A Century of Infants Who Were All That

Our lack of a national child-care plan notwithstanding, American culture is slavishly devoted to babies. We use their round-cheeked, single-toothed smiles to sell everything from tires to life insurance. We dress them as bees and put them on calendars. We know the minute someone famous has one, adopts one and, if possible, conceives one.

As we teeter on the millennial edge, it was only a matter of time before the lists began, and Babycenter.com offers “10 Babies of the Century.”

Chosen by historical merit, they are, in chronological order: the first Montessori students, the Gerber baby, the Lindbergh baby, Little Ricky Ricardo, JFK Jr., James Hathaway (whose father was an early delivery-room participant), Louise Brown (the test-tube baby), the billionth Chinese baby, Baby Fae (heart transplant recipient) and Avery Brown (Murphy Brown’s controversial, single-parented son).

Now, 10 is a relatively small number considering the world’s birthing center should have a sign reading 6 billion served, so we offer a few others to consider: the Thalidomide babies, whose births changed the nature of drug testing in this country; the Dionne quintuplets, the McCaughey septuplets, and perhaps Baby M, who sparked a national discussion on surrogacy and the meaning of the word parent.

And certainly if Little Ricky and Master Avery Murphy made the list, we should consider other equally important fictitious babies, including Betsy Wetsy, who made so many Christmas mornings a soggy nightmare, Tabitha Stephens, who showed that witchcraft is a dominant gene . . . and, of course, Pebbles Flintstone, who shocked a generation by proving that Wilma did indeed have sex with Fred.