would unfold, each at its special pace, some things having died off, some sprouting in their first spring, but all of equal and utter rightness.

The two words that I've arrived at to describe what we all need to feel about ourselves, children and adults, in order to perceive ourselves accurately, are worthy and welcome. If you don't feel worthy and welcome, you really won't know what to do with yourself. You won't know how to behave in a world of other people. You won't think you deserve to get what you need.

A baby's cry is precisely as serious as it sounds.