Re: Probably Right. - from my own experience ...

Had a few children
1 natural
2 adopted
3&4 natural
5 adopted

Was fascinated by the different personalities & how evident they were from as young as a couple of weeks old (maybe personalities is not the right word - could be character patterns). Anyway #1 was a girl - strong willed artistic intelligent (still is all those things at 30+)

#2 was a bit scared of the world but was otherwise a good baby (slep well fed well once extracted from the baby's home that seemed so oppressive (more like a funeral home than a babies home) when we went to get him. More on him later.

#3 girl was from the start & remains the most confident & capable person

#4 girl was born with a disorder - aspergers - lovely kid but speaks excitedly & has great difficulty grasping abstract concepts - is on a govt pension (but dad pays most of her rent & bills. She is not really capable of full-time employment but managed to sing in a small group for a few years - has a photographic memory

#5 was always brimming with confidence once he was was collected from a district hospital where we shoe-horned him off 3 nurses who carried him out for us to take away. The hospital & his nurses seemed bright & happy & he was too.

Anyway - at one point in their young lives #1-3 were placed in a Convent school just down the road - run by a tough old Irish order called Mercy nuns - after 6 months mum & dad decided that school was from the dark ages & put them over to a nearby Dominican convent where instead of Black the nums wore white & they ran an 'open-plan' school - totally revolutionary in its day & most un catholic.

Anyway #1 thrived in the freedom of open-plan - she was born an open=plan kid.

#2 was completely lost - didn't seem to grasp the freedom & noise around him

#3 also thrived

Point was that we had to move #2 to a school that told him what to do cause he needed it whereas #1 & 3 didn't seem to

That was my life's lesson at close hand about how kids do vary re amount of direction needed & given.

Cheers

Doug

An 'argument' doomed to futility.. can one say inextricably entwined ? But here's a brief example I think correlates with your experience:

At supermarket checkout line. Baby in a cart facing me, as mom unloads stuff onto the conveyor. His? her eyes were luminous (to me, and to a friend with me). We had about a 2 minute 'conversation', this infant and I! Her eyes followed me and I made facial gestures. She laughed, made her own. Became almost pensive at a few points, before resuming the exchange - which I believe entirely possible ('pensive' that is) from the womb on. I exaggerate only slightly in suggesting that she appeared to personify some sort of Buddha-child (as was D's take on the play, also). We both spoke to the mother eventually - and she just smiled. Other people around, noticed this child's unusual 'presence'.

Extraordinary event, 'least in my lexicon - but it is about what's possible and not the imagined norm. There are other stories of similar ilk - one I recall re a baby speaking quite early, even to saying in pretty good English, "mommy I want some milk". Again - prodigy but.. enough to debunk lots of generalizations we make about 'infant consciousness' IMO.

Cheers,

Ashton

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