My seven-year-old has a sibling hunger that is deep and wide. I hope to be in a position to do something about that someday but, in the meantime, she is completely entranced by babies and any children who are noticeably younger than she is. Little ones generally soak up her attention at first and then decide to flee from its intensity, as my daughter would eagerly read for hours to any toddler who would stick around and be patted...but toddlers dont do anything for hours. She is slowly learning to match her enthusiasm to the comfort level of the baby she is courting, but it is a lesson that comes hard to her. Her feelings about their parents are sometimes even harder for her to contain. In our years of baby watching, she has gradually absorbed my attachment-oriented parenting philosophy and applies it with the harsh justice of the young to every baby/grown-up tableau she notices.

If we are out in public and she hears a crying baby, she becomes alert and begins searching for it, to offer comfort, firmly believing that every babys cry is serious. She now recognizes that cry that hungry infants offer, the one that brings a prickly feeling to my breasts almost three years after my child has weaned from them, as the hunger that it is. If she finds the hungry baby in the care of an adult who does not seem poised to feed it, her brow knits and she starts jabbing me to make me notice. I dont know just what she expects me to do. As I mentioned, my daughter weaned almost three years ago and I would not have anything to offer a wailing baby even if I was ready to risk jail to do it. I have often tried to redirect her so we can let the family under observation go about their business, but sometimes . . . sometimes in the midst of such redirectingI realize that she is right.

Today one of two tiny twins in a stroller was screeching in hunger as her dad perused a magazine in a bookstore we were at. After enduring my daughters you are a mommy; fix this disaster treatment for a minute, I went over to coo over the babies and tell their dad how cute they were. He immediately stated that the girl twin was hungry and he needed to find Mommy and went to find her. My daughter was satisfied; baby had been saved from hunger by reminding dad that people were watching. I do not really like the idea of that dad thinking that I might have been judging his parentingI like to ignore my own child in favor of reading material from time to timebut, honestly, the eyes of strangers have improved my response to said child more than once (okay, more than a hundred times) and Im grateful. We all need a little help now and then.

As for my daughter, maturity and experience will soften the edges of her sense of justice, tempering it with the mercy that life requires. Although I sometimes feel awkward about her passion for attending to every stray babys passing needs, I am very happy that she knows the reality of those needs and that she cares. It will be a great day for our culture when everyone learns to care about what babies need. I am proud that my daughter is among those who stand ready to lead us to that day.