Ugly Baby Syndrome

Why am I surprised? I mentioned just last week how much I despise those stupid surveys that show that fat people don't get treated as well as thin people, and so forth. But the latest survey is the mother of all stupid surveys. In fact it has to do with mothers...and fathers...and ugly kids.
Seems this researcher in Canada sat in parking lots and skulked around grocery stores and watched how parents treated their kids. His conclusion: Parents don't treat ugly kids as well as they treat the pretty ones.
Now the very premise is stupid, but let's think about this just a little more deeply. Here's this one man (or maybe a few of his equally asanine researchers) who goes in the store and starts labeling kids as being pretty, or ugly, or pretty ugly. And, then he watches how much attention the parents pay to each kid, or how far they let them get away from the cart, or how often they buckle the kids up in the car. But all of his conclusions are based on what his definition of pretty is.
First thing I'd want to know is what does this guy look like, and what does his wife look like, and his kids? You know how sometimes you'll be out in public and you'll run into a couple where one is quite attractive, and the other looks like he/she has been beat with an ugly stick? And yet the pretty mate is looking at the ugly one like he/she is the most beautiful person I've ever seen.
Or, has anyone ever shown you a picture of their kid and the tyke is just ugly warmed over. And yet some sentimental woman (seldom a man) looks over your shoulder at the same picture and coos, "Awww, isn't she the cutest little thing?" Now, maybe this person is laboring under the delusion that all babies are cute, but just maybe this person really thinks that this ugly baby is, indeed, cute.
The point is (and, yes, I do have a point), how can one man set himself up as the judge of what's ugly and what's cute? For instance, when I was a teen-ager, I did an unscientific survey that concluded that all good-looking girls were grossed out by me. But, as I get older, and maybe this is because my tastes have changed, I now realize that even a lot of ugly females are grossed out by me.
So, who really is to say? One thing for certain. From now on, when someone stands trial for some grisly murder, there'll be some shyster lawyer who'll argue that the defendant was deprived of a decent upbringing because he was ugly and his parents didn't treat him as well as they did his pretty sibling. And, there'll be juries who buy that. And before you know it, you'll have a bunch of ugly thugs roaming the streets because...hold on, we already do have that. Well, I guess I rest my case.