I know, you read that title and immediately got all offended and in a tizzy.
She’s gonna talk about ugly babies?! Babies aren’t ugly! They are beautiful wonderful little bundles of unicorns tears and puppy memories that remind us the wonder of life and the spirit of the almighty being I believe in that manifest itself in tiny newborn smiles. What a horrible girl!
Be true to yourself. You know what I’m talking about.
As your brain scans through the files of newborn images cataloged up there you have already subconsciously landed on a baby that your immediate reaction was something to the effect of “Oh dear, that baby is ugly.” Maybe you even talked about it with a significant other or mutual friend. The conversation probably went something like this:
You: “So, um, yeah. Have you seen Dick & Jane’s new baby?”
Friend: “Oh. Yep, I have. He’s…ummm…he has…errr…well…”
You: “He has the most large bulbous misshapen hairy head ever. He looks like one of those little monkeys. Who are super cute. If you want your kid looking like a cute furry monkey.”
Friend: “OH MY GOD YES!! I’m so glad you said it!”
I, myself, have an irrational fear that if I have a kid he will not be as adorable as my good friends’ son Carter or have the badass awesomeness of my web developer’s son. And that I will love my own child a TINY bit less because I know this.
But this isn’t about actual babies.
This is about talking to people and sales and being a good person.
When I worked in life insurance sales, I learned quickly some very good and some very bad sales habits. I think it is an unfortunate, yet fair, characterization of the industry to say there are mostly good people working in life insurance sales and then a few really sleazy folks who give everyone else a bad name. The REALLY unfortunate thing is that those sleazy people usually excel and succeed.
One of the best things I learned was this: You can’t tell someone that their baby is ugly
What does that MEAN? Are they bringing their baby TO the sales appointment and you somehow have to stifle the huge ugly elephant conversation in the room?
No. Again, this isn’t REALLY about babies.
Instead, it refers to the things that people hold important to them. When I was talking to people about individual life insurance coverage, they would often tell me, with a gleaming shine of pride in their eyes, that they had bought every dollar of available group life insurance at work to protect their family and estate.
Now some sales people, who are much sleazier and/or better than me, can get away with the following statement:
You know that your group life policy isn’t really good enough for what you need, right?
There are a billion reasons (that most of you probably don’t care about) regarding why group life insurance doesn’t fully serve the need that most people think it does. I could have laundry listed them, point and counterpoint to the entire conversation that we had just had, every thing that was wrong with their beautiful little group life insurance policy.
I could have told them that the plans and decisions they had made thoughtfully and in the best interest of the people they loved the most in the world were foolish and cheap.
I could have told them that their baby was ugly.
I recently was on the receiving end of this after sending my first query request on HARO for sources on paid vs. unpaid internships for an upcoming article on Forbes.com. I received a response from a PR professional (the fact that she was IN Public Relations makes my skin crawl) in which she told me about the merit of paid internships, her own current paid intern and all her wonderful attributes and accomplishments, and why she made decision to pay for interns. She then spent another paragraph SLAMMING unpaid internships, in particular the ones that this particular intern had taken at a museum and how foolish they were and how horrible museums are.
Well, dear PR lady, one of my best friends from college has a masters in Museum Studies and spent her junior and senior year at unpaid internships for museums building her portfolio and establishing her career. But thank you for pointing out to me how stupid her decisions were.
I most certainly want to use you as a source for my article now.
As an expert or authority on a subject, you may feel like you can get away with telling people how ugly their little babies are. Have at it. Who knows, you may be part of the small percentage of the population that can be a complete asshole and still adored by legions of fan.
But if you are the rest of us who can’t quite pull that off, you need to tread carefully.
Don’t believe me?
Next time you are walking through the mall (or Wal-Mart…definitely try Wal-Mart) and you happen upon a person carrying/pushing/strutting their ugly baby for the world to see, don’t smile and say something complimentary like “He has such interesting eyes – they’re positively engaging” or “I love how her hair sticks out in every direction possible – shows she doesn’t take orders from anyone!”
Instead look at the baby, roll your eyes and flat out say “Wow, that’s an ugly baby”.
Go on.
Try it.
Let me know how that goes for you.
Photo Credit – flickr Mohd Khomaini Bin Mohd Sidik
Snarky! I like.
I just don’t like tearing anyone down in general. It doesn’t help anyone and falsely empowers the perpetrator.
Thanks Linda! Sarcasm is just one of the many services I offer…it tends to be one that most people don’t like though. 🙂
I agree, I hate tearing people down. Probably in part because I’m not very good at it. I wonder if I was better at it if I might be more successful.
I got really excited when I saw the post title, because I was hoping you were going to talk about the Stephen Lynch song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpWB_ZiFy-Q
That being said, the post reminded me a lot of Spontaneous Trait Transferrence (http://biopsychiatry.com/misc/speakwell.html) – speak badly of others and the same qualities are associated with you.
Are you saying that I speak badly of ugly babies because I’m worried I’m going to have an ugly baby?! 😉
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (whiner, mean-spirited colleague, or cynical by-stander.)There are no ugly babies.
I know what you are saying…I think it is very difficult to be objective when you are so ridiculously in love with something that you would die for it.
Sometimes objectivity is a matter of mean-spirit and cynicism. But sometimes it is someone seeing something we are too close to see for ourselves.
Still – it doesn’t help anything or anyone for an objective person to look at a subjective person’s “thing” and tell them it is ugly.
I have probably jinxed myself by commenting to others on ugly babies (never to the parents!). I really hope my babies are not ugly as karma. Sigh!
I agree, most times it isn’t right to comment negatively…but when someone is very wrong about something – I feel like I have to. :/
Haha, Diana, I totally empathize. Thus my terror of having ugly children myself!
I think there is a difference between having productive conversation and commenting negatively about stuff. Negative comments and judgments rarely advance any discussion. But there are ways to discuss someone being wrong about something without telling them flat out that their baby is ugly.
It generally will shut down any conversation.
On the original post – interesting concept, and funny too. I’ve met the ugly babies and the ugly sales people. So I got a double chuckle while reading it.
On your last comment: “I think there is a difference between having productive conversation and commenting negatively about stuff. Negative comments and judgments rarely advance any discussion. But there are ways to discuss someone being wrong about something without telling them flat out that their baby is ugly.” I agree. I love to debate (when I don’t feel threatened), but I can’t be mean spirited just for the sake of it. It’s just not me.
What I love about your blog: You allow your true personality to show through in your writing. Thanks for sharing.
Aw, thanks Jess! (Sorry your comment didn’t clear as first, I think it was the agency URL, got flagged by Akismet but I saved it from the spammy depths!)
I love debate and discussion. When I was younger I was totally one of those kids who wanted to be a lawyer because I’d get to argue with people! But as you said, it can’t be mean spirited. Aside from the fact I usually can’t bring myself to do it, I get frustrated when conversation degrades to that. Rarely does anything productive come out of it!
Great post Elisa!
I’m one of those mom’s who had a beautiful baby so I cannot respond to this objectively.
But, I can speak to knowing a complete asshole . . . my ex. A real charmer . . .