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CHAPTER 4

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Infancy: Socioemotional Development

Now that we’ve talked to Kim during pregnancy and visited when Elissa was a young baby, let’s catch up with mother and daughter now that Elissa is 15 months old.

Elissa had her first birthday in December. She’s such a happy baby, but now if you take something away, it’s like, “Why did you do that?” Pick her up. For a second everything is fine, and then her face changes and she squirms and her arms go out toward me. She’s really busy walking, busy exploring, but she’s always got an eye on me. The minute I make a motion to leave, she stops and races near. I think Elissa has a stronger connection to her dad, because now that I’m working, Jeff has arranged his schedule to watch the baby late in the afternoon . . . but when she’s tired or sick, it’s still Mom.

It was difficult to go back to work. You hear terrible things about day care, stories of babies being neglected. I looked at the center in town, but there were just so many kids. Finally I settled on a neighbor who watches a few toddlers in her home. I saw how much this woman loves children, and felt secure knowing who would be caring for my child. But you still worry, feel guilty. The worst was Elissa’s reaction—the way she screamed the first week when I left her off. But it’s obvious that she’s happy now. Every morning she runs smiling to Ms. Marie’s arms.

It’s bittersweet to see my baby separating from me, running into the world, becoming her own little person—with some very strong likes and dislikes. The clashes are becoming more frequent now that I’m turning up the discipline, expecting more in terms of behavior from my “big girl.” But mainly it’s so hard to be apart. I think about Elissa 50 million times a day. I speed home to see her. I can’t wait to glimpse her glowing face in the window, how she jumps up and down, and we run to kiss and cuddle again.

Imagine being Kim, with your child the center of your life. Imagine being Elissa, wanting to be independent but needing your mother close. In this chapter, I’ll focus on attachment, the powerful bond of love between caregiver and child.

My discussion of attachment—which takes up much of this chapter—starts a conversation that continues throughout this book. Attachment is not only at the core of infancy, but human life. After exploring this vital one-to-one relationship, I’ll turn to the wider world, first examining how that basic marker, socioeconomic status (SES), affects young children’s development, then spotlighting day care, the setting where so many developed-world babies spend their days. The last section of this chapter focuses on toddlerhood, the famous time lasting roughly from age 1 to 2 1/2 years. (Your tip-off that a child is a toddler is that classic endearing “toddling” gait that characterizes the second year of life.)