Babies

My extended family has a habit of creating new babies balanced on nothing much more than a love of cute shower gifts.

Pretty and pink. Tiny and sweet. Exotic and cool.

The babies emerge wide eyed and innocent to be adored until they are not.

A year, two years, five years, at some point they seem to become less desirable and then?

Then they are foisted off on anyone who is willing to be stuck with them, whether or not they are mentally, financially, or emotionally capable of taking on the job. Because babies take a long time and lots of work to raise into independent, happy, contributing adults.

These people believe in abortion, or keeping, without any thought to what lies in between. Adoption, for some reason, does not appear to be in the running, which is a shame because it is a wonderful option.

Imagine a child who is still wanted all its life! Imagine a child growing up with people who realize that kindness is more than giving it everything it wants and discipline has less to do with punishment than teaching a child how the world works.

I look into those dark beautiful baby eyes and wonder what is behind them, how will it be nurtured and developed, who will it metamorphize into in a couple of decades? I wonder if it is simply being enabled until it can no longer function, or if it is being given the tools to survive?

What a sad legacy.