Why he'll always be my baby

"I'm not a baby. I'm a little boy," says my son. Often. And he is right. He is growing up so quickly (seriously...who knew time traveled this fast?). And he has every right to remind me that he is more boy than baby.

I may think of him as my "baby boy" often, but evidently, it's not entirely my fault. A study by the Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, sheds some light on why the youngest child in a family is perceived as a "baby." According to the study, we parents are under an illusion that our first child is smaller than he is in reality. When a new baby sibling along, the spell is broken and we see how big our first born really is and we pass along the smallness illusion to our youngest child.

This explains a lot. Except that my son is an only child. Does this mean that I will see him as my "baby" forever? (For the record, I am OK with that, although he probably won't be.)

What about in your family? Who is the baby in your family and why?