Baby talk can make parents act childish
by Beth Teitell

Tuesday, April 17, 2001

Babies look the same as they always have, but they've gotten so complicated you need a manual to figure out how to operate one. There's ``The Complete Idiot's Guide to Bringing Up Baby,'' the ``What to Expect the First Year,'' the ``Children's Hospital Guide to Your Child's Health and Development'' - to mention only a few.

But with all that's been written, one question is never tackled: What do you do when someone asks your baby a question.

``How old are you?'' a stranger will say, looking directly at an infant, or ``What's your name, little fella?''

You can, of course, wait for the child to answer, but that could be years, enough time for a very awkward silence to develop. This leaves the parent with a few options:

Like an amateur ventriloquist, you can speak for the kid. I've seen this done - OK, I've done it myself - and the voice usually comes out as a crazy falsetto. Outside a cartoon, I've never heard a child of any age sound like I do when I'm speaking as my son.

``I'm 7 months old,'' I squeaked yesterday in response to such a question. (I plan to start lying about my age soon, but 7 months would be pushing it, even for me.)

The problem with this approach is that it encourages the questioner. The person unembarrassed by querying a baby is also the person who thinks nothing of holding a long ``conversation'' with one - in front of other people, no less.

Armed with the kid's age, they will eagerly take up other matters, often speaking in baby talk themselves. ``Do you have any brothers or sisters?'' ``Where do you live?'' ``Where'd you get such big eyes?''

If you're not careful, you - stressed-out you with your spit-up stained clothes and two-ton backpack filled with emergency baby supplies - will find yourself standing in line at the supermarket, or waiting to mail off your taxes and sounding absurdly cheerful, chirping things like, ``I like to play with my rattle'' or ``Winnie the Pooh is my favorite!''

So what's a parent to do? ``I won't become my daughter,'' one mom told me, ``but I will keep up the fiction that she is participating in the conversation. I'll say something like, `Tell the nice lady you're 5 months old.' ''

I know parents who won't even go this far. ``When I meet anyone stupid enough to ask my daughter a question I just cross them off the list of potential babysitters,'' one dad told me. He answers with a terse ``she's six months,'' but I think this approach is dangerous.

If there's one thing you learn as a new parent, it's that you never know when you're going to have to rely on the kindness of strangers.

My son and I were on the train the other day, and I was holding him so that he was looking over my shoulder. The crying stopped for a moment, and I realized it was because a woman in the seat across from ours was singing quietly to him. ``On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.''

I looked at his face and saw a broad smile accompanied by a long drool. He was in heaven.

``You need to give your mommy a break,'' the woman said nicely, before continuing, ``it rolled off of the table and onto the floor, and then my poor meatball rolled out of the door.''

He was happy and so was I. How happy? When I spoke, it was in a falsetto, and I was pretending to be 7 months old.

``Usually I'm really good,'' I squealed, ``but I'm teething now.''

Luckily for both of us, she cut things off there, smiling pleasantly and turning back to her book. Who knows what I would have chirped next: ``Nice weather we're having?'' or ``This is my first train trip.''

They're right. Having a kid changes a person.