The Baby Has No Voice

 “Born … in General Hospital,

in Any-town, USA

… a baby with no voice.

He simply does not speak.

Parents distraught.

Education system in shambles”

(As reported in THE DAILY TIMES)

My goodness … what an opportunity.  What a great thing is this.  A baby, fresh into our world.  Over the next twenty to thirty years he will emerge into his own being.  He will be a becomer. 

Meanwhile … he will steal.  He will mimic.  He will wear his daddy’s shoes.  He will open cabinet doors just to see what is there.  He will smile back at you when you smile at him.  He will learn your voice, your tone, and he, in time will mimic you.

He will want to follow his daddy everywhere.  He is a sponge and his job for this moment in time is to learn, to pick up all the coping skills he can in order to survive.

In school, he will be taught.  He can’t learn on his own, for he has no voice yet.  Our teachers, our system will give him his voice. 

He will emulate those students he most admires.  He will speak like them, pick up habits from them, good and bad, for he has no voice, yet.

His teachers will teach him their particular slant on history and economics, the world and government.  

His religion, or lack thereof, will come from his family unit.  It will form him and shape him.

He will learn relationship skills from his parents, aunts, cousins, extended family, for he has no voice. 

And one fine day … his voice will sound. 

It will be a montage of all that has gone before him, and the influences he has had in life.  He has had to learn, to mimic, to copy everything that he knows and has learned thus far, and now he is sounding his own sound.  He is finding his own voice.  

Our job as adults, parents, coaches, teachers, mentors, bosses, is to help this growing, mimicking baby find his voice.  He must come into his own, and it is our job to see that happen. 

“No baby is born 

with a style or a voice.

We don’t come out 

of the womb knowing

who we are.  

We learn by pretending

to be our heroes.  

We learn by copying.”

~Austin Kleon

The point we need to remember most is this … after the teaching, after the correcting, the coaching, the disciplining, and the nurturing, we give just enough room for this once-baby to emerge.  We want him to grow into his own man.  He must become his own original.  He must find his own voice.

And that voice will be a composite of all the voices he has heard all his life, yet a sense of originality emerges. 

He begins to make his own choices.  After all, that is the greatest of gifts – the power to choose.  It helps us find our voice.

And at last … we hear his voice.  We see his style.  He begins to make his mark. 

And the world rejoices because we have contributed a verse to a man who became his own person.

How great is that!

P Michael Biggs

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