How babies transmit goodwill

I like to look into the eyes of babies wherever I come across them in shops, streets or whatever. I am invariably rewarded by the most sweet and innocent smile. The younger the better. Now, what makes them respond to our little gesture favourably? The simple explanation is that the young mind has experienced only love, smiling faces, cajoling etc., and they haven’t learnt anything else yet to return.

The legendary work of Alison Gopnik and others, How Babies Think, reports a scientific work done for years on this subject. Time comments “The remarkable research in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience reveals for the first time just what babies know and how they learn it...It unravels the combination of pre-programmed skills, evolutionary tendencies and environmental influences that enable babies to find their way around a complex world.”

We get back to the compulsion of the evolutionary process that demands self-preservation even for the just-born babies. What can ensure safety more than an innocent and angelic smile? And what does it convey to the receiver? To keep aside all ill wills. Even other animals seem to mutually transmit such goodwill while dealing with babies and young children. A few days ago, in a remote, unfrequented corner of our balcony, I found a mother cat hiding and nurturing a rather big litter of half a dozen kittens. They were safe under a foot step. From a distance through a window, I could see the tiny ones playing around and exploring their small space. But the minute they noticed me, they scrambled for shelter under their mothers’ belly. Added to that, the mother cat was ready to pounce on me, the intruder.

Our neighbour with her tiny tot Sai, visited our home. Hearing the tender mews of the kittens, Sai wanted to make a visit to their domain. She did exactly that, much against our advice.  We peeped through the half closed window, and behold ! The kittens were all around Sai feeling her little feet. She was carrying a couple of them in her hands too, while the mother cat was in a relaxed, catching a nap.

What makes the mother cat and her litter to treat a perfect stranger like me as a dangerous predator, but a two year child, who was also a perfect stranger, as a totally safe one ?

A primordial and evolutionary wisdom for survival perhaps.