I’m glad Kristian Lin didn’t jump on the doting nanny bandwagon in his review of the documentary Babies. A friend invited me to see the movie this past weekend, and I declined with an apparently scandalous opinion: Babies are boring.
I’m perfectly able to appreciate a cute baby. My family has produced many of them. Not to brag, but photographic evidence suggests that I was quite the looker at the age of eight or nine months.
But adorableness can only carry you so far, as a certain tween heartthrob will soon discover. Then you have to contribute something interesting to the conversation. The problem is that babies exhaust their repertoire too soon, and the best parts of their shtick – laughing, cooing, and bouncing – can’t quite compensate for the worst parts, which include screaming, drooling, and pooping. And more screaming.
Evolution likely dictates that parents should be enthralled with their own babies – otherwise, they might abandon the poor tots after the third or fourth late night feeding. I wish all babies a safe and happy upbringing. (That reduces the chance they’ll grow up to be assholes). But they don’t become truly interesting until they get much, much older. Unless your cherub can, say, recommend a great new Thai restaurant, I’m bound to be unimpressed.
