Boy or girl?
22.09.2011
Babies. Not really the first thing on your mind at the moment, right? But then this friend of your parents comes around to show off her new kid, and all of a sudden you're stuck: you can't remember whether it's a girl or a boy. You simply weren't listening at the time the happy news arrived. So you look for a clue in the baby's smiling face, but it just looks like ... a baby. What to do?
A similar thing happened to me not so long ago. My cousin had had a baby, but not one of the cousins I am very close with. And at the next big family party, there I was - staring into the sky-blue eyes of a newborn, racking my brain for a gender.
It was time to say something. I would have to avoid the personal pronouns "he" or "she". I didn't want to use "it", either, as the mother might interpret that in the wrong way, too; after all, a baby is a person, not an object. So the first thing I said was: "What a cute baby!" The baby's mother smiled approvingly at my comment, but it seemed too early to change the subject quite yet. Oh no! I really needed to solve the gender problem right away. I tickled the baby's feet to buy some time. Then I had an idea: "How old are you now?" I asked the baby.
And my cousin said: "She's almost two months."
Mission completed.
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