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don’t begin life as part of an undifferentiated
    unity, the question isn’t how we separate from our parents but how we
    learn to connect. The challenge isn’t to become free of people, but to
    make ourselves understood in relationship to them.
    This view of the self as having a fundamental need for expression and
    recognition emerged not only from the observation of infants but also in
    consulting rooms, where psychotherapists hear the child’s cry in the adult
    3Daniel Stern, The Interpersonal World of the Infant (New York: Basic Books, 1985).
    4Margaret Mahler, Fred Pine, and Anni Bergman, The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant
    (New York: Basic Books, 1975).
    28 THE YEARNING TO BE UNDERSTOOD
    voice. The anguish of those who feel empty and alone, unable to connect
    to other people, leads to the question “What does it take to make us feel
    whole?” A large part of the answer is being listened to.
    In charting the development of children, Stern identified four pro-
    gressively more complex senses of self, each defining a different domain
    of self- experience and social relatedness. Second only to the need for food
    and shelter is the need for understanding. Even infants need listening
    to thrive. “Listening” to an infant may sound somewhat stilted, but it is
    precisely that—the quality of parental responsiveness—that plays such a
    decisive role in making us what we are.
    Let’s look now at the unfolding of these four senses of self to see how
    listening shapes character.
    “Here I Am.”: The Sense of an Emergent Self
    (Birth to Two Months)
    The infant’s need for listening is simple but imperative. With the sudden
    pressure of physical need, life goes from lovely to all wrong. Hunger breaks
    over the body like an angry storm. It starts slowly; the baby has a sense of
    something going awry. Then fussing turns to full- throated crying as the
    baby tries to hurl the pain sensations out and away. This crying serves as
    a distress signal, like a siren, to alert the parents and demand a response
    from them.
    Being a parent at this stage is simple. As I recall, my wife and I, our
    empathic sensitivities honed to razor sharpness by months of sleep depri-
    vation, were flung into action by the slightest peep. Blessed with a dis-
    position as placid as a howler monkey, our first little darling would ever
    so gently summon us for her nightly lactose intolerance test. I, never the
    insensitive father, was usually first to respond. “Honey,” I’d coo, grinding
    my teeth to keep them warm, “do something!” At which my mate, ever
    appreciative of my support, would hasten to the little one’s side to admin-
    ister whatever first aid was required. Ah, parenthood.
    Babies are cute and helpless, but their smiling, fretting, and crying
    are commanding messages; they must be listened to. At this stage parents,
    thinking primarily about satisfying the baby’s needs, may not recognize the
    extent of the social interaction involved in the process. But even before

    How Listening Shapes Us and Connects Us to Each Other 29
    the baby achieves self- consciousness, parents invest it with their expecta-
    tions and aspirations. From day one, they relate to the baby as both an
    actual and a potential self.
    Our impulse toward understanding is irresistible. Developmental psy-
    chologist Aidan Macfarlane’s observations of new mothers talking to their
    infants for the first time after delivery show that the mothers attribute
    meaning to each sign and sound.5 “What’s that frown for? The world’s a
    little scary, huh?” Mothers don’t really believe the infant understands, but
    they assign meaning to what their infants are doing and respond accord-
    ingly. In time, they create little formats of interaction, jointly constructed
    little worlds. This is the child’s first culture.
    Parents immediately ascribe intentions to their babies (“Oh, you
    want that”), motives (“You’re doing that so Mommy will hurry up and