Mother and baby had appeared in my office unannounced. Parents sometimes bring their infants to psychotherapy sessions when childcare arrangements fall through. I discourage it, especially at a first session, because it’s too much of a distraction.

“What’s her name?” I asked.
“She can tell you,” her mother said.
With that, the mom made a few quick signs with her hands. The baby, sitting on the couch next to her, made a couple of signs back. Then a couple more signs.
“She told me I know her name.” her Mom said. “Then she said she doesn’t want you to know it.”
“Okay. How old is she?”
Another quick flurry of signs between Mom and baby. “She won’t answer, but she’s thirteen months.”

“You taught your baby to use sign language! I’ve heard that's getting really popular with new parents, but I’ve never seen it,” I said.
“I've been teaching her to sign since she was six months old. I thought it would help her communicate her needs. It was the worst thing I ever did."
“How so?” I asked.
”Oh, she communicates all right. For months she’s been telling me that everything I do is wrong. It’s my fault she’s hungry. It’s my fault she gets a diaper rash. Nothing I do is good enough for her. ”

“Does she ever just cry like a regular baby?”
“Only to get my attention. Then she signs. When I was breastfeeding, she would spit up and tell me that what I ate for dinner was making her sick. If I had a glass of wine, she would sign that I was killing her.”
“Those are pretty sophisticated concepts for a baby her age.”
“And that was a few months ago. Now, she asks why she couldn’t have a ‘good’ mother. And yesterday, she asked me how old she has to be before she can run away. Except she used the sign for ‘crawling’.

“And that’s when you decided to see a therapist?”
“No. It was later in the evening. Babies are brutally honest. I was just putting her to bed, looking forward to a peaceful hour or two. Lying in her crib, she signed that I was still too fat. It’s true I haven’t lost all the weight from my pregnancy.
"But then out of the blue, she told me that I was already screwing her up.”
“Does she treat her father the same way?” I asked.
“He thought teaching a baby sign language was ridiculous. So he didn’t learn. I only tell him half the things she says about him.”

Looking at Mom and baby, I couldn’t help but be aware that a whole new field of psychotherapy was opening right in front of me. If mothers and babies could communicate their feelings with sign language, therapists could intervene and start treating neuroses at the very moment they began!

First, however, I would have to learn sign language.
“Show me how to make a few signs. Show me the signs for ‘love’ and ‘mother’ and how you ask a question.”
Mom showed me the signs. Awkwardly, I asked the baby in sign language, ‘Do you love your mother?’ I had the same feeling Alexander Graham Bell must have had when he said ‘Mr. Watson - come here’ over the first telephone.

The baby smiled at me. She made a series of quick signs with her fingers. Then, she held out her fist and slowly raised her pudgy middle finger above the rest, twisting it a little as it went up in the air.

“She said you sign like a two-month old. Then she said, ‘go....’”
“I understood that sign.” I said.
“Her father taught her that one."