I try to acquire useful knowledge in just about any arena. If I think it’s practical and worthwhile to know, chances are I’ll try to at least learn about it, be it a pursuit, or an ideology, or a hobby, or an interest, or a skill. After a little initial coaching, I taught myself how to iron a shirt, grill out, dance reasonably well, or drive a stickshift, among many other things.
But during my evening jog last night an area I’ve neglected for a long time, unwittingly, came to mind: I don’t know anything about babies. Not a solitary lick. Pop the hood on your car and I can point out all the mechanical organs and their relationship to each other in five minutes or so; if you want a good-looking webpage or brochure or product designed I can put that together for you; I can lead a group in an arduous pursuit or hold my own in conversations about sports or music or politics or film or religion or art and architecture, but put a baby in front of me and I’m completely lost. I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head how to even hold one, let alone entertain them and take care of them (and all that entails).
It’s not that I’m averse to babies or repelled by them; not in the least. I’m just not and never have been drawn to them like others have. Call it an indifference, without the cold nature that word implies. Up until recently, and even to a large degree now, the whole concept of babies being “cute” eluded me–I couldn’t see anything cute about them at all. They were just babies, no more, no less, no attributes or adjectives tacked on. Kittens and puppies are cute, as are most varieties of animals in the first stages of their respective lives, but babies… I just didn’t see it, and I still don’t for the most part. And my youngest brother being just six years younger than me, the moving window of interpersonal experience within my immediate family never encompassed a baby when I would have been of the necessary maturity and frame of mind to tend to one.
But I need to learn at some point. It’s essential. And I have a feeling that I could do very well with just some sparse guidelines from someone who knows a lot about them. That’s the way it’s been for most every other pursuit I’ve undertaken–I’ll read a few pages of a manual or absorb some rudimentary instructions from an expert, and I figure the rest out on my own. And I know it’s not the same as other things–hobbies and interests and skills are impersonal abilities, and what I’m talking about undertaking involves personal interaction; it’s a different plane and the stakes are much higher, but… I learned how to act around middle and high schoolers much the same way as I’m outlining here, and I can hold my own in a crowd of elementary schoolers and corral them around pretty decently, I think. How hard can it be?
So we’ll see. My eyes are open for opportunities to seize; that much I know. I’m utterly inept, but I’m optimistic.
RTF(baby)M
I have a feeling that I could do very well with just some sparse guidelines from someone who knows a lot about them.
Then you have absolutely nothing to worry about. You’re a fast learner. If it’s any consolation, I know very few men that I would consider “baby people”… I don’t know, I was going somewhere with this one.
P.S. – You really don’t know how to hold a baby?
Nope, I really don’t. Back when I was a grocery store cashier a customer came through my line with a baby, and she had to do something with him in order to get to her purse (couldn’t put him down), so she gave him to me. It took a couple of tries before I was holding him correctly. Quite sad. And I’ve forgotten how to since then. I need a baby coach, I think.
Perhaps you should look into Rent-a-BabyTM?
this is one way
hand one: under the neck, supporting the lower head with your palm.
hand two: under the shoulder blades, your arm along the spine, baby’s feet on either side of your elbow.
see? not hard at all. you can do it!
Now to find a baby to practice on…
Just kidding :) Thanks for the tip.