WANTED: BABY FOR RENT OR LEASE
Some days I want to borrow a baby. I miss that sweet smell, those wide beautiful eyes, the cooing and the giggles. I just want to borrow one, or even rent one by the hour-my kids are in their twenties and I am not interested in raising any others right now. But to just hold a baby and rock it to sleep would be divine.
Author Dave Mosher calls it the Baby High, that feeling of euphoria enhances our senses and gives us a feeling of content and quiet joy. A subtle warm and gushy feeling that makes us all warm and fuzzy inside. Holding a baby is similar to a drug but minus any bad side effects. So why do we get the Baby High? According to Dave’s article in 2016, every emotion or feeling we experience originates in the brain.
Dave’s article states that some of these affective experiences manifest in the mind's outermost "thinking" layers, called the neocortex. Huh? This just means if we are doing something exhilarating like standing on a mountaintop and then pause to consider how lucky we are not to be working, we would then feel elated at our freedom. Holding a baby can remind us of pleasant experiences from our past.
Dopamine is the chemical that tells individual neurons to fire off a signal or not, influencing other brain signals and pathways, and essentially serves as a traffic cop of motivation, emotion, and social behavior.
Dr. Emily Deans wrote at Psychology Today "Therefore high amounts of dopamine can cause euphoria, aggression and intense sexual feelings." Dave reasons that this might partly explain the nature of the baby high.
Our church nursery is fresh out of babies at the moment but chock full of toddlers-all too busy to be held. I am thinking if I dropped in at a daycare and asked to hold a baby that the police would probably be called. So I may have to brainstorm and come up with a way to find a baby to hold. I’ll keep you posted.
I find a lesson to be learned in all things. I guess in this situation I should have paid closer attention to who’s having babies!
Please comment and let me know your thoughts on this post. Let me know if you come across anyone wanting to rent out a baby.
Here is a link to the Dave Mosher’s article I referenced
