Dolto insisted that the content of what you say to a baby matters tremendously. She said it was crucial that parents tell their babies the truth in order to gently affirm what the babies already know. In fact, she thought that babies begin eavesdropping on adult conversations—and intuiting the problems and conflicts swirling around them—from the womb. She envisioned (in the presonogram days) a conversation between a mother and her minutes-old baby going something like this: “You see, we were waiting for you. You’re a little boy. Maybe you heard us saying that we wanted a little girl. But we’re
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