She’s not throwing tantrums in Target or sucking her thumb — but one grown woman says letting her husband treat her like a 2-year-old has saved her relationship … and her sanity.
“Baby Emma likes to get attention and she likes to be spoiled,” wrote Emma Singer in a recent PureWow essay that’s raising some eyebrows — and, to her surprise, winning the approval of her therapist.
Singer, a 36-year-old mom who swore off love after a rocky relationship with her ex, says she was emotionally closed off until her now-husband — whom she dubs “S” — cracked her hardened shell with what can only be described as preschool psychology.
“My inner child is dead,” she once joked to him. Except she wasn’t kidding. He knew it, and he was determined to resurrect her.
And, thus, Baby Emma was reborn.
“Baby Emma (aka, me) is eternally 2.5 years old,” she explained, noting the significance of the age — it’s when she lost her mother.
“Baby Emma likes to poke people when she wants more attention and she likes to be spoiled. She has a smug smile when she gets her way and growls and huffs when she doesn’t.”
And no, this isn’t some NSFW bedroom fantasy. “I’m not talking about some kink,” she wrote.
“When it comes to my sex life, I am very much a 36-year-old woman in my own eyes and the eyes of my partner, thank you very much.”
Still, the baby talk is more than just play. It’s therapeutic.
“I’m being nurtured. My needs are being put first the way a child’s needs should be… and that’s not something I ever really experienced in my childhood, let alone in any romantic relationship,” Singer shared.
Yes, that includes toddler-style perks.
“If I groan when the kids wake up earlier than usual, S tells me he’ll get up instead because ‘two-and-a-half-year-olds need more sleep anyway.’ When I get up to do the dishes, S beats me to it and says ‘don’t be silly, you’re too short to reach the sink.’”
The parenting-style partnership might sound strange — but Singer says it’s brought joy, peace, and “actual fun” into her life.
“Happy people in happy relationships have actual fun together, and that can look a lot of different ways,” she wrote.
“It turns out that 36-year-old me isn’t always that much fun, but Baby Emma is a riot.”
Even her therapist of 18 years is on board.
“Who cares? If it works, don’t change it,” said Dr. Gibbs A. Williams, a licensed psychoanalyst, when she asked if the whole thing was weird.
Turns out, there’s a name for this brand of psychological make-believe: psychodrama — a real therapeutic technique in which people act out past traumas or unmet needs to heal.
Singer’s husband nailed it without even knowing the term.
“What you and S are doing, it seems to me, is very playful,” said Dr. Williams.
“As a therapeutic idea, we call it constructive play… It makes perfect sense to me that by participating in play of this sort with your partner, you’re both feeling some constructive effects.”
He also pointed to another big psych term: “regression in the service of the ego” — a kind of healthy emotional rewind that can offer healing, not harm.
“This type of regression could actually be ‘a golden opportunity to resolve a key issue that would have been otherwise missed,’” Dr. Williams explained.
For Singer, it all comes down to this: “Submitting to an earlier state and letting your inner child be part of your day-to-day (within reason, of course) might be the kind of therapy you never knew you needed.”
Just don’t forget nap time. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” she quipped, “Baby Emma needs to take a nap.”
