CBS News sent correspondent Steve Hartman into the field to ask people if they thought his baby was cute. But Steve did something tricky: he used a distorted image of his offspring (not the image at the right; that's Baby-faced Finster from Bugs Bunny). The idea was to see if anyone would say, "Dude, what an ugly kid."
Of course, no one did. That's generally not the way polite folks behave, especially not on camera. Steve's not-exactly-Earth-shaking conclusion: "cuteness is relative ... if the baby's your relative, it's cute." (Maybe CBS' abysmal news ratings aren't all Katie Couric's fault, hm?)
What would have been more interesting would be to have two sets of parents explain why they found their baby to be cuter than someone else's. Personally, I prefer my children to other people's children, and I think most parents feel the same way. That said, some kids, like some people, are cuter than others. Angelina Jolie is more attractive than, say, Bea Arthur. It would therefore stand to reason that some babies are cuter than others.
But when it's your kid, you think they're beautiful. Which is the way it should be. The only time this belief becomes potentially problematic is when you force that opinion on other people, ad nauseum. There are times when parental worshipping at the altar of adorableness can become utterly unbearable.
This might just be me, or maybe not. Have you ever wanted to tell someone to just shut the hell up about their baby? Does "aw, isn't my Susie gorgeous?" ever start to sound like "isn't my Susie way more gorgeous than that little monster you have?"
(For the record, I find my children cute -- most of the time, anyway -- but I try to keep that to myself as much as possible, at least when there are other people around. Do I pull out photos for folks to admire? Of course. But that's only because MY children are OBJECTIVELY cute. Ba-dum-bum.)
image: heo.com
