Babies Outside a Butcher's Shop, Dublin

Name/Title

Babies Outside a Butcher's Shop, Dublin

Entry/Object ID

2021.3.64

Made/Created

Artist

MacWeeney, Alen

Date made

1963

Dimensions

Height

19 in

Width

13 in

Interpretative Labels

Label

2024, “On the Outside Looking In?” It’s common, still, in Scandinavian countries, for parents to leave babies in strollers outside stores, often sleeping, if not looking in. Can you imagine this happening in contemporary America? We don’t need child psychologists, of course, to know that how we’re raised has a profound impact on our lives. Customs and creeds that condition us are established at a time when we lack the capacity to question them. But isn’t it interesting how rarely we explicitly question these things once we can? We know nothing about the adults that the kids in this picture became. If pressed, though, couldn’t you make pretty good guesses about, say, their religion and their dietary preferences? Were they ever choices? What about yours?