That just proves that age and treachery will overcome youth and skill. ;-).

Cute video.

That was so extremely cute! (And instructive, of course.)

Very cute puppy... But why does the sound of that woman's voice make me want to kill, kill, kill? It's all clipped and squeaky and cloying.

Does that pitch do anything good for children? (Or puppies?) The best parents I know always speak to their children in an adult voice, no itty-bitty-widdle pandering mannerisms. Toddlers can handle being toddlers on their own... Parents don't need to regress to show them the way.

See also.

OMG I agree with Crid! BLAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Also, a high pitched tone is the best way to make your dog go nuts. I have a pure bred husky, and a german shepard, and can tell you the best way to pick a fight with a dog is to use a high pitched tone.

Lol. Dog says to puppy, "It's okay. The human isn't going to hurt you. Just ignore her and go down the stairs anyway."

Is there a link to the radio show?

> I agree with Crid!

I know.

It's human nature to use the itty-bitty-widdle tone of voice with babies. For me, it wore thin after a couple of months. Then I started speaking to my kids with grown-up vocabulary and sentence structure.

Both of them are far above their piers verbally, and my 6-year-old is reading at a 3rd grade level. My 4-year-old sounds like a tiny grown up, especially when he's trying to talk us into something.

Bottom line, treat them like intelligent little people, and they'll become intelligent little people.

Get used to it Crid, it'll only happen the once, and only cause you copped someone else's opinion. Probably Dr. Seuss.

> It's human nature to use the itty-bitty-widdle
> tone of voice with babies.

It's human nature to wolf-whistle at attractive women on the street, too. Human nature needs discipline.

> they'll become intelligent little people.

Do we wanna raise 'little' people?

Do we wanna raise 'little' people? -- Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 17, 2013 8:23 PM

Yes. I told people that my name was James, distinctly when they would call my Jimmy as a child. That put them on notice that I was not an immature slug.

BTW, Crid, is your name a variation on crud?

Thanks for your thoughts, Jim.

I seriously believe that the habits of many women for baby talk and pinching cheeks (etc.) are violations in parallel to behaviors in men which the broader society has rightly learned to condemn as base and primitive impulses.

We all know which parts of masculine nature we don't like: Civilization has been taming them for ten thousand years. Many women take offense at the suggestion that feminine nature even has a dark side, and certainly aren't ready to list its expressions... But I think this kind of thing might be one of them.

I love babies but I hate that squeaky shrill itty bitty voice that some women use to talk to them, too. And, what most people don't know is that most babies hate it too. The sound is actually painful on their sensitive ears. The sound of your natural voice, or a lower tone, is actually much more soothing. This is also why shrieking at kids doesn't work when you're trying to disipline them; it hurts them and makes you look like an out of control loon. Who would pay any attention to that?

I don't see that anyone else pointed this out.. The woman encouraged the puppy to go down by itself, or follow the bigger dog, but didn't intervene and just carry him down. I think this is a good lesson for those 'copter parents. They will figure it out, if you just let them.

Crid would know, I see a couple failed marriages in his past and future....

I didn't have time to find a link I was very satisfied with, but at least you will get the gist.

Parentese

“Parentese has a melody to it. And inside this melody is a tutorial...."

So it's a linguistics deal!

No, wait, it's a piece of music!

No, wait, it's an instructional thang!

Alright, whatever. I'll give you the first few months. With your own kids. After that...

Listen, there's a time when it's OK for the construction worker to let the shapely secretary on the sidewalk know exactly how he feels about the slope of her hips... That time is in private, after some coffees and intimate dinners and other social reciprocities.

But I think that women who go overboard with this stuff — squealing in public at other people's babies and so forth — are precisely as boorish and deluded as the pot-bellied asshole who offends passersby from the cracked-vinyl throne of his Cat. Some may be charmed, but these intimacies aren't universally appropriate.

And we were talking about a DOG, after all...

@Crid:

>> It's human nature to use the itty-bitty-widdle
>> tone of voice with babies.

>It's human nature to wolf-whistle at attractive >women on the street, too. Human nature needs >discipline.

Not *quite* the same thing. Babies actually like the high-pitched tone of voice. A wolf-whistle will just get you slapped.

>> they'll become intelligent little people.

>Do we wanna raise 'little' people?

Well, when they're 4 and 6 they are 'little' people. By the time I finish raising them, I'm pretty sure they'll be normal adult size.

> A wolf-whistle will just get you slapped.

Only often enough for most of us to not make a habit of it. Besides, that's kind of the point: Kids can't go around slapping adults no matter how badly they want to.

Also.

(The fact that portrait framing better captures the action in this particular instance in no way exonerates the photographer for this grotesque violation of Hollywood cultural norms. For shame, for shame.)

The video asserts what many parents have known for generations (if only to be forgotten by the next). Specifically, that the second child (and 3rd, 4th,...) pick up things from the first and thus seem to "learn" faster.

I have, pretty much my whole life, gotten along better with people older or younger than me. When I got my first job, at age 24, I was in an office that was almost entirely 50-somethings, with a 40-something thrown in for "diversity." Socially, it wasn't a problem for me at all.

Schools artificially group people by age, then tell them it's for learning "social skills." Well, where else in the world do you spend 90% of your time with people who are within 9 months of your age?

My son (age 6) loves playing with the older kids in the neighborhood, but when they want to just play older-kid games, my son will happily play with the younger kids (3-5). Since this started (we haven't always lived here), his group-management skills have soared. The parents of the wee-ones say their kids are doing more elaborate make-believe & have increased their vocabulary (and they love having a "big kid" play with them).

Cute video. Thanks for sharing it.