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Why do we celebrate a child’s first word? Why play the name game, or continuously offer words to an infant or toddler that are met with a blank stare, bemused smile, or even total disregard? We quietly chuckle at our child in the developmental phase recognized onomatopoetically as babbling, knowing that it represents the first attempts of our little one to mimic the talking they have seen and heard in others, especially in us as parents.
Words matter. The best words stick and stay in your mind for a lifetime. Aibileen Clark, the black maid unjustly fired by her racist white employer in The Help, set in 1963 Mississippi, believed in the power of words. You probably know the nine words she planted like seeds in the mind of Mae Mobley, the two-year-old daughter of her employer: “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” She believed her words would matter. Words still matter today.
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