On baby fever

I attended a baptism today and in doing so came to a realization.  I came to the realization that everyone loves babies.  Not a groundbreaking realization.  And really something that I cognitively understood already.  But today, instead of just knowing it, I saw it...you know, seeing is believing and all.

So there I sat in a church with 40 or so other adults and no children except the one to-be-baptized infant.  For the entire 45 minute ceremony all 40 adults' attentions were focused on that one infant.  When I say that our attentions were focused, I do not mean that our attentions were focused on him indirectly via the ceremony in his honor.  No, I mean that every single adult was watching the child, "awwwing" at the child, whispering under his/her breath that the child is "so adorable," giggling at the child's rambunctiousness. For 45 minutes.  The poor pastor was speaking for those 45 minutes but may as well have been speaking to a wall.

And then, after the baptism was complete we first applauded, and then (in unison) did that strange baby-voiced "yaaaay" accompanied by exaggerated and stiff baby-like clapping.  It was terrifying to see a bunch of grown adults cater to this one child, all at one time, as if their lives depended on his every move.  As if him toddling up and down the stairs of the altar was akin to Marie Curie's discovery of Radioactivity.  As if, if we missed it, the entirety of the future world would completely reform.

Anyways, all of this creepy attention and baby-talk made me wonder why it is that adults are so fascinated and laser-focused on infants.  Perhaps it's an evolutionary response.  Everyone loves babies because if we didn't they wouldn't be cared for and humans would become extinct.  Perhaps its a fascination with the infant mind which is so vastly different from the adult mind.  A fascination with what we all once were and how we all once thought and behaved. A selfish interest if you will. Perhaps it's the Peter Pan syndrome piece of us all that is jealous of the youthfulness that infants exude.  Jealousy of the possibility and potential that exists within an infant.  Potential that is long gone for most adults.  Or perhaps it's everyone's need to feel needed.  Infants are the most needy kinds of humans out there, and thus fulfill that need by simply existing.

Whatever it is, it's something.  There's something about babies that makes them irresistible to adults.  That fulfills some sort of need in adults.

It's fascinating to watch...the babies and the adults.

Keep on thinking,
Josie