Babies are just lazy freeloaders

I saw a documentary on bonobos and chimps the other day. They are our closest relatives, and my first thought was: why are human babies so useless?

Here’s a picture of a 6-month-old chimp.

Dynamic, focused, getting on with life. Here’s Hannah, my daughter, at 6 months.

Before you say: amazing, she’s grown up reasonably well, my daughter is the one in the hat. And look how warm Cumbria was 20 years ago.

My daughter was good at wearing a hat and pooing, but hadn’t attempted to climb a tree just yet. Here’s a picture of my other daughter, Jenna, at about 9 months.

Again brilliant at hat-wearing but rubbish at peeling a banana and tidying up after herself (still the same now at 20).

If you’re thinking: ‘Hooo, hold on there, my friend, it’s because we’ve got massive brains and they take a bit of getting used to, so nerr.’ Okay, let’s talk about elephants then.

Elephants drop out, land on their heads and almost immediately start walking. This one is 20 minutes old.

Here’s my daughter at 20 minutes old.

She can’t even lift her massive-brained head, never mind help with the dishes (still the same now at 20).

The African Elephant has a brain weighing in at 5 kg and is composed of 257 billion neurons, while humans have a 1.4 kg brain made up of about 86 billion neurons.

The massive brain argument doesn’t work.

What about this little monkey (FYI it’s not a little monkey)

They hatch, mum and dad are long gone, they have eggs for breakfast (their yolk) and as soon as they’re finished they race down a scary predator-laden beach towards an unfriendly predator-laden sea to try and stay alive. My daughters never had to do that.

And what about this poor little creature:

Admittedly, I couldn’t find a decent photo of a cute real baby snake that you could empathize with. But, when I tell you, as soon as they hatch, with the parents once again long gone, to survive they have to start biting and swallowing animals whole, then you will realise what a slacker you used to be.

I did tonnes more research on nearly every other animal on the planet, well 3 more, and, I will summarise here for speed, every other animal on the planet grows up faster than us.

Conclusion: human babies are lazy, useless, freeloaders.

Sorry babies if you’re reading this, but it’s true.

Have a great weekend.

Take care and all the best,

Ian

(If you want to leave a comment below, that would be great)