《How Smart Is Your Baby?》书摘：
从宝宝出生的那刻起，一场斗争开始了。妈妈要尽自己最大的努力让宝宝靠近自己，而这个世界却在全力以赴地让妈妈和自己的宝宝分开。
From the moment a baby is born, a struggle begins. Mother does her best to keep her baby close to her, and the world does its best to separate mother from baby.
这难道不是错的吗？世界啊！母亲可是宝宝最好的老师啊！
This is a mistake because mothers are the best teachers in the world for their babies.
这场斗争中，你会看到医院里的工作人员，他们经常要把婴儿送到远离母亲的婴儿室。之后的日子里，一些所谓的专业人士居然扬言，说他们确信，两岁的孩子在日托中心的生活要比孩子在家和母亲在一起要更好。等到孩子进入学校直到18岁，他们一生中最重要的时光将在那里度过。这还不够，有些教育工作者现在居然说，他们希望孩子五岁、四岁甚至三岁就要进入学校。强大的力量一直在努力着，把母亲和孩子分开，而很多人已经对母子之间亲子关系被干预干扰习以为常。很多母亲都知道，孩子人生最初的六年，是最重要的。
It starts with the well-meaning hospital staff who often whisk the baby away to a nursery far from mother. Later, there are the professionals who are certain that a two-year-old is better off in a day care center than home with mother. On their heels comes the school system where the child will spend the better part of his life to age eighteen. Educators now say that they want the child at the age of five four, or even three. There are strong forces at work to separate mother from child, and most people have come to regard each of these encroachments on mother's domain as normal. It is as as if that is the way it has always been.
Most mothers know that the first six years of life are the most important.
在这点上，母亲是完全正确的。
In this, they were absolutely correct.
大多数母亲都知道，生命的最初几个月对孩子一生的幸福至关重要。
Most mothers know that the first few months of life are vital to the life-long well-being of their children.
在这点上，母亲再一次的，是完全正确的。
Again they're correct in this belief.
但不幸的是，大多数母亲都没有足够的知识，不知道如何利用孩子出生后最初的几个月，到孩子6岁之前，不知道如何最优化地启蒙和培养孩子。孩子6岁前本应可以被开发的巨大的潜能，被浪费掉了。
Unfortunately, the fast majority of mothers are not equipped with the information they need to use these first few months to their child's best advantage, and to make the first six years of life as stimulating and rewarding as they could be-and should be.
我们买一辆新车回来，都会有用户手册。但新生儿出生的时候，可没有自带用户手册。婴儿可比汽车重要得多，明确一下，虽然，我们似乎可以找到用于婴儿的喂养、护理及成长各阶段的健康书籍。
New cars come with owner's manuals—new babies do not—and yet we all know that babies are a great deal more important than cars. To be sure, there are manuals for the feeding and changing of babies. There are books about the general stages of development that can be observed in average, healthy children.
但这书籍是基于两个主要的基本假设而来。第一个假设是，宝宝的需求主要是生理和情感上的。第二个假设是，婴儿的发育是由一系列基因自带的由生物钟预设触发的，即不管你怎么养孩子，只要生物钟预设的闹钟响起，即到了该成长的那个阶段，孩子自然就会在那个时刻成长。
But this aids are based on two main underlying assumptions. The first is that baby's needs are primarily physiological and emotional. The second is that baby's development is triggered by the ringing of a series of genetically preset alarm clocks that go off on schedule regardless of what does or does not happen to him.
如果，这些假设都是错误的呢？
These assumptions are false.
也许正是因为这些错误的假设，现代婴儿的抚养更像是碰运气，而不是来自于父母家长的主观意识和行动。这实在是太让人惋惜了。因为人类儿童的成长和发展太重要了，怎么能如此地听天由命呢？
It is perhaps because of these false assumptions that modern babies are being raised by accident instead of on purpose. That is a great shame because the growth and development of the human child is much too important to be left to chance.
也正是因为这些错误的假设，越来越多的母亲被欺骗了，她们违背了自己意识里更准确的判断，亲手把自己的宝宝交给了别人来照顾。
It is also because of these false assumptions that mothers have increasingly been persuaded, against their better judgment, to let their babies be cared for by others.
婴儿生来的潜能是巨大的啊！
A baby's natural, inborn human potential is enormous.
如果婴儿真的只需要给她们喂喂食、换换衣服、抱一抱，不需要再做其它，那社会就可以像对许多小绵羊一样，安全地把婴儿都放在一起，由一个看护人集中照顾即可。但，实际上呢？真的可以吗？
If it were true that baby simply need to be fed and changed and cuddled a bit, and nothing more, then society could safely put babies together like so many little sheep with one caretaker for many babies. This model was in fact established and used by the Soviets.
婴儿不是小绵羊。虽然，他们确实有着生理和情感上的需求，但除此之外，他们还有更为重要的，也就是她们巨大的神经系统的复杂需求。这种神经系统上的需求，就是大脑对外界刺激和脑开发的本能需求。
But babies are not a little sheep. It is true that they have physiological and emotional needs, but beyond these they have enormous neurological needs as well. This neurological need is the need of the brain for stimulation and opportunity.
当这些神经系统的需求得到充分满足时，孩子的身体和智力能力也就会相应地得到增强。
When these neurological needs are fully met, their child's physical and intellectual abilities are enhanced.
另一方面，如果婴儿的神经系统需求得不到满足，如果阻止或减缓大脑生长发育的障碍得不到父母的关注，不能被及时消除，那孩子作为人类，生来就具备的巨大的自然潜能就会被浪费掉。
If, on the other hand, the baby's neurological needs are not met, and if barriers that may stop or slow brain growth and development are not noticed and eliminated, the child will not achieve that enormous natural human potential.
每个人出生时都有妈妈——这是有原因的。每一个妈妈，无论她是新手妈妈还是经验丰富的妈妈，都具有非凡的天赋和足够的时间去观察她们的宝宝，然后根据她的观察，直觉地行动起来。
Everybody arrives equipped with a mother- there is good reason for that. Every mother, whether she is new to the job or highly experienced, has a marvelous ability and opportunity to observe her baby, and then to act intuitively based on her observations.
你把自己的孩子交给外人照顾，即便交给专业人士，那这些人在最好的状态下照顾你的孩子，也比不上你在最差的状态，照顾你自己孩子的水平。孩子一定要自己来照顾，怎么能交给外人？
On the worst day she will do this better with her own baby than most others would do on their best days.
为什么很多亲自带娃的妈妈都不相信一些所谓的标准，因为她们亲手带孩子的过程中看到了孩子真实的成长和发展，这些成长和发展是那些条条框框的标准没有表述清楚的。
This helps to explain why mothers have always been suspicious of the preset alarm clock theory of development. They have seen their babies defy its supposedly unalterable schedule.
怎么在这个世界上，做母亲突然变得不时尚、不实际了呢？做母亲多酷呀！
It is a world in which it is no longer considered fashionable or useful to be a mother.
当一个新手妈妈终于离开了妇产医院，终于把孩子抱在怀里了，当其他人都走出房间后，她会做所有母亲都做的事情。她开始数：十个小手指，十个小脚趾，两只小耳朵，一张小嘴巴。
When a new mother does win the first battle, and finally gets her hands on her own newborn baby with everyone else out of the room, she does what all mothers have always done. She starts counting: ten fingers, ten toes, two ears, one mouth.
她开始评价面前这个她带到世间的自己的娃。她要确定十月怀胎诞出的娃身体健康，她尽了母亲的责任带着健康的宝宝来到世间，她要确定，这些自己的娃身上的器官运转正常。作为母亲，她尽了责任，给了娃一生。
She begins an inventory to evaluate her own baby. She makes certain that he has arrived with everything he should have and that he is functioning as he should function.
当这些确定完成，妈妈转而看向她孩子的眼睛，会当时惊讶于，眼前这个拥有智慧的小家伙，对将要生活在的这个巨大的世界，一无所知。
Since she knows how to count she does not need any help with her first inventory. But once that is completed, she's on her own. She looks into the eyes of her baby and to her utter astonishment and amazement she sees an intelligence for which no one has prepared her.
爸爸也看到了，也惊呆了。他和妻子此时，一起感受着眼前这个小婴儿身上的潜力，以及他们所将要承担的责任，窒息感来临。他们对自己的宝贝，许下无数个并未说出口的承诺。
Father sees it too. For a moment they are stunned. They're overwhelmed by the potential they sense in the baby, and by the responsibility they have undertaken. They make a thousand unspoken promises to their new baby.
这些承诺，可能大部分都会被履行。但不幸的是，其中最为重要的一项承诺——帮助他们的宝宝成为最优秀的孩子——也许无法实现。原因呢，就是，父母不知道如何帮助孩子实现这一点。
They will more than likely keep the majority of those promises. Sadly, the most important promise, the one about helping the baby to become the best he can be, may elude them, simply because mother and father do not know how to help bring this about.
作为父母，他们只被告知要为婴儿的身体发育和健康提供营养，要满足孩子的情感需求，但是这个世界对婴儿的真正潜力知之甚少，也几乎没有任何尊重。
They have been told about how to provide for the physical growth and health of the baby, and something about his emotional needs, but the world has little awareness and hardly any respect for the real potential of the baby.
一位还算优秀的医生可能会告诉他们：“要喂他们，要爱他们。”但没有人告诉他们如何帮助婴儿学习。很多父母获得的信息是，家庭启蒙培养这件事情，等孩子上学时，有足够的时间来思考。有些人甚至告诉他们，如果他们在婴儿“准备好”之前帮助他过早学习，他们会伤害婴儿。
"Feed'em and love'em," a better-than-average doctor may have told them, but probably no one told them about helping the baby learn. They have been told that there is plenty of time to think about that when the child goes to school. Some have even told them they are damaging the baby if they help him to learn too soon, before the baby is "ready".
就这样，孩子出生后最初的六年被无情地浪费了。现在许多父母被他们周围的世界吓倒了。我们的目标是帮助父母充分地为他们的宝贝提供成长和发展的机会。父母需要知道什么是重要的，什么是不重要的。
The truth is that such delay wastes his six most important years. Sadly, many mothers and fathers have been intimidated by the world around them. Our goal is to help parents provide for growth and development of their babies in the fullest sense. Parents need to know what is important and what is not important.
有了知识的武装，妈妈和爸爸就可以结合他们对自己宝宝的独特认识，创造一个既能满足宝宝基本生存需要，又能满足他大脑发育所需要的环境。
Armed with this knowledge, mother and father can combine it with their unique knowledge of their baby to create an environment that addresses both the baby's basic survival needs and the needs of his developing brain.
