I love butter. So while I was happy to ignore any of the warnings against it during my formative years, I’m even happier knowing that scientists (and Mark Bittman) don’t think it’s so bad for me anymore. I love when a piece is published that supports the ways that I already think. Makes me feel smart, tamps down feelings of guilt (for eating that butter) and helps me prosthelytize my opinions. Ha.

So I was glad to hear of a study (reported by the New York Times today), that discusses the importance of the quality of the words that our young kids hear, not just the quantity. These findings offer a different view from a well-known study that found that by age 3, kids from low-income families have heard 30 million fewer words than kids from more affluent families. The initial takeaway was: TALK MORE! More words should = more language ready kids. (My favorite quote comes from Dr. Patricia Kuhl: “I worry about these messages acting as though what parents ought to focus on is a word count, as though they need a Fitbit for words.”)

While talking to our little ones is important, it turns out that we needn’t be filling the background of their days with our voices.

Phew. I can’t tell you how glad I was to hear this. I don’t really worry about the amount of quiet that pervades our house on a daily basis, but it has crossed my mind that I might not be talking “enough” to my daughter. I remember having a conversation with a thoughtful mom who owns a yoga studio here in Oakland. She was pondering how much she wanted to fill up her daughter’s days with talking since so many people in her yoga classes were looking for a way to quiet their inner chatter. And, sensibly, she wanted to proceed with caution before creating an environment of constant narration and question-asking for her little one.

I am one of those people who has worked at and will forever be working on allowing my mind to be quiet. I don’t think that the chatter in my head is due to the fact that my parents spoke to me “too much” as a kid, but I am still sensitive to this possibility for my own kiddo. Narrating many of her actions and giving her near-constant verbal feedback is going to allow her to hear words, yes, but it’s also going to foster an expectation for words in her. Then, if I’m not providing the monologue, she might feel the need to, which can easily become the voice in her head.

I don’t think I’m going to change much of what I do (after all, I was always eating butter), but I am going to keep the word QUALITY in mind when talking with my daughter. Now let me just count how many words are in this post…