p. 13 | Kissing the Baby

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 17, 1907

Kissing the Baby

It Is a Custom Which Ought to Be Violently Discouraged

There is one respect, at least, in which democratic American mothers will do well to imitate royalty. That is the way in which indiscriminate caresses are forbidden the adoring circle of relatives to his little royal highness, the new baby of many names. No one but the queen and the Duchess of York is permitted to kiss him.

That is a most wise rule. A baby is something more than a flower to be passed from hand to hand or a peach to be bitten. It is a nervous little organism, more liable to disorders of all sorts than older persons. And yet it is much to be doubted whether Corbett himself could stand the treatment bestowed upon a helpless infant. It is tossed and cuddled and kissed. No one ever waits to learn whether it is in a mood for caresses. No one ever imagines that it would be better content with less demonstrative affection. It is half smothered beneath kisses. It is rendered breathless, feverish, and nervous by the treatment it receives, and the mother who permits such things wonders that the baby cries so much “for nothing.”—Selected.