Speaking to Your Children

From The Baptized Body by Peter Leithart:

"If the child cannot understand what a parent is saying, is it rational for the parent to speak to him or her?  Baptist parents as well as others speak to their infants and do not expect the child to understand or to verbally respond for many months.  They see nothing irrational in this.  They speak to their children, that is, they employ symbols, not because they think the infant understands all that is being said or because they expect an immediate response.  They speak to their child so the child will learn to understand and talk back.  So too, we baptize infants and consistently remind them of their baptism and its implications so they will come to understanding and mature faith.  We name them so they will grow up to respond to that name; we speak to them so they will begin to speak back; we name them in baptism so they will begin to live in and out of baptism."