I wonder if we don’t repress thinking that babies are cute to some extent. Before I had one, I never thought babies were cute. I just thought: eww, work! or, eww, delayed career plans! They represent responsibility, which isn’t cute. (Similar to contents of this thread.)
But if you were walking in a forest and just happened to find a baby. If you didn’t know it was a human baby, with various obligations and long-term ties, wouldn’t you want to pick it up and snuggle it? Or not?
I’ll also add here, though it could be added other places, that I don’t know if most parents think newborns are cute. (I actually have a theory that children are born a few weeks earlier than evolution long-term conditioned us for.) Children are maximally cute somewhere between 6 months and 3 years and each parent differs in exactly when and why.
But if you were walking in a forest and just happened to find a baby. If you didn’t know it was a human baby, with various obligations and long-term ties, wouldn’t you want to pick it up and snuggle it? Or not?
Unless the baby is likely to be a relative, isn’t this actually vastly less adaptive behavior than picking up a cute bunny rabbit that you can eat later in times of famine?
Unless the baby is likely to be a relative, isn’t this actually vastly less adaptive behavior than picking up a cute bunny rabbit that you can eat later in times of famine?
Now this is an explanation I can accept as at least remotely plausible without doing mental gymnastics!
I don’t have strong opinion if babies are above or below 0-cuteness level, it seems to vary from person to person—but they’re definitely below mammal average baby cuteness.
I wonder if we don’t repress thinking that babies are cute to some extent. Before I had one, I never thought babies were cute. I just thought: eww, work! or, eww, delayed career plans! They represent responsibility, which isn’t cute. (Similar to contents of this thread.)
But if you were walking in a forest and just happened to find a baby. If you didn’t know it was a human baby, with various obligations and long-term ties, wouldn’t you want to pick it up and snuggle it? Or not?
I’ll also add here, though it could be added other places, that I don’t know if most parents think newborns are cute. (I actually have a theory that children are born a few weeks earlier than evolution long-term conditioned us for.) Children are maximally cute somewhere between 6 months and 3 years and each parent differs in exactly when and why.
Unless the baby is likely to be a relative, isn’t this actually vastly less adaptive behavior than picking up a cute bunny rabbit that you can eat later in times of famine?
Now this is an explanation I can accept as at least remotely plausible without doing mental gymnastics!
Probably not.
I don’t have strong opinion if babies are above or below 0-cuteness level, it seems to vary from person to person—but they’re definitely below mammal average baby cuteness.