Different by design

Now that Adam is almost 2 years old, we're having to carry him loads more than before. Yes, ironic I know but he's in that terrible clingy-tantrumy phase that just sucks.

Anyhow, this extra carrying has made me notice something: A big difference between how men and women carry children. I first noticed it on Kelly, and I've been looking close at every woman I see carrying a child, and I noticed that all of them carry babies different to how a man would.

To best demonstrate this, I took some pictures.

EXHIBIT ONE: This is how men carry children: Notice our forearm acts a seat for the child's bum, all his weight is carried on your forearm. Hard work.



EXHIBIT TWO: This is how women carry children: note how Kelly's arm is around Adam's back, his bum is actually seated on her hips. By design, women have wider/more stick out hips than we do, and this is used to great effect when carrying a child. His weight is almost all taken by the hip, rather than the arm.

This wider hip is a design genius really, it's there to give space to an ever-growing gravid uterus; to make the pelvis wider to give birth to the foetus; and it turns out it's also a great perch for kids to be carried on.

Amazing.