Poor mom. Breastfeeding mothers out there are probably cringing along with the vervet monkey that is suffering through this meal. Breastfeeding is one of the more reliable ways to make sure your kids stay fed, but it without a doubt comes with some…downsides.
For instance, once your kids start growing little chompers, you’re going to start looking into different options pretty quickly. It seems like this kid should be moving to a nice, yummy banana instead of torturing his poor mother in such a way. Or maybe this is just how vervet monkeys get it done. It still doesn’t seem very nice.
Snuggle Time!
Everybody loves a cute baby. It makes perfect sense – natural selection wants us to want the species to continue, so we tend to like infant varieties of our own species. This is true for all primates, not just humans, and we think this picture of a pair of proud macaque parents snuggling their newborn daughter is a perfect example.
Mom and Dad seem all agog over their little bundle of joy. Hard to argue – she's a cutie. Skin-to-skin (or in this case fur-to-fur) contact is a big part of growing a relationship between parents and children, and these monkeys are on their way.
Looking Around
Babies are, by their very nature, wonderfully inquisitive. Once they're out in the real world, they have two jobs: learn, and eat. We all know that they have the latter task figured out (just try to stop them from eating everything in sight), but the first task is a little slower.
They have to take in everything around them to learn how to live. This is also a survival tactic – they need to make sure what's going on around them so that they can learn how best to protect themselves. This little kid is finally taking a look around!
Busy, Busy, Busy
Even if you are a parent, there's a pretty slim chance that you have to take care of five kids all at the same time. We guess you could be someone who works at a daycare.
This poor parent, however, looks like she's about ready to call it a day. Just look at those droopy puppy dog eyes. All you want to do is tell her she's doing the right thing. She might not understand the words, but maybe she'll understand the emotions anyway. Keep going, Mom. This is pretty darn important.
All Right You Two, Knock It Off
Kids – siblings especially – are going to get into tussles. Sometimes it means they're still learning how best to interact with others, sometimes it's just getting all of that kid energy out of their bodies.
Often, however, it leads to some bad feelings, which is when the parents have to step in. In this picture, this seems to be what Dad is doing – hard to miss that big mane – even though it's just as likely that he's jumping in to join the fun while Mom isn't looking. Dads are good for that.