"A baby may look helpless . It canÂ ’ t walk , talk , think symbolically or overhaul the nationÂ ’ s banking system . Yet as social emulsifiers go , nothing can beat a happily babbling baby . A baby is born knowing how to work the crowd . A toothless smile here , a musical squeal there , and even hard-nosed cynics grow soft in the head and weak in the knees . In the view of the primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy , the extraordinary social skills of an infant are at the heart of what makes us human . Through its ability to solicit and secure the attentive care not just of its mother but of many others in its sensory purview , a baby promotes many of the behaviors and emotions that we prize in ourselves and that often distinguish us from other animals , including a willingness to share , to cooperate with strangers , to relax oneÂ ’ s guard , uncurl oneÂ ’ s lip and widen oneÂ ’ s pronoun circle beyond the stifling confines of me , myself and mine . As Dr. Hrdy argues in her latest book , Â “ Mothers and Others : The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding , Â ” which will be published by Harvard University Press in April , human babies are so outrageously dependent on their elders for such a long time that humanity would never have made it without a break from the great ape model of child-rearing . Chimpanzee and gorilla mothers are capable of rearing their offspring pretty much through their own powers , but human mothers are not ."
"http : //www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/science/03angi.html . IÂ ’ ve had three children , which gave me an opportunity to observe intimately the development of infants . Also , I worked with emotionally unstable children aged 3 and older , and observed what a delightful species the three-year-olds are . At that point , infants have progressed from the largely self-involved awareness of the 24-month infant as the developing human deals with the problem of separateness and , as a result , issues a robust declaration of independence . Â “ No ! No ! No ! Â ” are the bywords of a two-year-old . Â “ No ! I wonÂ ’ t ! And you canÂ ’ t make me ! Â ”"
"baby social skills infant beyond the stifling confines of me , myself and mine Evolutionary"
"IÂ ’ ve had three children , which gave me an opportunity to observe intimately the development of infants . Also , I worked with emotionally unstable children aged 3 and older , and observed what a delightful species the three-year-olds are . At that point , infants have progressed from the largely self-involved awareness of the 24-month infant as the developing human deals with the problem of separateness and , as a result , issues a robust declaration of independence . Â No ! No ! No ! Â are the bywords of a two-year-old . Â No ! I wonÂ ’ t ! And you canÂ ’ t make me ! Â"