Babies: To Know Them Is To Love Them

How often have you seen a lady pushing a stroller and assumed she is a mother or grandmother with a young child in tow? Only to discover on closer examination that the stroller is occupied by a dog.

There can be no doubt that people love their dogs these days. As G.K. Chesterton observed, “Wherever there is Animal Worship there is Human Sacrifice. That is, both symbolically and literally, a real truth of historical experience.” In his essay “On Seriousness” in The Uses of Diversity, Chesterton elaborates before this memborable quotation:

There is a healthy and an unhealthy love of animals: and the nearest definition of the difference is that the unhealthy love of animals is serious. I am quite prepared to love a rhinoceros, with reasonable precautions: he is, doubtless, a delightful father to the young rhinoceroses. But I will not promise not to laugh at a rhinoceros. . . . I will not worship an animal. That is, I will not take an animal quite seriously: and I know why.

The people putting their “fur babies” in strollers and toting them through airports and into coffee shops are taking animals very seriously, indeed. What is disturbing about the intensity of the doggy-parent relationship is not so much the relationship itself, for dogs really are inherently lovable. It is the healthy human relationships that fail to develop and flourish in the shadow of canine-human love that is the tragedy. The sacrifice of people we should nurture and share our days with because we feel so fulfilled in our pets is what is disturbing.

The aging woman thinks she is wise because she doesn’t fool with all the mess and chaos of dealing with her grandchildren who do not exist. She has found a way around all that dirt and noise. All while she chases kittens around and cleans up after her three dogs she adores. Having found a way to introduce just as much havoc as ordinary children would with none of the benefits of coming to know eternal souls, the woman has impoverished her life and the lives of those around her. Chesterton was right: “Wherever there is Animal Worship there is Human Sacrifice.”

The people most maligned—wrongly—in this world of doggy love are babies. People frequently commiserate on the unlikeable qualities of infants and toddlers. They’re so loud! They’re messy! They’re dirty! They’re gross! If you make the mistake of taking your human children on an airplane you may be cornered at the baggage carousel by a group of concerned citizens arrayed to bring to your attention the effectiveness of tranquilizing babies so that they don’t cry mid-flight. Because the health and safety of young children should always come second to the comfort of strangers and it is so unreasonable for an overtired child to cry briefly while her eardrums are pinched in take-off cabin pressure changes. How reasonable and understanding of these people who once were crying babies themselves.

The negative publicity campaign against the very young has become so aggressive that even people who want to like babies no longer know how to. While on maternity leave, new mothers, many never having cared for a real, live baby, will be heard to complain about how unfulfilling it is, how boring the helpless child is, how needy the pitiable creature is. Some will rave about the injustice of being treated as a refrigerator. Who does this upstart think he is just demanding milk around the clock with no display of proper gratitude for the selfless giver? Does he not know what his mother has sacrificed for him?

Of course he doesn’t, silly mommy. He’s a baby. And it’s about time our culture learn something about babies again. You see, to know them is to love them. Everything about a baby, from the big eyes to the soft, funny-smelling skin, to the wailing, lamb-like cries, are calibrated to pull at our heartstrings and invite our adoration. Their helplessness is their most attractive feature when you see it clearly.

Yes, there are some ugly newborns in this world who emerge from the womb looking like scraggly goslings, but even these are so achingly lovable if we learn to pay attention.

And, really, if we can find hairy quadrupeds with chronically bad breath “cute,” surely we can recognize the attractiveness of our own flesh and blood, our own true offspring.

In the meantime, if you want to really shock a proud mother of “fur babies,” you can borrow a witty line from Taylor Marshall (a man not always known for his lightheartedness and humor, to put it mildly) and ask her what it is that you call the mother of a dog. She won’t like that if she thinks it through.