When People Have Ugly Babies I Never Know What To Say

I’m at that age now where all my friends are pairing off or having babies. In some ways I feel quite left out as obviously, The Sexy Guitarist and I are not quite ready for that level of terror to enter our relationship yet, and believe me, I do NOT want a proposal just yet, but at the same time the level of romance and commitment shown at that stage of a relationship is one of my main goals in life. Like every other  human being on this planet, I just want to be loved to a point where someone is willing to devote themselves to me, and I want to love someone enough to be able to devote myself to them.

Children, on the other hand, scare the living shit out of me. And it’s only recently, seeing my closest friends have a baby and watching him grow up that I’ve started to seriously consider popping out my own little gremlin - in about 10 years perhaps.

My friends have all been quite lucky, child wise. I have not met one who can officially be considered an “ugly baby”. Two of my closest friends have what I would consider to be the prettiest child I have ever seen. You know who you are!

I was with these same friends a few months ago in their home town, walking through the centre to go to an event with  The Sexy Guitarist, when they bumped into a fellow parent of an almost toddler, and in the arms of this parent was an alien. I SWEAR TO GOD. Having instantly assessed the child and its level of attractiveness and found it to be extremely lacking, I was at a complete loss as to what to do. I knew, with a certainty that could kill, that I MUST NOT SPEAK TO THAT PARENT. If I did I would end up saying something like, “oh, what an... interesting looking child!” in a fake enthusiastic voice that no one would mistake for a genuine compliment, and I would definitely be punched by an enraged, hormonal mother. Not the way I intended spending my weekend.

We are all told that every mother believes that their child is beautiful, but even this mother would not be able to overlook the abnormal dimensions of her child’s head. Its skull was huge at the top and narrowed down to a chin that was the same circumference as its neck. It had huge, unblinking eyes and the veins on the top of its head were visible through its translucent skin.

I assumed that this child MUST have some kind of disability, and I was being cruel in recoiling from it, but upon later asking, it turned out that the child was just Ugly.

I know that this is a really, really shallow and heartless thing to say, but I hope to GOD that I have a beautiful child. BEFORE you all jump down my necks, this is not because I would love my ugly child any less than I would love my beautiful child, but because that poor kid is going to have a lifetime of revolted looks shot at it, bullying, self confidence issues, and much deeper issues; I do not want my child to have to deal with that.

But then, maybe the child’s mother is living unaware of how disturbing her child’s looks are? She was not a particularly attractive young woman herself. She too had a slightly odd shaped head, although it was better concealed by her hair, and judging by her looks I dare say the child’s father has a very, very slim chance of being good looking himself (we’re only human, we’re all shallow - so jump off the bus to denial and join the path to “lets tell it how it is”.) and all this compounded to produce a child that looks like it had just crash landed at Roswell, but that doesn’t mean that the mother is aware of her childs misfortune.

I decided that I should do some research to discover how the internets thinks I should react to an ugly baby, and here are the results:

1) Before meeting the child in question, assume it will be ugly. This will prevent any unexpected shocks that may cause heart failure or outbursts of "OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THAT?!?"

2) Check Facebook photos. If it's ugly, you might be able to tell from here. If not, you can at least evaluate the parents attractiveness levels and make a estimate based on their attractiveness levels.

3) Put off the visit. This will give you time to prepare, and as the website I found suggested, allow the babies features time to "Straighten out a bit". You'll be lucky, I reckon. once an ugly baby, always an ugly baby.

4) Before you visit, prepare compliments. This does mean that you'll sound rehearsed but it also means that you won't have to hesitate and possibly get punched by enraged parents.

 - if you try and make some genuine compliments you're more likely to get away with it, e.g. saying that the baby looks happy. Everyone likes a happy baby. Unless they are startlingly ugly, of course.

5) Failing at compliments? Make yourself look like a twat instead. If you do baby talk at the child then everyone will forget that they want you to say nice things about their child and will want to make you go away instead. FAST.

6) Focus on the parents. YES, its all boring drivel and no, unless it is one of your closest friends, you are not going to give a damn about how sore the mothers nipples are or how little sleep father is getting. No, you don't care that baby had it's first hiccup last week, especially seeing as if it hiccuped right now you'd run in fear of your life - the alien may be trying to eat you! But it's better than the silence caused by a parent waiting for you to think of a compliment.

7) Don't try to over compensate, or everyone will know you're lying. stick to the compliment and do NOT over exaggerate, over analyse or keep talking. say it and get out.

OR...

8) You could do it my way. Keep your mouth shut and get the hell out of there ASAP.