Most parents hope is that their baby is healthy, or smart, or doesn’t have a disabling disease. My hope for my boy is that he is not ugly as sin. How awful that would be if he was. Call me frank bob jim or dumb, I want him to be a superior specimen of objective beauty. Oh come now, don’t tell me you’ve never wished that. We all are keen to the hierarchy of social scenes. People make more positive attributions about physically attractive people as opposed to their less attractive peers (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986). Good looking people generally don’t have to work as hard to gain friends. People tend to unknowingly flock to them. Their jokes seem funnier, their wisdom seems more plausible, and they get in to clubs without having to wait in line so long. Cialdini (1995) warns that these physically attractive individuals are more influential in changing attitudes and obtaining what they request.
Sociologists’ research suggests that people of greater physical attractiveness correlate positively with degrees of sociability, such as intelligence, success, and self-esteem. These findings seem to cover the bases of desiring a son to come out smart. Better looking individuals tend to have greater self-esteem as a result of their peers positive views of them. As a result of their increased view of social self-confidence ‘attractive people tend to have more distinguished positions, earn more money, and characterize themselves as happier (Umberson & Hughes, 1987; Diener, Wolsic, & Fujita, 1995). Our positive expectations of attractive people can be self-fulfilling. So regardless of them being smarter or having a great personality to start with, by the way we treat more attractive people, they tend to become those things. Who needs to have inherently superior intelligence when you are pretty! (I do)
In addition to children being treated well or poorly based on their appearance amongst their peers and in the social environments, parents seemingly treat them unequal as well. This may seem strange, as it does to me, but there have been documented studies on the matter.
(Cute and homely babies: Langlois, Ritter, Casey, and Sawin, 1995) Researchers have found that children’s cuteness or homeliness has a measurable effect on how their parents treat them. A study showed that a mother is, on average, more attentive to her baby if the baby is cute then if the baby is homely. Although all the babies in this study were well cared for, the cute babies were looked at more, played with more, and given more affection than the homely ones.
Perhaps knowing this is a possibility will prevent me from not paying as much attention to a homely baby of mine. Or the boy may be so homely I just might want to let him cry all night. Either way he’s still my boy, and I will love him the same. Damn the research. Perhaps a dab of foundation for the lad. I will leave you with a passage from ‘The Nurture assumption’, by Judith Rich Harris.
"People aren’t as nice to homely children as they are to pretty ones. If they do something wrong, they are punished more harshly than the pretty ones. If they don’t do anything wrong, people are quicker to think that they did. Homely children and pretty children have different experiences. They grow up in different environments."
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4 commentary:
Every expecting parent has these fears for sure! And every time. I am worried that we won't make as cute of a boy as we do girls. And what even worries me even more is will they be fairly attractive teenagers? I guess it is best not to worry over something you have no control over but you just can't help yourself. I mean someone has to have the dorky, weird children right?
Oh, thats classic. Yes indeed, someone on the block has to have the goofball kid. But I suppose as long as my goofball kid is brilliant, it might make up for it.
And often kids are cute, and yet they miraculously may not be when they come of age. Perhaps plastic surgery isn't such a bad idea after all...
We do have anxious feelings, hoping that our boy will come out allright. Of course I am just using this 'I hope he's not ugly' scam to express my real fears. As you say, we shouldn't worry too much because it is out of our hands. Who am I kidding, he better not be homely!
came across your blog this morning and I am loving it! thanks for the summer reading material. :) i want to know what qualifies a new baby as homely?! that is terrible! my husband says that cute babies grow up to be ugly adults. (With the exception of our daughter, of course.) Did you find any good research supporting that? I'll be checking back for more entertaining blog posts! -Emily
Well, I googled it and the answers are quite diverse, and google never lies, so we may never know.
If your husband is right, then I either need to reevaluate my theory, or have another baby in hopes of getting a homely one....we'll see.
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