There is a specific kind of facial expression that only a newborn with forehead wrinkles can pull off. I see a baby in a red flannel shirt and he looks like a seasoned lumberjack who is about to tell me why my grip on the axe is all wrong. This parenting humor is built on the fact that some kids just skip the childhood phase entirely. We have tiny middle managers who look like they just saw you walk in five minutes late to your shift and they are already drafting the write up. It is a level of existential judgment that I am not prepared to handle from a person who cannot even hold their own head up yet. We are looking at infants in cable knit sweaters who look like friendly neighborhood grandmothers ready to offer you a hard boiled candy and a story about the war. It is a total circus! I see a cross armed baby with a stern expression and I am pretty sure he is the bouncer at an exclusive milk bar. This category of funny infants is a masterclass in the uncanny. We have swaddled newborns with squints and double chins that make them look like fifty year old men who just finished a twelve hour shift at the warehouse. It is a brilliant display of baby faces that have seen too much and are already tired of your nonsense before their first diaper change.

The crying baby with prominent forehead wrinkles looking stressed about his mortgage and taxes is the anthem of my life. These old looking baby moments are a reminder that even at our most vulnerable, we are still capable of projecting pure annoyance. We celebrate the retired grandparents of the nursery because they bring a level of gravitas to the diaper changing table that we didn’t know we needed. Whether it is a smiling baby with a high hairline leading a board meeting or a newborn with messy hair who missed his retirement, the energy is consistently old man tropes. We are all just roasting these tiny retirees because if we didn’t, we would have to acknowledge that they are probably smarter than us. It is an affectionately roasting journey through the delivery room where the babies are already sixty five years old and ready to complain about the neighbors. I hope these photos make you feel better about your own aging process. At least you weren’t born with a 401k and a receding hairline. Stay young, or at least try to look younger than these newborns.