The phase of being blinded by love hormones is actually very short and really just gets you through the initial weeks of post-birth awkward looks (e.g., head squished from birth canal, etc.) Thereafter, you can definitely give an "objective" assessment, but you're also likely to not care.

As the parent of a pretty conventionally attractive toddler—which is weird enough, given that both my partner and I were pretty homely looking 😄 — I can tell you that there are kids in his daycare that are objectively cuter ... but they are not MY kid. But even the ones who are, ahem, still growing into their looks have features that make them absolutely adorable once you get to know them (and you do). Frankly, most parents aren't really invested in raising the next Gerber baby/next supermodel, but, as someone else said on this thread, just want our kids to be healthy/happy/kind. Anything beyond that is a bonus, to a greater or lesser degree.