I think we can all agree on that, don’t you? I think, if you took a really honest poll, most people would admit that, at one time or another, they have kissed a baby in the presence of its parents and then immediately wondered if they’d contracted some type of degenerative skin disease.
Not all of these unfortunate babies are hideous, of course. Some just don’t look quite right. Maybe one eye’s a little bit lower than the other one. Maybe they have this weird birthmark in the shape of Angela Lansbury right smack in the middle of their forehead. Maybe their mustache isn’t as well-groomed as it could be.
This is especially true when the baby’s just born, during those first few days when its parents say things like “Oh, isn’t she precious” and their friends say things like “Dear God, what happened to your pet monkey?”
They don’t really say that, of course. That’s the problem. When it comes to the child’s looks, we all have to ignore the facts and pretend that they’re the most beautiful things on the face of the Earth. Preferably without vomiting directly on them. It’s the only characteristic we have to lie about. Nobody gets pissed if you say their kid smells funny, burps a lot, or screams so loud dolphins migrating off the coast stop to give your house the finger. They just laugh and nod their heads. But say their kid looks like something that came out of Freddy Krueger’s ass and suddenly you’re a douchebag.
This socially-mandated fiction speaks to the heart of the real problem–America’s unhealthy obsession with appearances.
Why is calling a baby ugly such an insult? Looks have absolutely nothing to do with what type of person you are. Except in this country, where a woman could pull fifteen quadriplegic orphans out of a school bus that plunged off a bridge into a piranha-infested river and all the magazines would focus on is whether or not her ass looked chunky in her wet jeans.
That’s why we have to come up with half-assed, bullshit compliments whenever we’re confronted with an infant whose face could permanently detach your retinas. Comments like:
“Wow, that unibrow sure makes him look distinguished.”
“At that age, my baby barely had any teeth at all, let alone three growing out of her ear.”
“She has a great personality.”
If you hear these–or similar comments–on a regular basis, just accept the fact that your kid won’t be getting by on his or her looks and move on. Hey, what better time to start teaching them the fine art of ass-kissing than when they’ll put any damn thing in their mouth anyway?
