For some reason today I started to think about where to go for important information about how to raise babies should I ever have any of my own, which is doubtful (tick-tock goes the biological clock). I’d rather adopt older kids who are potty trained and sassy from day one. Besides, even with all the books out there, I am pretty sure any child of mine (and most children anyways) will wind up on a couch complaining that he was never loved enough, or that I dropped him when he was a baby in order to catch the ping pong ball before it bounced into obscurity during a tense game of Beer Pong.
How can parents avoid such a scenario in spite of the fact that they abide religiously by contemporary child rearing guides? I started thinking about how much I wanted a Starbucks Iced Coffee and then about idioms and what they can teach us about how we should raise our kids. I googled baby idioms and found a cornucopia of knowledge that remains as yet untapped. Like finding oil in the Gulf and then sharing it with all the sea life and beach dwellers in Louisiana, Florida and Mississippi, I knew I had to share this with the world.
Who needs “What to Expect” when you can learn everything you need to know by paying attention to what you already know, i.e. the vernacular.
So, in the spirit of pedagogy, I have assembled a few of the most informative baby idioms for all you parents and parents-to-be out there.
1.) To be left holding the baby:
Actual Meaning: to suddenly have to deal with a difficult problem or responsibility because someone else has decided they do not want to deal with it.
What it Can Teach You: One night stand?? No SIR!! Who wants to be a single parent when the father (or mother) jets? You think it’s hard to roll over at 4:00am when the baby monitor blares that shrill cry of utter despair and say “Honey, it’s your turn?” Try being the one who has to actually get out of bed and stumble to poor little Apple or Starlet or whatever trendy name you’ve burdened the kid with until it’s old enough to legally change it to something normal like Mike or Monica. What this is is a recipe for bitterness and sleep deprivation that will lead directly to your child feeling unloved. Valium, anyone? Not that single parents are destined to mess their children up – there are some amazing ones out there. But the Legion of Doom was much better as a tag team. You can’t argue with that.
2.) To cry like a baby
Actual Meaning: to cry a lot.
What it Can Teach You: Babies cry! That’s what they do. Embrace it. Sure, it sucks when the babe begins to scream in the middle of church, at a restaurant, in Walmart, at the DMV, in the hair salon, at the dentist, or while you and your spouse or significant other are finally enjoying an evening alone after 6 continuous months of dirty diapers, feedings, projectile vomiting and forgetting your own name. Trust me. Eventually you will come to regret not enjoying it when their cries of need turn into whines of complaining and mono-syllabic snarks of independence. Or when they confide in Dr. Phil on national television that they felt you neglected their needs and that’s why they are now addicted to internet gambling.
3.) The baby blues
Actual Meaning: a feeling of sadness that some women experience after they have given birth to a baby.
What it Can Teach You: The effects of having a baby on a woman’s body are substantial. Once you have given birth and the excitement of the arrival of your spawn has died down, you may begin to long for those bygone days when you actually looked good in jeans. It’s okay to cry. The baby blues are therefore a normal grieving process. Please don’t use them as an excuse to drown your own children.
4.) To throw the baby out with the bath water
Actual Meaning: to get rid of the good parts as well as the bad parts of something when you are trying to improve it.
What it Can Teach You: The entire idiom states “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” The operative word being “don’t.” Apparently, this isn’t a good idea, no matter how often the baby cries or poops itself. Just say no. On the other hand, the idiom also charges parents with the task of bathing their children. Who wants to be the parent of the kid who smells like a putrid piece of donkey liver dragged through manure and baked in the hot sun for 12 hours? When your kid comes home crying because all the other kids at school are calling him or her Stinky Poopipants, start looking for a good therapist.
5.) To wet the baby's head
Actual Meaning: to celebrate the birth of a baby by having an alcoholic drink.
What it Can Teach You: After 9 months of faithful abstinence, it is perfectly acceptable to get hammered. The happiest parents are the drunkest parents. So do your part and be the happiest one of all! And I know this because I have never seen more happy people than the 5000 drunks dancing on tables and hugging strangers in the Hofbrau Haus beer tent at Oktoberfest. I firmly believe that we could have world peace if UN delegates were required to be soused at meetings.
6.) As bald as a baby's backside
Actual Meaning: completely bald.
What it Can Teach You: A baby's backside is really just a glimpse into the future for most men. I think that is why fathers spank their children harder than mothers. Well, maybe not anymore because Social Services will take your kid away faster than UNC cut ties from John Edwards if there is any evidence that you could be hitting your child. But, in the 1980’s, spanking was all the rage. I am sorry that men lose their hair and spend the rest of their lives debating whether to wear a toupee, join the Hair Club for Men, get plugs, wear a hat, or become a recluse. At the end of the day though, it isn’t your kids’ faults. Single men lose their hair too! Bottom line: Don’t take the inevitable out on your kid. The money you save on future therapy can totally get you a super legit looking head carpet.
7.) As weak as a baby
Actual Meaning: Cliché [of someone] physically very weak.
What it Can Teach You: Babies apparently are not born with super human strength. Shocking, I know. I have heard countless tales from people I have never met and probably made up, of memories from their childhoods wherein their parents forced them to lift the car when daddy needed to do an oil change or to pull the dream trailer to the home lot in order to save the $100 delivery fee. Seriously, people. Four year olds should not be required to do your heavy lifting. Hire a mechanic or a forklift. I don’t even need to elaborate the ramifications of this practice on your child’s future psychological state.
8.) To sleep like a baby
Actual Meaning: to sleep very soundly.
What it Can Teach You: Babies are supposed to sleep soundly through the night from the get-go, otherwise, there wouldn’t be a whole idiom about it. If yours doesn’t, then there is probably something wrong. Your child has ADHD. I am sorry to have to be the one to tell you. Call your pediatrician as soon as you are done reading my blog and get your baby hopped up on medication as soon as is humanly possible. Is this a contradiction of everything else I have said thus far? Maybe. But I’m not Dr. Spock, so I can’t be sure.
Thanks goes out to http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/baby, without which this post would not be possible.
-Pokey
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