dont know why awww...is an automatic responce,I am guessing it is just people being nice.

XD

That reminds me of a thing my friend (Dyslexic not Aspie though) and her friend said about babies.

They both agreed that babies looked like aliens.
and so when friend 2 had a baby my friend was the first to say "Wow! she doesn't look like an Alien!"

Babies are very real - they are honest - they harm no one, they smell natural ( I used water on mine and no powder.) (breastfed, their poop doesn't even smell when they are very young).

I enjoy knowing beings that are so innocent are on the earth.

So yes I find babies cute - every blessed one (even the ones not pretty based on some subconscious set of standards we unknowlingly carry in our brains somewhere)

  I also like babies as people, and I agree with everything said here.  But we don't necessarily equate honesty, natural smell and not harming others as qualities of cuteness.  I was wondering about the instinctual wish to give affection to and protect that we as humans have been found to have in sociology studies towards creatures with specific head to body ratios.

That is what I was about to say!  

its costing me £3225 for tuiton fees this year and about £4600 for accomodation (room only) ive got another 3 yrs to go

'We' find babies cute? Who are these 'we' you're referring to?

So everyone has to automatically find babies cute?

Pffff, I think they're ugly smelly noisy little frakkers

lol nice, I'm afraid to be that honest. I usually nod and smile and end up holding it x[

I have the automatic "awww" response for animals, but not for baby humans.  I don't dislike them, and in fact find a few to be cute, but for the most part I'm just not interested.

  lol, ATM.  I really was just curious as to whether Aspies have the same instinctual pull towards the protection of babies that NTs are proven to have in studies, whether they asthetically like them or not, in other words the genetic instinct to want to protect a life form with a certain head to body and eye to head ratio.  I guess my thread title wasn't very scientific.

My answer is still yes.

If we (believers) don't accept all people as being made in the image of God, however "imperfect" they are or are deemed to be, then where is the line drawn between "human" and "sub-human" and who draws the line?

It's less a decision and more a visceral response, this knowing the difference between "human" and "sub-human."

I can understand the visceral response to the harlequin baby, its appearance and its suffering.  I still consider it to be human.  Problem is that there were, and are, people who have a visceral response to those who are not "perfect" by virtue of their skin colour or disability and who would consider those people to be "sub-human" for those reasons.

In fact, the recent uproar in the US about Scotland's decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds would seem to indicate that many consider him to be "sub-human" and therefore not deserving of mercy or even life because of the actions for which he was convicted.

I find it disturbing that you think that the visual formation of a creature would make it not have a right to exist or affect any of it's rights.  The fact that it disgusts you is also  very saddening to me.  I could love a harlequin baby as much as any other baby.  What does its looks have to do with its inherent right to be loved?  Isn't this the same as racism, to say that if someone is not made the way you and others you know are that they are disgusting as human beings?  We are genetically like that, different from others, and we are working to be recognized as viable even with our differences.  Scary how you put things here.  I am hoping that I am misunderstanding you.

This is not the same as racism. Differing racial characteristics (black, white, Asian, etc.) do not constitiute sub-humanness.

But harlequin babies ... they're diseased. They're wrong. That's where the visceral horror comes from, from the comprehension of this profound wrongness. But they're helpless and blameless victims of circumstance. They can't be blamed for their own grave misfortune. It turns my stomach even now to imagine the reactions of those in the delivery room ...

  Being diseased is neither wrong nor sub-human.  This is the first time I have never heard of this kind of thinking from someone who generally professes to be a "nice person".  I don't see where this fits into the ideals of decent treatment of other humans.

Being diseased is neither wrong nor sub-human.

That depends on how disease is viewed by society.

John Merrick had Proteus Syndrome his whole life but he was born human. And he was normal at birth. John Merrick's life is the perfect illustration of our reaction to physical ugliness. From the man who treated him like an animal at the circus sideshow to the other man, Dr. Treves, who found him a home, friends, and made his life comfortable. But ultimately Treves couldn't do anything to cure John of his condition.

I admit I'm not brave enough to care for a harlequin baby. I would not be able to touch it, look at it, be in the same room with it. I would not be able to listen to its cries. I'm too sensitive. The thought of such helpless suffering, such diease, in a helpless newborn human being ... it would drive me away. Not out of hatred or contempt. Out of fear. Out emotional and spiritual torment. It would hurt me too badly to see a such badly deformed infant. I hope you understand.

Animal babies are cuter. Human babies are cute andlook like littlebaldtoothless old men . *gurgle*

Thanks for being so candid.  It saddens me so much, makes me want to go out and find those children who are rejected because of perceived ugliness and take them all in.  Really, really saddens me.  I didn't know people were so horrified by lack of visual conformity.  I knew there was always a scary moment when something you think will look a certain way is the opposite, but I thought a caring person would want to work through the scariness of non-conforming features or the scariness of sickness or pain and be able to accept all creatures.  

   I guess the truth is that visual conformity is the only thing that lets us be accepted, and our autistic differences are hated and disgust people.  I just didn't think that other autistic people would feel this way.  I honestly thought that people who believed in good would put forth the effort to work through these feelings.

I wouldn't go that far. What does visual conformity matter to blind people?

Hmm. Reminds me of a scene from Mary Shelley's novel
Frankenstein where the Creature wanders into that hovel in the woods where the poor family lives. Inside, an old blind man is playhing the flute. He hears the Creature approach, welcomes him in, and exchanges a few kind words with him. Presumably, the only reason the old man does not flee in horror is because he can't see the Creature's ugliness. Instead, the old blind man through his "blindness" can perceive the Creature's loneliness and need for human warmth. The old man is able to "see" the Creature's essential humanity.

What a great story that was ...

We're wired to go "Awww..." It's part of the reason humans are able to be fruitful and multiply. It's more than people being nice.

Is there any treatment or cure for harlequin babies? I thought if a lot of skin cream were applied to them that eventually their sores would heal. Then again, if the breaks in their skin also affected them internally, it would be so much more difficult. Could they be given pain killers eg. morphine so they wouldn't suffer so much? Surely something can be done for them.

You can't give morphine to a baby.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin_type_ichthyosis

What can you do for a baby so badly deformed? Modern medicine can't fix everything. I know this sounds heartless, but maybe some newborns weren't meant to survive.

But no one wants to make the decision to euthanize an infant.

I saw a vid on YouTube of a harlequin baby once. The vid presented it as an alien baby and I had a hard time convincing myself it was in fact a human being and not an extraterrestrial.

A hair-raising experience for your truly.

Shame they didn't come with a volume control. I suppose they have to be loud as a survival mechanism though.

To get the attention of nearby adults, yes. In fact, it's a bad sign if the baby doesn't cry. A baby making that awful high-frequency, high-intensity sound is impossible to ignore. Even the deaf are sensitive to sound vibrations ...

Yes, that would be a logical explanation. I think very few (if any) 3 year olds would understand that putting a pillow over a baby's face would kill it if done for long enough.

Mum tells me I didn't like a couple of my brothers' crying when they were babies. She said at 20 months, I told her to put my next brother in the pram - "put that baby in the pram" even though she had never heard me say more than 2 word together before that.

At 7, I suggested she might swap another brother for a baby girl - "you know, we have lots of boys and another family might have lots of girls so we could give them a boy baby and they could give us a girl baby".

Nope!

When I was pregnant a friend noticed that I was looking at babies, and thought I was admiring them.  She just smiled and rolled her eyes when I told her that I was looking at the design of their pushchairs - not the babies in them!

I definately prefer animals.

Me too. Most babies are pretty ugly and look like little old men.

Rattlesnakes have really cute faces.

I don't find babies cute at all.

If that's his photo in your avatar over on WP I would have to agree that he is lovely.  Gorgeous smile!

Yep it is him. My husband got him to smile.

Oh boy, you made me laugh.  Keep in mind one moment a baby may be colicky and screaming, then "fire off a machine gun", and the next moment be giggling.  I suppose this is a rudimentary cause-and-effect lesson; pain will lead to pleasure.

Neah, mine wasn't squashed when he came out.

Maybe you have a big hole... (just kidding)

Well, Duckfetish, I find baby animals, no matter how homely, much more appealing and engaging than human infants, and I gave birth to one too. I also have a gift, it seems, for repelling people, and it seems they also find me boring. I like the knife humor.

I had to read that about 3 times and I KNOW you gave birth to a beautiful little human infant.... but my excessively literal aspie brain is telling me you are saying that you gave birth to a baby animal.

No offence intended, I just wish I didn't take everything so darn literally.

Well, it could be that I wasn't clear enough in my sentence structure. You're right: the semantic antecedent to "one" is "human," not "animals."

It is easier to look children in the eye. They aren't critical like older children and adults.

Depends on the baby. Some babies are really ugly.

Yeah, that tends to happen when i make eye to eye contact, so i try to avoid it as much as possible.

Me too! I luvs me some fuzzy wuzzies!

Anyone else miss this guy? I do...

hmm there  I was thinking Nasa Shill was SomeBloke

I think they're in different parts of the world. Besides, Nasa Shill has a somewhat different posting style.

human alien

I agree. Toddlers can be very cute. Although, like with any other age group, it does depend on the individual.
I think children in the age from about 6 months to about 3 years are very interesting to be around. My cousin’s daughter, who was 22 months at the time, showed me how much they actually get and how much they pay attention at that age, and I found it interesting to follow her development. I also found her absolutely adorable and loved playing with her and holding her and helping her with things. Being with children in the age where they start exploring and show curiosity for their surroundings can be a lot of fun.
There have also been other toddler-aged children in my life who have been very pleasant to be around. But once they get to ca age 3 and upwards, they just turn into people for me, and I just don’t understand them anymore, and have no idea how to interact with them, including my cousin’s now almost 12 year old daughter.

Funny fact: At one point I actually understood a strange toddler better than his sister did. I was 12 and on holiday living with my grandmother when my cousin’s girlfriend (16) visited with her brother who was around one and a half year.
We played with the little boy (he was very cute BTW) but then he pulled away and started whimpering. He was obviously upset and seemed to want something. He kept shooting me glances while trying to make his sister understand, and my first thought that he might need to go to the toilet but was embarrassed to say so because I was there and he didn’t know me (that’s definitely something that would make me react that way, even when I was little; I even felt humiliated that my grandparents saw my father changing my diaper). But I disregarded that thought and thought that for starters he was probably in his diapers, and second he was probably too young to think like that, most kids don’t after all, and third she was his sister so she should know him better than I did. Then he took her hand and pulled at her, and she followed him, and i heard that they went to the toilet.
I was very surprised that I was correct. When they returned, she told me he had to 'go'. I didn’t say anything but I thought she shouldn’t say that, because it obviously made him embarrassed.

I think this (in the western world anyway) is a very old-fashioned view on having children. Most children are accidents or planned for reasons of wanting a child, they aren’t born to pass on a surname. Not anymore.

I’m the same there. As stated above, I find some toddlers cute but I don’t go ga-ga over them, while I usually do over baby animals.  
I try to hide my lack of interest though, if the person with the baby is someone I like and don’t want to hurt.

I love babies, but I can never finish a whole one.

lol

I only find them cute nowadays (i am 31yo) because i am very much in love with my fiance and we dream about a life together with our own little family in our own little flat. But i used to actually be repelled by them in the past. No one could get why and my mother was truly embarassed of me in some situations!

That is because you are an older child, or at least not too far removed from being one (no offence or condescension intended).

You will almost certainly find that you will get along great with older kids once you get a few more years under your belt.

I'm watching this one kid I knew when he was a baby grow up..... he just goes from silent and adorable to loud and roaring like Godzilla. Than again he is only three...... his brother who is five wouldn't talk to anyone that he didn't know when he was younger, this lady thought the brother was "kinda" retarded because he wouldn't talk.

What's described here sounds a lot like the description of 'aliens' that supposed abductees tell us about. This just can't be a coincidence, surely.

Um... okay. I've noticed here that many say that babies are not cute, but that small animals on the other hand are. This is purely speculative of course, but could one of the primary reasons for this be that animals generally never cause harm (not deliberately and out of spite, anyway) and with them what you see is what you get (no two-faced deception), but that humans on the other hand are all too often the exact opposite to this?

Anyway, no, babies are not 'cute', and I am truly grateful I never became a parent. With over 6 thousand million of us on planet Earth, there are already too many of us, we need to stop breeding like rabbits.

Glad you would not have pissed on my daughter.

Dang! How did I miss this one the first time? Just so the newer members know, these kinds of comments are usually frowned on here.

I'd cry also if I had a Moth like that on my forehead.

I have an extreme phobia of bugs and arthropods, mainly a phobia of flying insects.

Exactly! My second cousin is very funny and cute, but I can't stand the incessant noise he makes.

I don't think he was trying to insult you or your child. What people probably mean by this is that babies are too young to have accumulated much intelligence. They could word it in a more considerate and clear way than "babies are dumb", though.

We try to discourage the "aspie = good, NT = bad" type of mentality here. Someone saying that they "wouldn't piss on" an NT baby most likely means that they don't even like NTs enough to do something really nasty to them.

But I still wouldn't say they are stupid. Oh well I was too hung up on the modern definition of the word I forget he was using the literal definition but it was too late. He always uses the original meanings of words. Stupid literally means lack of intelligence. But that word has become an insult now no one thinks "lack of intelligence" anymore when they heard the word.

Heck I am sure dog owners or cat owners would get offended if someone told them "dogs are stupid" and "Cats are stupid."

We can also say the same about disabilities too because they don't have the same abilities normal people have and they have difficulties normal people don't have. But we would also get offended too if someone told us we are stupid due to our difficulties that is caused by our autism.

It's called unconditional love. They are persons, after all.

In English, "knee" is the leg joint, and "guy" is slang for man. Something must have been lost in translation.

Personally, I don't find anything to be cute. I understand that babies are precious life, but I don't think of them as "cute".

No. It's a language expression. In Brazil it's a slang meaning "babies have the face as knee." It's a methaphor. Sorry, I was not specific. I'm using my knowledge. Really I want learn english.
I'm avoiding the translator. Because it's difficult understand, I will not use more methaphors. Ok?

It's okay. I just didn't understand what it meant. In English, we have similar metaphors, like that the child has "a face only a mother can love".

Okay, So without metaphors.
Nice to meet you, Autist 1!

Wasn't the moth the same species as the one in Silence of the Lambs?

Firstly

Human babies are the most intelligent creatures in the known universe.

Babies brains have about 1,000 trillion synapses. That is super connected.

They can learn several languages simultaneously without any books, working just from their own observations they are also learning about this crazy world around them.

Then through childhood the brain is chemically pruned. The most noticable pruning is at puberty. The wave of testosterone can be so severe that male teenagers can lose their speech as the brain scrambles to reconnect what is left after the pruning.

By the time we are adults we are left with a fraction of their synapses.

Secondly



What's not to like?

Okay, So without metaphors.
Nice to meet you, Autist 1!

I'm not telling you not to use metaphors. I'm just saying that I was really confused.

Nice to meet you too, Ariane.

Why? They make high pitched noises, they break things, they carry and spread diseases, and they have a strong odour.

Furthermore, there are already around 7 billion people living on this overcrowded planet.

There is plenty of disgust for infants and children outside this community too. Google "childfree" to go on a fun adventure.

Spread diseases? A little OTT there. Strong odour? Babies smell nice, it is their poo filled nappy that causes the smell, and when very young even the poo is relatively odour free. Adult crap stinks a lot more and adults are disease carriers and spreaders too, at least babies don't spread STDs. The high pitched noises thing I understand, many aspies and auties are sound sensitive which would make a squealing infant a very unpleasant noise.

Care to elaborate why babies are ugly from a balanced artistic perspective? I believe the adult form is much more 'ugly.' As for the expense, most parents don't view babies from an accountant's perspective.

That's the thing.

I am not a parent, and I have no intention of ever becoming one.

I have no reason to care how parents feel about their own offspring.

On the subject of faecal odour, I am not keen on adults shitting in my presence either.

LOL!!!

What could be cuter?

Gah! Foxes are my weakness! Too cute. Must. Not. Sqee.

*breaks out in aww's and "Its so cute"*.

On topic though, I think there cute but not as cute as most animals, unlike most people I think sharp, long features are cuter, thats why foxes are so cute.

Becouse there out of proportion (huge head, huge eyes, small hands, feet etc.)  I have a thing about out of proportion stuff, scale sizes etc.  Babies look like a work in progress compaired to an adult(I know they are just that).  It takes people a few years to grow out of this, why would an adult be more ugly? It better not be since i've got so meny years left as one.   Just my opinion.

What about a furry baby?

Just as bad. Imagine one of those caked in its own filth. The bald ones are ugly, but at least they have a wipe-clean surface (assuming the parent bothers to wipe it).

What about a furry baby that didn't *** or piss?

This is ridiculous.

Actually the whole thread is ridiculous. I'm just continuing the theme.

What about an anime baby that entered reality, like the toons in Roger Rabbit.

*** anime.

What about a baby Cthulhu?

Nice meme.

Yay! Lets make a baby picture thread.

its a byootifle infint hau kin u b so insensativ lolz j/k

Doesn't mean it isn't a creepy as holy hell

Maybe it will be when it's grown a few feathers...