I used to think it was newborns that were vulnerable. I would see them in shops and cafes, strapped to their mothers, and feel a pang at their soft fontanelle, their little noses and toes. Before I had a child, it seemed to me that it was babies who were precious, and parents who were fierce. But in the last five years, my thinking has turned upside down. When I see a mother and child now, my first thought is not for the baby. Babies, after all, swallow coins and buttons and are generally fine; they survive earthquakes, mudslides, floods. What I do, now, when I see a new mother and her child, is...
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