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Michael Walker - 2005-01-06 11:21:12
I also agree some human babies really aren't cute. I think that adults just don't want to hurt their family pride by saying; "Yes this child really isn't that cute". And even when the child grows the parent still won't admit, that maybe the child wasn't that cute. Maybe it's time we all started telling the truth about how we really feal, instead of being of afraid of stepping on other human beings pride.
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I wombat - 2005-01-06 13:04:27
I think there are some pheromones involved, 'cause in many cases "one look is not enough".
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Baby Party - 2005-01-06 13:08:10
I am the Friend who started this conversation with Paula. Actually, she showed me someone's baby pictures, and said, "Cute baby, huh?" I said, "most babies are cute, aren't they?" I agree that many newborns are less than attactive, when they're all red and crinkled, but as a rule, after the first few days, I find most babies pretty cute. And this is the truth about how I really feel. Though if I did see an ugly baby - and there are a few - I would probably refrain from informing the parents of my opinion. Just as I refrain from telling the many hideous folk I see crowding the streets of NYC that no matter what their parents may think, they are, in fact, ugly.
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anne - 2005-01-06 14:57:00
My mother did not refrain from telling me she thought my now 18-month old son was funny looking in his first few months (her opinion has since changed). I can't decide if she had license to do that. And I have accused my husband of being more fond of baby wildlife than humans b/c he gushes more over the animal photos on Yahoo than over anyone/thing else.
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Baby Party - 2005-01-06 15:07:46
I think babies are cute partly because they're funny. They're bald and they can't talk right, if at all, and they're wobbly, like those foals Paula mentioned; their arms and legs flail about in an amusing fashion, they have big blank baby stares, and they are easily amused and preoccupied by the simplest things. All this is true even if they don't look like the Gerber baby. Which reminds me, an old boyfriend taught me to buy toilet paper by choosing the brand with the cutest baby. It's a strategy that's never failed me.
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H.M.S. Beagle - 2005-01-06 16:13:51
Your strict Darwinists will tell you that all species are hard-wired by natural selection to find their newborns really cute, cuz then they're more inclined to care for them and not, y'know, throw 'em into the buffalo stampede. And apparently that attractiveness tends to work across species, accounting for why we find puppies, kittens, foals 'n stuff cute, too.
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Paula - 2005-01-06 16:16:22
But my own personal mystery is why I readily find the animal babies cute, and not the human babies. Immaturity, perhaps? An aversion to completely helpless blobs of flesh?
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Paula - 2005-01-06 16:24:01
Oh, and further puzzlement, I can be completely charmed by an adult human acting endearingly childlike, while childlikeness in actual children sometimes doesn't get through to my heart-center at all. Sometimes, not all the time...I'm not, like, anti-children or nothin'.
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Bob - 2005-01-07 01:45:50
I dunno, sounds messed up, particularly if you think shell-crackin' baby birds are cute. (They're hideous, okay?) Babies, on the other hand, are the epitome of cute. (Very few of them are handsome, though.) I think what you have is a problem with cuteness. Maybe it just seems too pretentious in people.
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Beware the Photo-Wielding Mom - 2005-01-07 14:36:13
What, not cute? Not cute? Not cute? How can you find them not cute? Even childlikeness in children can be cute.
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