The image of a pleasing and happy moment like this man and very young child is beautiful, but if anyone has every raised or spent much time with very little ones, you know the "work" of taking care of the needs of a young one can make moments like these golden and not as common as we would like. The best relationships have to work to communicate well. While in post-doctoral program, I was to learn that research shows that even the best parents are emotionally attuned to their children about 30% of the time. This may not seem to be very much. Part of my interpretation of these results is that those parents must be spending a good part of the rest of that 70% trying get back on track with what is happening with their children. Might this be true of adult relationships? I tend to think so. Communication seems to be never perfected, but merely worked at. Many couples feel bad that they are not communicating better. I have found that couples that are more satisfied with their relationship have accepted their continued mis-communications and learn to be curious on a regular basis, with what happened when they were not understanding each other. This idea can result in changing our idea of what a good communicator is. Is it someone who perfects it, or simply someone who is able work from moment to moment on how the relationship is unfolding? This takes more work than simply having rules for each other. It requires more patience, persistence, and tolerance of shortcomings.
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