Babies are tyrants
Last updated: Friday, July 22, 2011 PrintI am not a very maternal woman. Blame it on a combination of nature and nurture, but I find children under the age of three slightly intimidating, my own child being the exception. To me, babies and small toddlers come across as small, disdainful tyrants. And they don't get my jokes.
Over the years I've tried to analyse my deficiency in the maternal department. My conclusion: infants can't talk and I'm very much an aural communicator. It's easier for me to read the signals being sent out by a cat or dog I've just met than the grizzlings of a familiar baby. It's not that I dislike them, but babies and I don't always get one another.
All of this doesn't stop me from understanding how important they are, or how they're the foundational material for all the interesting people that surround me. After all, I used to be a baby. And I know that they need to be protected and raised in a very particular manner so that they won't morph into very hungry, very angry apex predators able to function both on land and sea.
Which is why I find it very hard to understand why people who probably have better "aw, cute!" reflexes than I have don't take the welfare of children far more seriously.
Whether it's the case of hungry Somalian children being trained as child soldiers in exchange for food, or the education of a whole generation treated as an experimental joke, even someone as tuned-out as I am can understand that these actions hold serious consequences that will only show up over the next ten years. The other side of the crazy scale is consumer-driven societies where babies are almost a must-have commodity. A creepy example of that is the IVF Lottery being launched in the UK soon.
While I can happily get by without having to cooch a baby, I know that every little Pamper-wrapped dictator is going to grow up to be someone some day – each one of them is the shape of things to come. Which, surely, means that any society should be investing a large percentage of its time, energy and resources to nurturing and providing for them?
Whether they're your children, the neighbour's kids, your step-children, your kids' friends, 20 years from now they will be needing jobs, possibly be parents themselves, needing homes and a reason to live. Even someone as vaguely misanthropic as I am knows this.
Which is why I don't understand why any society would neglect them; it's like ploughing a cornfield and then planting weeds on purpose. They are the ones who will be running the world 40 years from now, that's all I'm saying. You know, in charge of nuclear weapons and whether we get pensions or not.
I close with my current three favourite baby quotes:
"Promises are like crying babies in a theatre, they should be carried out at once." Norman Vincent Peale
"A baby is a loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other." Ronald Knox
"A two-year old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it.” Jerry Seinfeld
(Joanne Hart, Health24, July 2011)
Read more:
advertisement
Save up to 30% on your Healthcare each month
Save with Selfmed in 2012
Profmed - a medical scheme for graduate professionals
Your Comments
comment
I can't connect with my eldest daughter. I think the distance between galaxies is narrower than our our gap at times. Being a parent is something best reserved for persons who feel that they are so competent at it that they have 10 or 12 of them so they can mercilessly look after each other while living in squalor. Worked for Gadaffi so why not for me
Investing in the future
I love kids ....................I used to go to school with them.
small disdainful tyrants
That's it! That's exactly what they are! I feel proud and grateful when one of them decides to like me, rather like when a wild animal starts to trust you. Grateful, but never really trusting. You never know when the love-in is going to end.
love them
i just love babies, love love love them. And love them. Though when they get older...they are like Angus says, its as if we are too far apart to understand them. Protect our children, all our children. Educate them. Fight for them even if you have none...because we are all they have to turn to, there is no alien planet for them.
BABAIES ARE TYRANTS
WHY DONT YOU INVEST IN A CLASS AND SELL THEM FOR YOUR ECONOMYS AND FUN?INVEST IN YOUR CLASSES THIS SEPTEMBER.
Charmaine
Pardon?
@ judy
Agreed. I'm better with kids from 3 yrs up - and I'd fight anyone who tried to harm a baby.
Missed the point
And most of you who commented, missed the point. It's not really about connecting with kids, but rather about how we neglect them knowing they have to grow up and take our place in society
Hmmmmmm
Tyrants ...
One day you are going to grow old and be like a baby again, somone will have to change your nappy again, so be ready for it. someone will have to hold your hand to cross the road whether you like it or not, you will have to go places whether you like it or not, eat for that is given to you out of your choice and lets wait and see how you react to all of this.
Hi Maris
Sure - I hope that people will be nice to me as I have never been horrible to a baby. But this is really more about investing in kids today.
brats
If people actually disciplined their children instead if letting them do what they want then the world would be a better place. This idea of rewarding a child for bad behaviour has got to be the worst thought process in the world. Example: A child screams and throws a tantrum in a shop, so mother gives it a sweet to shut it up. That is called reward for bad behaviour. Personally, I would take it outside and spank it and then dump it in the car.
.
One thing is for sure: When I am old, I don't want to be anywhere near a child born in South Africa after about 1985.
?
Rancid old nanny
?
Why is your baby an " exception" ? It a bit of hypocracy to generalize and say babies are tyrants yet yours is somehow excluded from the list.
LOVED your article
I LOVE your article, i dont know how old you are, but i am glad to see that i am not alone in this world. I am 32 years old and have no maternal instinct whatsoever. Did you struggle with the thought of having kids? That is one of my biggest issues at the moment, seeing procreation only as me being a vessel for a new soul to come to earth to carry it all on. And then me and my husband are VERY set in our ways and lazy and i dont know if this will suit as at all. I prefer animals too.....
BB
BBB
@DK
Hi DK,
My daughter was the exception because I could understand her, and she me. Read again - my inability to communicate with under-three's is why I battle with babies.
@ Greg
Hi Greg, I'm not sure if you mean me - in which case, I must have been born rancid. Although my siblings (much younger than me) were charming babies - obviously because they definitely got my jokes :)
@ Valerie
Hi Valerie,
All I can say is that it's all different when it comes to your own child. Whether it's because you have a bond and understand your baby's needs better, or because you raise your own according to how your own family works - it all makes a major difference.
Babies are tyrants
Ha, ha! I got it Mum! Good article! :)
Thank you
pleasant child :)
kqimLMitmsYNHuXt
I rkecon you are quite dead on with that.
The comment facility of this article has been closed.