I just thought of something potentially related to the chimp mom at the beginning of your post. For whatever reasons I have yet to fully understand, two of my kids are really weirded out by babies/toddlers and don't like to touch or look at them. I have yet to figure out anything I can do about this--in a family of 5, they've certainly b…
I just thought of something potentially related to the chimp mom at the beginning of your post. For whatever reasons I have yet to fully understand, two of my kids are really weirded out by babies/toddlers and don't like to touch or look at them. I have yet to figure out anything I can do about this--in a family of 5, they've certainly been exposed to babies, so exposure therapy is out. I've never asked them to help with their younger siblings, so it's not that. My autistic kid can't explain himself, but his sister reports that babies look like gross aliens and are constant sources of disgusting liquids like poop and barf, so I think it's partly a contamination phobia? Now I'm wondering if there are other kids like mine. If so, they'd be hard to find due to low birth rates...
I was somewhat like your kids. I never liked to play with baby dolls. Before I had children myself I very seldom met any babies. But when I did I didn't feel any desire to look at them or touch them. I didn't find them cute. They just didn't concern me at all. In summary, I'm not sure that children with baby aversion tend to grow up into adults with few children.
My daughter left dolls behind when she left toddlerhood. Her favorite toys have always been non-humanoid. But she loves anything creative--playdoh/clay, paint, drawing, cooking, etc. She makes her own bread and made mozarella cheese the other day, all on her own.
I think having an aversion to *other people's* babies might be a good way to make sure people don't accidentally devote resources to the wrong child.
In Mother Nature, Sarah Hrdy writes that herd-living animals tend to be very fussy about which baby to raise and not, while some solitary animals are so indiscriminate that they can even raise the young of other species.
I just thought of something potentially related to the chimp mom at the beginning of your post. For whatever reasons I have yet to fully understand, two of my kids are really weirded out by babies/toddlers and don't like to touch or look at them. I have yet to figure out anything I can do about this--in a family of 5, they've certainly been exposed to babies, so exposure therapy is out. I've never asked them to help with their younger siblings, so it's not that. My autistic kid can't explain himself, but his sister reports that babies look like gross aliens and are constant sources of disgusting liquids like poop and barf, so I think it's partly a contamination phobia? Now I'm wondering if there are other kids like mine. If so, they'd be hard to find due to low birth rates...
I was somewhat like your kids. I never liked to play with baby dolls. Before I had children myself I very seldom met any babies. But when I did I didn't feel any desire to look at them or touch them. I didn't find them cute. They just didn't concern me at all. In summary, I'm not sure that children with baby aversion tend to grow up into adults with few children.
My daughter left dolls behind when she left toddlerhood. Her favorite toys have always been non-humanoid. But she loves anything creative--playdoh/clay, paint, drawing, cooking, etc. She makes her own bread and made mozarella cheese the other day, all on her own.
I think having an aversion to *other people's* babies might be a good way to make sure people don't accidentally devote resources to the wrong child.
In Mother Nature, Sarah Hrdy writes that herd-living animals tend to be very fussy about which baby to raise and not, while some solitary animals are so indiscriminate that they can even raise the young of other species.