Little Human Baby Meat

From our ‘Overheard on the streets of Tokyo’ files:
The granny was pushing the empty pram home. Her two or three-year-old granddaughter trotted alongside, several steps to the granny’s one.
‘What do you want for dinner tonight?’
The sun was going down and it looked like it had been a long day.
‘I want fried shrimp, and fried potatoes, and vegetables…’ the child answered in her babyish burble, ‘…and meat.’
‘Meat, really? On top of all that?’
‘Yes. I want meat - little, human, baby meat. Baby meat would be delicious!’
You see this is why I can never see myself having kids. They go and say stuff like this right out in the open for everyone to hear. Lord knows I said and did enough as a child to shame my parents. But that’s a blog for another day.
This kid’s granny was just great. She totally played along, all gentle with ‘Really?’ and ‘So you’d like that would you?’ and ‘Is that so?’
She left her granddaughter’s burgeoning self free to explore the boundaries of its little universe. With her, this kid was free to challenge and experiment and form her own moral compass.
I’ve read that children’s play is almost universally violent and gory, but usually not a cause for worry. It’s supposed to be a perfectly natural and necessary part of growing up to be a normally functioning member of society.
Had I been looking after the rugrat, though, I think I would have totally freaked out.
As a guardian, how are you supposed to know where healthy stops and crazy begins? Pulling the head off a Barbie Doll? Skewering slugs on a stick to fling at unsuspecting siblings? Tying other siblings to beds with ropes and leaving them forgotten in their room with panic their only companion?
One whiff of infanticide and I’d have had that girl down the nearest mental clinic faster than you can say ‘The fruit of my loins may be the next Jeffrey Dahmer.’
This little episode reminded me of the funniest ever comment from my friend and former co-worker, A.
Now friends would agree that she doesn’t give off the most outwardly maternal of vibes.
So when the topic of child rearing came up, we were all a little surprised to hear her declare,
‘I love babies.’
‘No, I do. I love them…’


‘…but I couldn’t eat a whole one.’