29 years later, my mom informs me that I was an ugly baby. I'm glad I dodged the deep trauma and the psychological damage this knowledge surely would have inflicted on me if I'd learned of it during my formative years. Instead, I had to learn of it from my mother in front of an entire baby shower. Which I'm not sure was any better.

While she didn't come out and say that she thought I was an ugly baby, she didn't deny it, either. The story goes like this: mom sends baby picture to grandma; grandma shows baby picture to aunt; aunt says, "and you decided to keep her?" And at this point, instead of defending the beauty of her baby, mom says, "well, she was long and thin... really skinny... she had these beautiful long fingers, though."

Great. So now I'm a scrawny, disproportionate baby.

Now I need to find some baby pictures of myself and scan them in and let you be the judges. Trust me, nothing you say could be worse than hearing from your own mother that you were an ugly baby.

(A related news item, a bit old, but still relevant: study shows that ugly children are less loved.)