I had a dream last night...

Actually, it has been a recurring dream. I'm lying down, all I can see is what's in my line of site. I can only move my head, my body doesn't seem to do what I want it too. I can't get up, I can't walk. For some reason, even words don't work for me. All I can do is cry, my lungs bursting, throat hurting and tears streaming across my face as I turn my head frantically from side to side, looking for help.

I can hear someone there, but can't see them. I know it's someone I love. I need that person but nobody is coming to me. My cries are coming in gulps as I try to swallow the air. Nothingnobodynothingnobody. I am alone and helpless. Swallowed by fear, swallowing fear and expelling it in great bursts of sobs, I have no concept of time. Five minutes, ten minutes, a lifetime. All I know is I am alone and helpless and can't understand why. Where are the people that love me? That should be caring for me?

If I was a quadriplegic, whoever was responsible for me would be reprimanded for neglect. After all, I can't get up to go to the bathroom, to eat, to seek out the most basic of needs- human comfort.

But I'm not handicapped, or even an elderly person in a nursing home. I'm a baby. This wasn't my dream. It's a reality for millions of babies left to cry it out every night. Doctors, caregivers, parents, grandparents- they use the euphamism "cry it out" to describe training a baby to sleep "properly". But what is the "it" the wee ones are supposed to be crying out? Their hearts? Hope? Faith in their loved ones?

For what? So we can have some skewed version of 'correct sleep' with an infant, instead of recognizing their needs might be different that our wants. Might supercede our wants. We slap the label "independence" on it and go about in our proud way. Yes, we as a country need nobody, and it starts with our infants. Look at how they can sleep on their own. Never mind what we've done to their bodies and minds to get them there.

Too bad it's all a lie. Nobody is independent. We all need somebody. It's interdependence we should be striving for. Why aren't we teaching to ask for help with grace? To offer help with compassion? Instead, we are teaching our children from the youngest age that to cry for help will bring none, and that will sap away at their compassion when they get to a place that they are able to give help. I sure hope it's not when one of their parents is bedridden and crying for a little love from their grown child- grown too busy for them.