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As far as I can tell, there's two pretty safe things to go with for the average baby visitor. One is to say something about how cute the baby is, and one is to offer an opinion on which parent she looks like. The problem with these, for me, is that I am bad at lying.

I'm not saying the baby is ugly; I'm just saying that I don't know how to tell how cute a baby is any more than a tone-deaf person can tell you if something is off-key. Most babies -- especially newborns -- look very, very similar to me, and to many other people. And I'm not saying babies aren't cute in different, unique ways; I'm saying I can't tell, because I'm baby-deaf. If there was something different enough about the baby for me to notice, it probably wouldn't be something I would want to point out ("Is that a unibrow?" or "Why are his eyes pointing in different directions?").

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"I notice your baby is a different race than both of you."

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I'm happy to just go ahead and say that the baby is cute, because I'm sure she probably is, but like I said, I'm a bad liar, so I'm terrified the parents will find out and ... I don't know, not compliment my baby when I have one? I haven't thought it through; I'm just scared of people being mad at me.

The other lie I'm afraid of being caught out in is guessing who it looks like, because apparently there is a correct answer. When I saw my brother's baby, I said, "He really looks like Kevin!" because I thought that was a safe remark, and everyone just stared at me skeptically and said, "Really?" And then someone asked, "What part?" and I really started sweating. I mumbled something about the eyes, which was also wrong, because apparently his eyes really look like his mom's.