Alexa, order me some candy

A baby's first words are a memorable family event and I'll never forget those of my kid sister.  She was born in 1954 and, in what could be seen as a sign of future media influence, her first words weren't Mama or Dada.  She very clearly said "Davy Crockett."  Although it caused many tongues to wag the family took it in stride with good humor and the words Mama and Dada soon followed.  The  name Davy Crockett itself couldn't have meant much to her as she quickly moved on, expanding her vocabulary as children do, and she seldom mentioned Davy again.  It was funny while it lasted.

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A few posts back Uncle Ken mentioned that human gestation was determined by the size of the baby's head; the birth canal is too narrow for our melon-headed offspring.  Makes a lot of sense to me, and it reminds me of the writings of Desmond Morris that I read decades ago.  Anyhow, that got me thinking and wondering about human gestation.  Suppose the birth canal was big enough to permit full development of the infant; would a baby start walking within a few hours after birth, like you see with horses and such?  Maybe that's a bad example because many animals, such as cats and dogs, are born helpless and need time to develop before they are up and about.  I also started thinking about birds and reptiles; both hatch from eggs but the birds are very helpless and immature while the reptiles are on the move from the get-go.  Mother Nature is capricious and has a sense of humor but it could be stranger, I'm sure.


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I'm wondering also if we are at a turning point in childhood development, at least in industrialized society.  In earlier times, the only influences on a child's behavior in the first few years of life were those provided by the immediate family.  Parental control was almost absolute and a rudimentary sense of ethics was easily established and reinforced with outside social influences being limited and kids knowing how to behave before they went to school.  It was easy enough to turn off the radio or television but I don't know if that could work today especially with the growing use of "the internet of things" and smart appliances.  How can a responsible parent prevent a toddler from talking to a refrigerator and asking such things as "Alexa, what's an orgasm?"  Followup questions to Mom and Dad at the dinner table will make for interesting conversations, I think.