1
THE FIRST THREE YEARS
OF CHILDHOOD

A moment comes when a mother-to-be knows that a child is on the way. In that moment her life may feel enwrapped by a great mystery. She may recall the Annunciation to Mary in the Gospel of Saint Luke. Since man is made in the image of God, it is surely not impossible to imagine that a like annunciation attends the conception of every human being. A being is about to enter the physical world by way of flesh who is himself not of the flesh. He has to bring with him something into this world but his source of being is not of this world. What, we ask ourselves, is not of this world? Christ said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ Rudolf Steiner interprets this kingdom as meaning the I am. The I am in me I cannot find anywhere in the kingdoms of nature around me. Science attempts, in one way or another, to describe the composition or the origin of the body, but it has no access to that centre of consciousness in me out of which I utter the I am.

John the Baptist, and later Christ himself, declared, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’ Rudolf Steiner relates this to the new event coming to mankind with the descent of Christ, the divine I AM, to the earth—the entry of the experience of the I am into the flow of human history. Until then man was guided by the Law which ruled from outside, for instance in the Ten Commandments, but since the coming of Christ he has learnt to seek the Law within him. It is in this light we may learn to look to the being who from other, from divine sources, seeks to enter this world through the mother. This is not commonly understood today, and therefore one thinks of a human being as derived from and belonging wholly to the physical-material outer world. One does not know how properly to welcome the being that is approaching incarnation, nor do we realize how hurtful this ignorance and misreading of the realities are to that being—what a cold, unwelcoming entry this makes for him,* how the deep loneliness we experience has its origin in this. We may consider, by contrast, the picture of the Sistine Madonna and the way she bears this child down from the angel world, and how there are some down below who perceive this. Even if we receive the body of the child with gratitude and caring love, his immortal being from beyond the bounds of birth and death we do not know. But we may learn to carry this in our thought and devotion to the child in our midst. If this thought could find a home on earth, that alone could change the present condition of mankind utterly. Each mother who brings a child into the world can serve the whole of life in serving this truth in relation to her child, for truth is a heavenly seed which multiplies and the world has never had greater need of it in the hard times in which we live and in which your new-born child is to grow up.

And now the child has arrived. There he lies, the most helpless creature in creation, utterly defenceless and depending on how and where he is received, and by whom. Day and night makes no difference. He knows without a timetable when he wants food and knows how to cry until he gets it. Beyond that, he cannot even lift his head which is large, heavy and still, compared with the smallness of the limbs and their vigorous but undirected movements. He gazes past us into endless space or right through us, and to all appearances he could be anybody’s baby except that the parents look to see whose features they think they recognize in that diminutive face. The mother’s parental care flows out to the baby, almost too much at times. We know from later experience that even the tiniest babe is longing for love. Children adapt badly in life—we call them maladjusted—if there is a lack of love to greet them and welcome them into life; but also the excessive demonstration of fondness, which can in fact be selfish, can be harmful and the cause of trouble later. Reverence for the little stranger will serve to hold the balance. But without love life cannot prosper, and at no time is this more real than from the beginning.

It is not long before things begin to happen. After about six weeks—times vary with children as they do with adults— there comes the magical moment of that first smile—but almost along with it, or very soon after, the first real tear. That smile and tear are the beginning of human language— confined to human beings alone. Darwin spent much time studying the grimaces in animal physiognomies in search of human origins, being so convinced that man is derived from animal origins—a fascinating study but it led to nothing more conclusive than that animals also have emotions, likes and dislikes, advancing with desires or retreating through fear and antipathy. There is nothing to compare with the warm smile of human recognition or the depressed look or tear at being disregarded or rejected. The smile and the tear are indeed the first rudiments of human intercourse. Laughter and tears, comedy and tragedy, run through the whole of life.

That lifting of the heavy head is the first task allotted to the little limbs, arrived at with much stressing and straining. That, too, is only a beginning. In the months that follow the child will start sitting upright, at first with some support but then unaided. And now it will not be long before the child is off on its exploration as a crawler, reaching out to touch (and even taste) whatever meets him on the way—the mother enjoying the spectacle but with a wary eye.

And then comes the further important stage when, by an inner and irresistible urge, the child is determined to raise himself upright on his own two legs, at first clinging to whatever object, living or otherwise, is there to help, but then standing freely and alone.

It is to be noted that all this progress, generally within the compass—somewhat more or less—of a year, proceeds entirely from inner causes and is in no way promoted from outside, nor should it be.

Whoever has had the good fortune to witness the actual moment when the child stands upright for the first time on his own could scarcely have failed to experience something like a flash of triumph light up in his eye, the first overcoming of the weight of the earth’s down-pulling gravitational force. This upright stance, like the smile and the tear, distinguishes man from all other living creatures; and the child achieves this out of the promptings of his own nature, by his own inherent power of will. It gives promise that by the same human will man is destined to achieve his ultimate freedom by overcoming the world—for this will is a spiritual force transcending matter. This potential lives in every child.

It belongs to the blindness of our time that we still perpetuate the idea that man is an animal derived from the animal. People who think that way fail to see how for the little child coming to the upright means that the whole orientation in space becomes different, the child’s whole bearing is different, and that quite new faculties are born which can neither be derived from nor attributed in any way to the animal.

To maintain himself in the upright the child also has to acquire balance, and then comes the step forward and the beginning of walking. And thus, by his own efforts alone, he has achieved the mastery of the three dimensions of space.

But then one could carry the matter further. We speak of an upright man, of a man of balanced judgement, of a man of courage who steps forward to embrace something new. Our language declares the deep connection between these first elementary achievements at the dawn of a human life and these high ideals for the whole of life. The physical can be the bearer of the moral. When talking to some professional gymnasts I was able to show them that in training the body they were also helping to build up character. I told them about Bothmer gymnastics as taught in Waldorf schools— that in very truth one can begin to see the body as a temple from which all other temples have originated, bearing witness to the divine.

The great achievement of the first year is to gain control of movement; of the second year, to enter into speech; in the third year, to awaken to the light of thought.

How we speak before a little child is of great importance. He enters into his mother tongue not only with his ears, but the delicate, most sensitive organ of the larynx vibrates with every sound that reaches him. We can say his larynx dances into the sounds we make, refined or coarse, and this stamps something for the whole of life, very difficult to eradicate or alter later. That, too, is why baby talk is injurious; it may amuse the adult but not the child whose profound endeavour it is, albeit unconscious, to arrive at the finest quality of language.

And now, in the course of the third year, a new wonder arises, the birth of the ‘I’. Hitherto the child has called himself by the name others have given him—‘Tom wants ... Mary likes...’ The ‘I’, to be experienced, has to light up from within. This is the first realization of ‘self’. Previously the child was a being carried on a stream of events of which he retains no memory. Now he is present, a personal memory begins. For the rest of life all memories of the experiences will be gathered round the ‘I’. An autobiography has begun. For the parents, too, this event brings a subtle change; they, too, will be remembered from now on. They know their child so very well, and yet, confronting the person coming to expression in the ‘I’, they can well ask, ‘Who is this stranger that has come to join his destiny to ours? What does he ask of us?’—a question that will never be fully answered, in this life at least.

The achievements of the first three years hugely exceed those of any other similar period. We could imagine the child carries aeons of evolutionary time towards us, yet comes with all the helplessness described earlier. The child comes seeking for the loving embrace of the mother, the protective care of the father, and the conditions compatible to his tender needs. He is, as Rudolf Steiner says, wholly a sense organ, absorbing everything the environment offers good and bad into his being, and this goes, very deep, into breath and blood and body metabolism, preconditioning health or illness later. Our modern environment, with its noisy, garish, hurry-skurry, could scarcely be less favourable. The child needs protection from this as far as possible. He needs above all his mother. In her loving presence all is spring and sunshine. In her absence life turns to winter. How many live in a frozen life today?

With the mother there, the child can feel at home. But the years speed by! How long can this close intimacy last? Often, today, the child is placed with a care group before the age of three. Of course, modern life makes many demands on us, but it is better to safeguard the infant for as long as possible from too much change, variety and noisiness, which can leave him feeling lost and insecure.

And yet, life having become what it is, with the mother having to be out working or engaged in other interests, we can be immensely thankful that there is today a widespread movement of Waldorf nurseries and kindergartens where every endeavour is made to care for each individual child, providing beauty and harmony and a wise ordering of events and occupations. Yet the peace and protection of a natural, harmonious home life, at any rate up to the age of five or six, must still be deemed best.

* To avoid the awkwardness of using both forms, we will alternate gender from chapter to chapter.