Shortly after I got out of the Army – late 1968 or early ‘69 – we lived in an apartment on Ocean Drive in Corpus Christi, Texas. One of our neighbors told another couple who lived there that their new-born baby looked like “A Red, Drowned, and Bastard Rat.” The two couples had been best friends before Bob (not me, the other Bob in the complex) made his pronouncement, but I don’t think they ever spoke again.
Oddly enough, although what Bob said was his true opinion, and not that far off the mark; if he had just waited another hour or so to see his friend’s little nipper, the chances are he would never have said or even thought anything like that.
Once they are cleaned up and their blood pressure and respiration normalizes, healthy babies are pretty generic and have a universal appeal.
Nigerian babies are a little darker than Swedes, and Mexicans are typically born with more hair, but they all still look pretty much alike. Their faces are all broader, their eyes larger and their noses smaller than their adult counterparts. Nature has designed them to be at their most attractive, and evolution has determined that our reaction to them will be warm, fuzzy and protective. It’s all part of how we are programmed in order to maintain the species.
This baby-love thing is so well programmed in us that it carries over to puppies, kittens and fawns. We even look at babies that will end up huge, like elephants and hippos, or dangerous as lions, tigers and bears and think they’re adorable. We just can’t help it.
Newborns don’t really have their mommy’s eyes, or uncle Willie’s nose, but the fact that they are these generic little blank slates allows us to think so. If you really think about it, a week-old child with Willie’s nose or Grandpa’s ears would look silly as Hell. His mother would probably still love him, but the neighbors would probably think he looked weird.
Nobody should ask old Bob what he thinks of the kid; he just might tell you the truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment