happy baby, or tidy baby nails?

Sometimes I'd rather let him scratch himself, and occasionally do, in spite of Grama's tisk-tisks. But tell me, were baby fingernails invented as a way to separate out the bad mothers? Teeny tiny little rice-grain sized items on the tips of small slippery slobber-covered wiggly digits connected to the hands of a willful and determined kid who has no patience for clippers and files. Forget it.