How come most toddlers are really cute and most adults aren't?

We are biological creatures, prone to wear and tear, wrinkle and decay, and a general patina of being worn out. While that may look wise and worldly on some, most of us just look like ten miles of bad road.

Add to that the weight of simply living. While some of us can live carefree without much loss or abandonment, many of us have known loss of life, emotional or intellectual disconnect, or apathy far too frequently. It wears on you physically. Even if you’re fairly zen with the impermanence if it all, it still takes its toll.

Children have yet to experience any of that yet.

A matter of perspective, really. It’s the opposite for me.

Toddlers don’t have ego, they just are. They are always present.

Get above age 7 or 8 and one starts to lose that.

It is an evolutionary thing. Since human children require such lengthy care until they are self sufficient, they have large eyes and little button noses and cupid bows for mouths to make adults want to take care of them.

@marinelife Yup, just like Simon.

I always thought it was an evolutionary thing (along with the biological mama-bear instincts or hormones to protect your infant/small child)...so that we wouldn’t want to eat our young.

My oldest (soon off to college) has said he only likes small children or babies on toast..with a nice white sauce or bearnaise.

A lot of what’s cute about little kids is their openess, honesty and trusting nature. Add to that the round faces, big eyes, button noses and “cupid bow mouths” that @marinelife mentions and we can’t help but melt, smitten with their adorableness.

They are still growing bone and cartilage so their face changes a lot as they get older. Their inherited genes and their environment both play a role in how they develop. There are some really interesting studies going on now concerning epigenetics.

Here’s one that’s less about morphogenesis, that is maturing body structure and more about inherited traits. It’s all about Nature vs. Nurture and how both Nature and Nurture are factors in physical appearance and traits. Mice born from fathers who had been taught to fear a certain smell developed with more of the olfactory cells needed to detect that specific smell. The mice were born by IVF and never knew their fathers. Hmmm….

Well, for one they have big giant eyes! That’s always cuteness.

I think that is true for most mammals. Look at puppies, kittens, deer fawn, fox and racoon kits. They are cute as buttons!

^^^ Cuz they have big, giant eyes.

^^ So Marty Feldman is cute?

Ew no! There is a difference between big eyes and protruding eyes!

JUSTICE!

So we don’t drown them at birth.

@Dutchess_III is there a difference between big breasts and protruding breasts?

All breasts are protruding, which is what makes them breasts. Not sure what your point is. Protruding eyes usually indicates some sort of illness. Protruding breasts do not.

Well, I was gonna say is there a difference between a big penis and protruding penis but I thought that would sound too sexist and get me modded.

Although, as a question, it does make more sense.

Toddlers are not cute. They are hideously deformed homunculi, that would only look good in a jar of formaldehyde.

@ragingloli But what if they had tentacles instead of arms and legs?

Tentacle babies are cute

@ragingloli You’re right! They are cuter!

Only my children were cute toddlers, all others appear as enlarged footballs, ripe for a kicking.

It an evolutionary trait that keeps us from eating them.

Because God made babies (puppies, kittens, calves) and children cute to suck us in so we take care of them.

unless he wants you to dash them against rocks

@cookieman and @zenvelo win.

….and miles to go before I sleep. Robert Frost.

Look how precious I once was. lol
Now, everyone post a toddler picture of yourself, come on, just do it!

Do school girls use the word “cute” anymore to describe boys they like? When I was in school a century or so ago that was about the most tantalizing comment a guy could get.

@Pachy My husband doesn’t like being called cute. I’ve used that word for him for years. Many of the women I used to work with called him adorable. He didn’t like that much either.

@JLeslie, I can understand that, although personally, I’d like it now as much as I did when I was a kid. I just wonder if kids still use the word today.

I have no idea if they still use the word. It’s a good question. I never hear my niece and nephew use it, but they don’t talk about stuff like that around me. I don’t spend enough time around them I think to get to talking about that sort of thing.

My husband thinks cute is for puppies and babies I guess; not for men. Maybe it’s a language thing also? How he translates from Spanish to English. I call him beautiful and he never complains. I think most American men think beautiful is for females.

Small children have rounder faces, small noses, and wide eyes (a jelly talked about this above) and those proportions are attractive to us, brings out the nurturing mode. A little ick is that is often seen as favorable features on women. Although, now I see a trend towards appreciating more angular faces on adult women. That small nose thing was (still is) good business for cosmetic surgeons.