Stranger Danger
Yet again, a thought that came up while reading Blue Ticket.
We are taught to be suspect of strangers, right? Don’t talk to strangers. Stranger Danger. But…
Babies are strangers. We don’t know them until we actually know them. But we’re not scared of them. I mean, we’re partly not scared because the most they can do is wail and maybe gum our arm. It’s hard to be scared of something that helpless. Yet… I’m terrified of crickets, so size and lack of danger isn’t really an argument.
On page 174, a character (let’s call her X) is speaking with another character (let’s call her Y). Both are pregnant.
Y asks, “Do you ever think what the baby will be like?” The conversation that follow:
I have no frame of reference, I said.
They are two strangers coming to meet us, she said. Are you ever afraid about that?
I am now, I said.
I picture them not as babies but as two tall, mysterious figures walking towards us from a moon-like landscape.
Isn’t it sort of odd with babies? I was scared of my own ability to take care of the twins. I was scared of my own ability to get through the day while keeping them nourished and stimulated and happy. But I was never scared of them, even though I’m terrified of many smaller things including snakes, mice, and bugs.
So why aren’t we scared of babies?
4 comments
Because babies are completely helpless, dependent on us, designed to be loved and cared for, and – apart from sleepless nights etc – pose no physical threat to us. By the time they become scary – whether it is through a difficult diagnosis, behavioural issues, psychopathic tendencies etc or just teen tantrums – we do know them. And love them. So they may be scary, but they’re not strangers.
Perhaps we are hard-wired to love babies, for evolutionary purposes.
I know I am hard-wired to not be afraid of puppies. They’re just so stinking cute and don’t trigger any threat warnings at all.
When we hear Stranger Danger, I think we are taught to be afraid of unknown motives, not necessarily the unknown person. Babies don’t really have complicated or unknown motives like theft or harm. They just want to have their basic needs met: warmth, nourishment, changed diaper, eye contact, affectionate connection. Hence their cuteness and our hard-wired response to it.
I think Lori nailed it – it’s the motive, not the person.
However, plenty of people are terrified of babies. They seem so fragile and needy.
Agree that evolution/biology-wise, we’re wired to find babies cute and cuddly. But, I also agree that people can be scared of them in terms of not wanting to break them. I know people who would only hold babies on the floor so that if they dropped then somehow they’d just roll and be fine.