#5 Babies Are Cute

Think of babies with me for a while. Think of human babies that you have known. Think of animal babies, puppies, kittens, baby birds, farm animal babies, going to the pet store. Think of baby fish of all kinds. Even think of baby plants, shoots coming out of the ground, sprouts emerging.  

Let’s make two categories: “cute” and “ugly”. Or make a long line with “really cute” on the left end and “really ugly” on the right end. Now imagine putting all the babies one by one somewhere on the scale. What would it look like?

I’m going to take an educated guess and say that a very huge percentage of the babies are on the left end over by “really cute” or “mostly cute”.

Most puppies and kittens have got to be on the “cute” end. Don’t you have a calendar somewhere in your house with pictures of kittens or puppies? Do you remember the last time you went to the zoo? The biggest attraction was always the baby animals. Even baby hippos are cute. Was there any babies at the zoo for the “ugly” category? Can’t remember any.

Go through “Mammals” in the encyclopedia and check out all their babies. Any ugly there?

Human babies certainly are “cute”. They stay that way for years, maybe up to 5 or 6. There is a daycare at the building where I work and all the babies are cute. Maybe a couple get sort of close to the mid-point between “really cute” and “really ugly” on the spectrum, but definitely I’d still put them on the cute side. That’s just on physical appearance. If you add in their little personalities…definitely, definitely cute. If you ask their mother’s opinion, would you ever get “ugly”?

Baby birds almost all follow this pattern of cuteness. I say “almost” because a few might be tending over into the ugly area. Definitely the gigantic majority of baby birds are cute, for sure.

My wife loves gardening and yard work. Baby plants, flowers just coming up, even new grass sprouting are reasons for joy and excitement. If pressed to admit it, I’d have to say that those baby plants are actually pretty cute.

I’ve left insects for last because I’m a little conflicted where to put them on the scale. Probably, I’d have to get very close to, if not touching, “really ugly” when I’m thinking of baby flies (i.e. maggots). Can’t think of too many baby insects that I could put on the cute side. What about you? So I don’t mind if the ugly bugs get eaten by birds and mammals. (Maybe bugs were created ugly so we’d avoid attachments to them.)

So all in all, what percentage of the above creatures would be on the cute side? I’d go with about 98% myself when I look at the world. What about you?

If humans and animals are all the result of random accident, why are we all so darn cute? It makes no sense. Natural selection or survival of the fittest have no connection with cuteness. Ugly can survive and prosper. Do animal parents kick out the ugly ones and only keep the cute ones? Do animal parents have any idea that we humans look upon their offspring and say, “Oh, he’s so cute!”

Can we all agree that only humans see “cuteness”? It gives us joy. It also motivates us to act to share our feeling of joy with others.

Human parents expend great time and effort to give joy to their children. Isn’t that the whole point behind toy stores and going to the zoo, or buying them a pet?

The cuteness that I see everywhere in the world is not an accident. It’s a deliberate effort on the part of my “original” parent, God, to give joy to me, individually, as well as everyone else collectively. We are God’s children. 

There must be a God.