Does every parent really think their kid is the most beautiful?

[OhEmGee24]

This was a conversation bought up in the staff room regarding parents and their kids. What's the mumsnet opinion?

Yes I do, and when he was born I did wonder briefly if he was the 2nd coming seriously

9 years later I'm not so convinced on the 2nd but definately still the most gorgeous little chap in the world.

My DS is the most beautiful child to ever exist in the entire history of humanity.

I know that a few of you would disagree and say that you probably think your own child is beautiful. I think that's lovely, but you are delusional.

Lol! Tell it like it is!

I remember my friend visiting me in hospital after having ds1...she took a surreptitious wander round the ward, then came back to reliably inform me that I had the best one.
Got to love friends like that - she was hormonal with me.

To me, yes. The rest of the world is welcome to their own opinion. it's not up for debate or discussion

When I took newborn dd out to show her to some friends for the first time I worried that the one with a young baby would get upset because she would compare hers with mine and feel inferior because mine was so gorgeous She was a gorgeous baby in my defense and I was crazy first time new parent.

When ds1 was a newborn I took lots of pictures, as you do, and got them developed quickly (digital cameras were just coming out back then) - and one load of photos made me laugh and question my sanity.
There were about 10 shots of ds1's ear.
I remembered being awestruck at the perfection of his tiny ear and deciding the photographic evidence was required.
10 blurry close ups of an ear. Fucking hell.
I've still got them and I chuckle whenever I come across them. Me and my mummy goggles.

Dd is the most gorgeous 2 year old ever, so there! Crap sleeper though

pictish - I have random photos of body parts of my two from the very early days

Been thinking about this.

When my children were babies (so up until they were about 1) I definitely thought they were the most beautiful babies in the world. I remember feeling such a visceral fundamental certainty that the other babies we knew looked odd and strange in comparison. I think this is nature (and hormones). The other babies (my children's peers) were not mine and I didn't really 'see' them the way I saw my own (in their shining beauty ).

Now I look back at baby photos from the time, and I know I was a bit nuts, but still think my response was appropriate in terms of how deeply and viscerally I'd bonded with my babies. Some of the photos! They look like potatoes. Beautiful potatoes, but still...

Now my dcs are older, of course I love them. But I know that they're not necessarily the most physically beautiful. I still think they are beautiful (they are to me), but I'm not threatened by comparisons with other more photogenic children. I'm more confident and the physical beauty/attraction that a young baby needs (because there's not much else going for a young baby lets face it - bit like they seem to learn to smile just as you feel like leaving them on the bus for being so unrewarding) has been replaced by actually knowing the dcs and having a more complex bond with them.

Of course, at the same time as thinking my small babies were the most beautiful, I knew that probably most of the other deluded mothers thought their baby was more beautiful.

I think every parent thinks that they have to say that they think their child is the most beautiful creature that ever existed, even if they don't really think it.

bobbledunk yes!

I used to feel slightly (smugly) sad for the other mothers.

I tried not to let it show - just used my mother as a sounding board for my insanity.

Looking back at the photos, I am in AWE of the hormones. They are some strong shit.

At birth DS was very fair and, when asleep, went china-doll pale. A day or two after he arrived he was showing signs of jaundice so the staff attached him to a phototherapy unit for several hours. As the ward lights went down he was illuminated in an ethereal blue light. At this point his very religious gran visited, took one look at this translucent, ghostly-looking creature in his glowing plastic crib, and declared him an angel fallen from heaven. So not only the most beautiful child apparently but also a celestial being .... Do I win?

i remember some bastard dad saying how you wouldnt call my dd beautiful, unlike his dd. they were about 9 years old at the time. what a prick.
and anyway, he was wrong, wrong wrong.

You win.

Ds2 was (and still is) very fair and pale, and when he was born he almost had a bue-ish tinge, so porcelain like was he. The other two were like red balls of fury!

Thank you Stealth! :) I think parents have to see their children as beautiful, amazing creatures, it helps us get through waking 5 times a night

Pictish and Headfairy, your children are beautiful too, I'm enjoying looking at all the photos.

I know what you mean about the hormones, DD is 8 months now and I look at some photos from when she was about 2 months old and I thought it was the most beautiful photo of a baby ever taken. Now I look and she's very beautiful but slightly Winston Churchill-esque. Photos of her now though...

I wasn't convinced of my dd1's loveliness when she was a baby, I thought she was lovely but had very large eyes which bulged like a frog, and her hair was rather mousy. I did worry she wasn't going to be very pretty but I needn't have worried

I think as others have said, this devotional adoration is a sign of bonding, just as it is with a partner (I think my husband is really handsome too).

But it has never blinded me completely, I think my children are nice-looking (lovely glossy hair, nice skin, pretty features) but I don't think they are going to be models, really I don't.

I'm the same - I think my children are attractive but you won't be seeing them in the Next directory any time soon.

Bees - your wee baby daughter is lovely. She looks so smiley!
My dd has never smiled for the camera, even as a baby. She scowls at it. I haven't got one good photo of her smiling...as soon as she spots the camera she gets the face on until it goes away again. I have tried to catch her unawares many times, but never quite been successful.

DS1 is gorgeous, stunning in fact (must have been a mix up on the maternity ward ) DS2, whilst gorgeous and beautiful in a cute way honestly does not have his brother's good looks, I am still amazed at how beautiful they both are though.

DS2 was bloody ugly when he was about 3 months to about 1 then he became nice again!

Nope! DD is beautiful to me, but I can also look at her from other people's eyes and others won't see her the way I do.

But I have a friend who thinks that ALL Children are attractive and I find that really strange... It's all very well to love children and be very comfortable around them, but to think they're all beautiful? I find myself thinking, 'your child looks like a pixie, yours looks like an oompa loompa' etc etc, not that I'd ever say it, it's just my opinion and I'm sure they have the same view of me and mine. I've never seen so many strange looking children as there were in my DD's photo from school (they're all aged 2-3).

But I'm sure to all their parents, they're beautiful.

Exactly Katniss. I'm partly inclined to agree with your friend, as I think most children are pretty cute and easy on the eye too.
Not all of them, mind - but in general. When I see the nursery kids all sitting cross legged for their story, I get dewy eyed. ALL so pretty!

Fwiw - no matter how attractive your child is, if you let him or her run around with snot on their face, no-one will love them. Clean it up, parents.

There are definitely a proportion of parents who are deluded about their child's looks. These must be the same ilk who go on ex-factor thinking they can sing or supporting a relative who has no talent. Shit in your eyes/ears.

There is a big difference between YOU thinking your child is beautiful and thinking that EVERYONE ELSE agrees.

A friend of mine has a DD who is probably slightly above average looks wise but for the last 15 years I have had to sit through hours of discussions about this girls 'beauty' and all the problems it is causing e.g. Bullying from other girls. Even in the maternity hospital she pulled me to one side and said "I feel so awful having a baby this beautiful in here. Have you looked in some of the cots?...it must be making all the other mothers feel really bad...I'm going to discharge myself, it's just not fair"

She wasn't joking and her baby looked awful at that stage (as many newborns do). She is a lovely, intelligent, caring person but I suspect she also over-estimates her own beauty in her head.

I have 3 DCs and only one is very attractive and he has a different father to my youngest two.

My middle DC looked like William Hague for the first 6 weeks, bright ginger hair on the sides of her head, nothing on the top

I went through a stage of being pestered by a friend to vote on beauty contests for her DS, she entered everything going and was convinced he was an absolute stunner. He was so unattractive I just couldn't bring myself to vote. He was a lovely natured child but not a looker. After he didn't win anything after a few years I think the penny dropped.

Parents are so sensitive about looks.

The mother and baby group I went to with William Hague my middle child had a baby there who was breath-takingly beautiful, I used to say she could have been on a knitting pattern.
All the other mothers would glare at me if I mentioned it as if I was saying their baby's resembled Satan's scrotum.