An Analysis Of Alison Gopnik's 'Baby Once More'

Baby Once More Walking down the New York streets, you can’t turn your head without seeing joggers, dog walkers or baby strollers. Newly adult, I find myself weirdly surrounded by those babies who aren’t supposed to be in my life at all. At times, I find myself being stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, where a traffic jam isn’t supposed to happen, blocked by baby strollers. As I think to myself “Why are they stopping?”, I notice people are lowering their head down into the stroller and trying to make eye contact with the baby when it’s clearly sleeping, while making strange faces and asking for every piece of information from the baby. Not only the babies are on the street with their cool rides, but also they have entered my family’s post-dinner

Apparently babies, while exploring about themselves, are constantly experimenting with the outside world. Gopnik analyzes her research and comes up with a conclusion: “If we want to encourage learning, innovation and creativity, we should love our young children, take care of them, talk to them, let them play and let them watch what we do as we go about our everyday lives”. In addition, new studies have shown that the best way for a baby to learn is letting them explore on their own. Adam Grant, who makes an excellent point in his article “How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off,” suggests that, even if the parents aren’t “[shoving] their values down their children’s throats,” children are simply held back by a seemly harmless systematic way of education. Grant points out that the “genius” babies, who are taught to achieve great academic standings who are considered talented by the society, tend to end with a “whimper” career. Furthermore, he explains that when children are striving to achieve adoration from their teachers or approval from their parents, they stop being original after figuring out the most rewarded action to proceed whenever they are facing a new challenge. With this in mind, the biggest benefit of being a baby is that they are always going through a first time. The luxury of being inexperienced belongs to the children. Children are naturally growing as individuals that are unique and creative which is why I, as an artist, strive to be a baby. To put it another way, when babies are in a movie theatre (and not crying out loud), their big puffy eyes are quietly observing the new environment — the dimmed light that has the colors they have never seen, the roaring sound that delivers the characters they have never heard, and the striving emotion that