{"id":22627,"date":"2013-11-01T13:52:41","date_gmt":"2013-11-01T20:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=22627"},"modified":"2013-11-08T17:00:59","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T00:00:59","slug":"emotional-baby-cute-or-not-so-cute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/emotional-baby-cute-or-not-so-cute-1101132","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Emotional Baby’: Cute, or Not So Cute?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"emotionalMary-Lynne, the 10-month-old baby in a video called \u201cEmotional baby! Too cute!\u201d (see below) feels her mother\u2019s musically expressed emotion<\/a> very strongly. As her mother soulfully sings the 1988 Rod Stewart song \u201cMy Heart Can\u2019t Tell You No,\u201d Mary-Lynne\u2019s facial expressions move from wide-eyed wonder to scrunch-faced smiles to streaming tears to what appear to be grimaces.<\/p>\n

Since being published on October 18, 2013, the video has gone viral with its over 16 million views and 100,000-plus \u201clikes\u201d (and counting), with most of the YouTube comments consisting of things like \u201ccute baby,\u201d and \u201cthis is the cutest thing I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d But with over 3,000 \u201cdislikes,\u201d there are also some who insist that the video is “not so cute\u201d; one of these is Tere Peman, who comments, \u201cThe baby is scared of mom[\u2019s] unusual voice. [S]he begin[s] to smile when [the] mother seems to stop singing.\u201d Peman, who says in her comment that she is a mother, too, goes on to suggest that the baby is, in fact, \u201csuffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even the mother, Amanda Leroux, acknowledges this toward the end of the video when she stops singing and says to baby Mary-Lynne, \u201cOh, you feel the pain in the song, yeah honey? Big tears. Are you crying? Oh, you\u2019re crying, monkey. OK, mommy\u2019s done. … It\u2019s just a song.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a Skype interview with The Today Show<\/i> on Tuesday, Leroux says she\u2019s been singing to Mary-Lynne since she was in the womb, and was just trying to capture video of her baby\u2019s particularly potent emotional response to the song to share with her husband and family (Schlosser, 2013). Her intention was not for the video to go viral, and she probably couldn\u2019t have imagined that multitudes of people would be commenting on what she presents as an intimate moment of bonding with her child. Such is the nature of social media, though.<\/p>\n

And considering the widespread viewing of this video as well as the mixed, predominately positive responses of those who have watched and commented on it, GoodTherapy.org decided to check in with Ruth Wyatt, LCSW and child psychology Topic Expert, to see what she thinks of the video \u201cEmotional Baby, Too Cute!\u201d<\/p>\n

A Child Psychology Expert Perspective on ‘Emotional Baby’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wyatt\u2019s immediate response was that Mary-Lynne, although an adorable baby, is not at all happy. \u201cClearly, this mother is wanting to share something with her daughter. Sharing our feelings with our children<\/a> can be a very important way we connect to them,\u201d she says. However, Wyatt adds, \u201cAs beautiful and important as it is for us to share our feelings with our children, we need to understand where our children are developmentally and what they can handle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noting how Mary-Lynne smiles when her mother stops singing and cries when she starts again, Wyatt says, \u201cMy sense is that the baby [is] in some distress and that she [is] confused by her mother\u2019s singing, hence the shift in affect.\u201d She adds, \u201cPerhaps picking up on the sadness of the song or responding to the altered state of the mother, the baby does not seem to feel safe. My sense is that she wants the calm, soothing mom to return.\u201d<\/p>\n

She goes on to say, \u201cBabies have no language but they can feel and take in the cadence of our voices, our feelings behind our words. I think this mother just needs to tune in a bit more to these aspects of her baby and maybe save the sad songs for when the baby is a bit older.\u201d<\/p>\n

Have you seen the video? What do you think? Is \u201cemotional baby\u201d cute, or not so cute?<\/p>\n