‘If trees could scream,’ wrote the US humorist Jack Handey, ‘would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?’ ‘We might,’ came his reply, ‘if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.’ I have often thought about this quote not just because it’s funny, but because it’s taken on new meaning in those long, deadening campaigns of constant screaming that accompany newborn life.
It isn’t that mysterious at all, I suppose. Being a brand new human isn’t much fun. You’re overwhelmed, confused and constantly experiencing things you can’t yet understand. You also sleep a lot, so your conscious hours are an unbroken chain of rude awakenings. A lifetime of drudgery and disappointment has hardened us to the horror of being wrenched from the peace of sleep. I’ve been doing it for 36 years and still don’t much care for it. Imagine then, the baby’s lot; every moment one of being awoken to sights, sounds and smells you can’t begin to comprehend. Like awaking, on acid, at the apex of the Nemesis ride in Alton Towers, and for this to happen about 14 times a day. Who, if placed in this position, wouldn’t spend their whole day screaming and soiling themselves?
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