Son

21 May 2010

Children freak me out. Not because they look a bit like aliens, with their big heads on little bodies and Roswell-esque eyes. Not because nothing that small and frail should be able to make that amount of noise. No, they freak me out because of the effect they have on other people.

To a non-parent like me, who has yet to be exposed to the toxins of the "parental bond" and paternal instinct, the change on new parents looks like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I'm sure to a parent it all feels terribly natural. To the cynical observer it's deeply creepy.

To me, the worst thing about your baby crying all night is that you can't sleep. To your actual parent, that's coupled with the anguish of the fact that your baby is crying in the first place. Are they in terrible anguish? Are you doing something wrong (if you read the Daily Mail you will be extra convinced that you are, but that's OK, because you will deserve to feel bad)? Will they hate you when they're 31 because you couldn't comfort them? You'll spend the next day, all shadow-eyed and narcoleptic, expressing your pain at watching their little face endure all that anguish.

They probably had an itchy bum.

This is why it's probably a good thing that I don't have a son or daughter, though if I did, I'm sure I'd be infected with the same brain-sucked-out-through-my-earholes devotion that everyone else seems to be. And that freaks me out more than anything else.