General scorn-pouring and manipulative babies

I think I need a volume control on my "Oh, for the love of all things HOLY" sigh, in case it offends someone.

Actually, I don't really think that, for the people who may be offended by my sighing are a) too thick-skinned to notice it and b) mental.

Recently (well, for the last half-decade or thereabouts, which is a short time where curmudgeonly sighing's concerned, let me tell you), this sigh has been directed at parents who tell me things about their new offspring. Some choice pearls include:

"He's SUCH a sociable baby, he really NEEDS the stimulation nursery will afford him" - about an 8 week old baby. I judge not when it comes to childcare, but fgs, make plausible excuses for it, not lunatic ones. An 8 week old baby isn't sociable. They might make eye contact and squeal a bit, but for heaven's sake, they'd do that at a black and white mobile (which, if you're the sort of parent who thinks 8 weeks olds need nursery to socialise them, you'll already own - see my first post if you're in need of more detail with regard to this purchase). They don't need bored nursery nurses who'd rather be fagging and nobbing to socialise with. As for the other babies, they haven't even worked out that they own their own hands at 8 weeks, so they're hardly likely to be swapping golfing anecdotes and inviting each other out for tea and cake at such a tender age, are they?

"Aw, she's crying because she thought she'd hurt you/broken your glasses" - no, she is three months old. She's crying because when she grabbed a handful of your cheek and squeezed hard, you let out an involuntary shriek and it scared the living wotsits out of her. She is not blessed with some sort of empathy beyond her years. This will be evident in just over two years' time when she takes great delight in pulling the handles off each one of your bone china teacups and grinding the cups themselves to a fine powder on your patio, then hunting out her baby brother for a spot of hair-pulling. As for your broken glasses, if it makes you feel better to believe that she has a concept of "your broken glasses", so be it. The fact she has no clue why you wear them and no idea that pulling one side of them so hard the arm snaps is not a good plan need not trouble you. If you believe that a little baby can have a moment's fleeting concern for your broken specs, you're probably out of reach of any scorn I could possibly be pouring.

But I reserve my most heartfelt sighing (and curmudgeonly lip-curling) for those parents who refer to their newborns as "manipulative". On what planet could a baby - who, let's face it, is a bundle of instincts and impulses - possibly be manipulative? Babies survive by crying for food. They can't order foie gras from birth, after all.