To many of us, kids are just a squishy bundle of preciousness that can't even take a decent punch. If there's anything super about them it's their ability to produce a seemingly infinite amount of poop. But you only think this because, like most super geniuses, babies revel in deception because they answer to no god. Not unlike Clark Kent, babies everywhere managed to fool the world with their mild-mannered public persona, masking the amazing superpowers nearly all of them possess.
Slap a pair of tights on any random toddler, and you have a bona fide superhero (or, realistically, supervillain). The many kick-ass powers we lost as we got older include:
![5 Superpowers We All Had as Babies (According to Science)]()
When deprived of one sense or a skill, a person usually compensates for it in some other way. That's why blind people have amazing hearing and out-of-shape comedy writers are incredible in bed. In the same way, babies who have yet to fully acquire language learn pretty fast how to read the nonverbal emotional states of the adults around them. In fact, they are so creepily skilled at reading your face and body language that experts compare it to "mind reading."
![5 Superpowers We All Had as Babies (According to Science)]()
You blame me for never making it as a professional dancer, mommy.
In 2007, the team at the University of Washington Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences conducted an experiment with 18-month old toddlers found they become so sensitive to the subtlest psychological changes in a person's expressions that it might actually explain why they always cry when you come anywhere near them. They can feel the deep-seeded hatred for all things baby under that fake smile of yours.
It gets weirder.
See, their mind-reading doesn't end with fellow humans. A study from Brigham Young University has shown that kids not even six-months old who have never been confronted with a dog in their entire lives, could easily match the different barks of a canine with their corresponding pictures. Which is interesting because HOLY SHIT BABIES CAN UNDERSTAND ANIMALS!
Sadly, these amazing abilities get lost the minute the babies learn how to talk and get their hands on Twitter, becoming the modern age nonverbal-communication cripples. Before that though, they are basically Lil' Professor Xaviers.
![5 Superpowers We All Had as Babies (According to Science)]()
You are... utterly disgusted and... thoroughly depressed. Did I get that right, daddy?
493 Comments