Am I worth loving? The deepest question in a child's heart

Deep down in every child's heart is the same cry: "Am I worth loving? Can I trust you? When I'm in trouble and need you, will you abandon me, or will you be there to protect me?" This is the question attachment theory cares about most, and it's a question every one of us has to face in life.

The deepest little question in a child's heart

From the first day a baby opens their eyes, they start gathering answers to this question from the people around them. If the answer is warm and certain, the child can develop "secure attachment," the most basic trust in the world. Kids who grow up in families where they're loved and accepted can ask for help when they're stuck, show courage when they face challenges, build healthy friendships, and be full of passion for life.

Psychologists say the mother–baby relationship is the root of a child's most basic sense of security and of being. From the moment they're born, babies use their whole bodies to sense the world and search for the answer to that most important question: Will you be there? Are you safe? Am I worth loving?

"You'll spoil that child"

From the day 高明 was born, I always held him in my arms to sleep. Gradually he would only fall asleep in Mommy's arms, and the moment I put him down he'd wake with a start. Some people said I was going to "spoil" him. But I believe that when you meet a child's longing for love, that's what gives them the strength to go out into the world.

When 高明 was two, we took him to a wedding that lasted four hours. From the ceremony to the banquet, he sat quietly the whole time, but his eyes took in everything around him. The guests were all amazed: how is this child so well-behaved? The way I came to understand it later, maybe that wasn't holding himself back. Maybe it was security: because his need for love was fully met, he could be so at ease with the world.

When he was only a few days old, he would lift his little hand high and gaze at it against the light, once, twice, three times. For the first time I felt it: this child has a soul of his own. All I needed to do was stay with him, protect him, and let him grow into himself in a safe place.

The daughter who cried for three months

My second child was a daughter. I thought that after the first time, I'd be able to face everything more calmly. But 高丽's birth wasn't easy either. It was a natural delivery, but an infection came up during the birth. Her head got squeezed, and for the first few days there was a little swelling that broke my heart to look at. What worried me even more was that because of the infection, the doctors needed to draw bone marrow fluid for testing to confirm what was going on. Waiting for that test was the longest stretch of time since I'd become a mother. When all the results came back, there was nothing wrong. Only then could I relax.

But she cried for nearly three whole months. Our whole family took turns holding her: I held her, my husband held her, sometimes the two of us held her together. Faced with a baby who won't stop crying, the anxiety and exhaustion are something people who've never been a mom can't really describe. I started to doubt myself: did I do something wrong? Is she sick? Am I not a good enough mom?

Later I went and asked the doctor. The doctor gave me an answer that settled me from then on. He said: in the first three months of life, a baby's body isn't fully developed yet. The gut and the nervous system are still maturing, and there's some discomfort, so she cries.

It isn't because Mom isn't good enough.
It's a natural part of growing.

I breathed a sigh of relief. After three months, sure enough, 高丽 stopped crying and began, a little at a time, to laugh at this world. I'll never forget the morning she first smiled at me. Becoming a mother the first time is a shock; becoming a mother the second time is a kind of maturing. 高明 taught me to become a mother; 高丽 taught me that love can grow more and more at ease, lighter and lighter.

That first cry is where every story begins

Many years have passed. 高明 is now a surgeon, guarding other people's lives at the operating table every day; 高丽 is going deep in a field she loves. They have their own lives, their own directions, their own worlds. But every time I think back to those two mornings, those two cries, what wells up in my heart isn't pride or a sense of achievement, but a deep, quiet gratitude. I lost my father when I was thirteen, and for a long time I didn't know how to be loved, or how to love. It was 高明, it was 高丽, with the cry they gave coming into this world, who taught me.

Not grades, not top schools, not success in anyone's eyes, but that cry. That's what love looks like at the very beginning, and it's where love truly starts.