Thank God, I never was cheerful. I come from the happy stock of the Mathers, who, as you remember, passed sweet mornings reflectin...g on the goodness of God and the damnation of infants.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Rationally considered, nothing can be more absurd than the baptism of infants under any circumstances. No statement, no matter by ...whom it may be said to have been uttered, can make that true which is radically false. If an innocent child, unconscious of good or evil, irresponsible to God and man, incapable of thought or action, is not already, in accordance with Christian theology, a member of Christ, then no vicarious promise or priestly ablution can make him one. For if this were so, a similar ceremony under devil worship could make him a member of Satan.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No authority in the field of child psychology, pediatrics, or child psychiatry advocates the formal instruction, in any domain, of... infants and young children. In fact, the weight of solid professional opinion opposes it and advocates providing young children with a rich and stimulating environment that is, at the same time, warm, loving, and supportive of the child's own learning priorities and pacing. It is within this supportive, nonpressured environment that infants and young children acquire a solid sense of security, positive self-esteem, and a long- term enthusiasm for learning.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is an odd fact that what we now know of the mental and emotional life of infants surpasses what we comprehend about adolescents.... . . . That they do not confide in us is hardly surprising. They use wise discretion in disguising themselves with the caricatures we design for them. And unfortunately for us, as for them, too often adolescents retain the caricatured personalities they had merely meant to try on for size.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Not until Freud's writings became popular did descriptions of infants center on relationships with their mothers. The idea that ch...ildren have feelings of any lasting importance for their development is a very recent invention (or insight if you wish).LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
MWhat is a ghost? Stephen said with tingling energy. One who has faded into impalpability through death, through absence, through ...change of manners. Elizabethan London lay as far from Stratford as corrupt Paris lies from virgin Dublin. Who is the ghost from limbo patrum, returning to the world that has forgotten him? Who is King Hamlet?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Even when they cannot be always available, the parents' fierce, unique love for their child makes them different in the child's he...art and mind from all other caregivers. In spite of a long working day, a parent's passion for his or her child retains its many nuances of emotional intensity, ranging from rapture and delight to impatience and even rage, that no other relationship in the child's life can match. Even very young infants are smart enough to recognize this passionate commitment and to reciprocate it in kind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But O, young beauty of the woods, Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers,... Gather the flowers, but spare the buds; Lest Flora, angry at thy crime To kill her infants in their prime, Do quickly make the example yours; And ere we see, Nip in the blossom all our hopes and thee.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »