Recently I attended a wedding reception.
A couple at our table had brought their baby and suddenly it started crying.
The concerned mother promptly opened a baby bag and pulled out a milk bottle, had someone warm it up and gave it to the baby.
Perfectly normal behavior, you might say, but I suddenly felt a twinge of pity for the baby.
All the adults, including yours truly, were having a jolly good time, what with the music, the dancing, great food and drinks.
However, the baby had no choice but to drink warm milk.
No alcohol, no tasty food, no dancing etc, and missing out on all the good food.
I felt this was unfair, after all babies are people too, yet we treat them very shabbily.
Don't they have the right to some fun? I started thinking about how we treat babies.
Whenever they are hungry, we give them warm milk and nothing else.
How would you feel if you had to drink warm milk for breakfast, lunch and dinner, day after day? We all enjoy a chilled drink now and then, why can't we sometimes give babies chilled milk instead? When we go to the ice cream shop, we have a choice of 28 different flavors but babies get only plain, warm milk.
How about an occasional chilled milk shake with a choice of vanilla, hazelnut, chocolate, strawberry, or mango flavoring? We also get to have a chilled beer or a nice gin and tonic now and then, but no such luck for our infant brothers and sisters.
Still I have to hand it to them, in spite of this deprivation, babies are smiling most of the time.
It's the same with food - while we eat different types of ethnic food, babies get to eat some disgusting stuff out of a bottle.
We adults enjoy a variety of food, some baked, some broiled, and some fried, but our poor babies have no choice.
They have to eat whatever the mother serves up.
Oh yes; the mother often coos and fusses over the baby, but that is hardly a substitute for good and tasty food.
The worst treatment is reserved for the evenings.
When we adults don't feel sleepy at night, we watch an entertaining movie or our favorite television show.
No such luck for the baby, no sir.
When it cannot sleep we dump it in a crib, turn off the lights and stick some milk or a pacifier in its mouth.
I ask you, how would you feel if every night you had to sleep early and when you failed to do so, a huge giant picked you up, cradled you on his shoulder, walked you around a dark room, interminably patting you on the shoulder? You would feel pretty disgusted, I bet you.
Now some people may counter that babies are quite happy because they do not know what they are missing.
However, researchers have discovered that babies start learning from the time they are conceived.
As such, being so connected to the mother's nervous system, they are very familiar with the taste of good food and drink, as well as the sensation of being entertained.
Further, it is now believed that they carry over their longings and desires from their previous lives.
Therefore all this deprivation of food, drink and entertainment, constitutes a severe emotional trauma for them.
Psychiatrists warn us that deprivation during childhood is very damaging for personality development.
If so, then a deprived babyhood is probably several times more detrimental.
With their deprived babyhood, it is no wonder that the peoples of the world are always fighting with each other; we have terrorism and despots like Stalin and Hitler.
If we want real and lasting world peace, we must pay more attention to a baby's emotional needs.
Forget the SPCA; we need an SPCB- Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Babies.