Charlie had always talked to Noah seriously about his feelings whereas some grown-ups talked to children as if they were addressing the other grown-ups in the room, or other grown-ups who weren’t even in the room, and behaved as if children were always being typical - naughty, or silly, or adorable, or whatever. That way, they didn’t need to take them in as a particular child, who might be a special mixture of things that hadn’t ever happened before in the entire history of the world.