When Are Kids No Longer Cute?

My grand daughter Andie only has two more years of cuteness left.

You see, science has established a timeline for when cute kids are no longer cute.

It’s not a coincidence that we send our kids off to school all day once they reach age five.  A study by the University of Toronto found that kids stop being cute once they reach four-and-a-half.

People rated infants as cuter and more likeable than toddlers, and toddlers as cuter than slightly older children.

And at four-and-a-half, kids start to change.  They lose their round baby faces, and their noses and mouths grow more in proportion to their eyes, making them look less like babies and more like little kids.

At that point, key “facial cues” like big eyes and heads combined with small noses and mouths become less apparent. ”These cues make us feel soft and protective, whether or not we’re biologically relatives,” an expert writes in Time magazine. That helps babies survive; indeed, babies with “tiny eyes, flat foreheads, and square faces” tend to get less attention.

Bonnie Rochman reflects on the study in Time, noting that while she doesn’t have a favorite child, it would be difficult to argue that her youngest —at just about 4½—doesn’t win the cuteness race. “Her face is still round, her body still squeezable, her baby teeth intact, and her syntax to die for.”

I don’t believe this for a second, my kids were cute to well past eight.