Every Parent Will Love This Gorilla Newborn and Mother Photo
There's nothing like a baby primate asleep on a parent's chest.
It is too easy to read human emotions into animals, especially awesomely intelligent ones like gorillas. But I can't help feeling a sort of genus pride and connection looking at this gorilla mother, Koola, and her baby at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo.
There is something about the baby's arms and the precise mechanics of this snuggle. I've been there, Koola. I feel you.
This is, of course, because my first child was born this year, and I cannot help feel the pull of parental love, even in the distorted mirror of another Great Ape.
My son is the axis around which my whole world spins now. And that world includes gorilla mommies.
At four months old, he can do so many things. Smile. Laugh. Charm. Grab his feet. Roll over. These all provide constant amazement for our little family. I never realized exactly how many lights have to come on for an adult brain to be formed. And as a parent, you get to watch each one spark, flicker, and then burn brightly.
But if there is one type of moment, one behavior, one feeling that will define this year for me, it would be those uncountable hours when my son slept on my chest in the early weeks of his life.
His tiny density would press down on my heart, and it was as if he was squeezing out every available molecule of love. A warmth would spread out from our points of contact and overwhelm every other thought and sense. They float still in my bloodstream, undiluted by time or the difficulty of our new life.
Evolution at work, the selfish gene, and all that, I guess. Science suggests that high-contact fathering sends a boost of oxytocin coursing through a man's body.
The mechanism might be hormonal, but the effect is metaphysical. This is being, and he is my reason.