I have a very clear memory of going to Mayfest in Pilot Mountain with my sister Maria and my nephew Alex when Alex was about three months old. I was away at college when he was born, so this was the first time I’d really been around him with any regularity. Anyway, at one point Maria pulled the stroller into the side street across from Hardee’s, next to the funeral home that’s now a bed & breakfast, to reapply Alex’s sunscreen. Since his hair was still pretty thin, it went all over his scalp, over the backs of his ears, down his neck – basically every bit of skin that wasn’t covered by clothing.
Alex did not enjoy this; he started crying. Or maybe he was hot and he started crying, or irritated by the constant banjo music and he started crying, or just pissed off at the world because sometimes infants get that way and he started crying. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. The point is, we hadn’t made it 20 feet back down Main Street before Alex’s face had turned beet red.
A woman passing us glanced down at the red-faced, wailing baby, then glared up at my sister. “That baby’s got a sunburn,” she said – using the same tone with which most of us would say “Your baby’s playing in traffic. With knives” – before waddling on her merry way. I was furious – a) who the hell do you think you are? And b) his mother JUST slathered him with half a bottle of Coppertone, and c) seriously, who the hell do you think you are?
Maria just let it roll off her back. You need to understand, she told me, that once you have kids, everybody and their brother assumes that you need and want their advice, and have no compunction about sharing it with you. Even if they’re perfect strangers passing you on the street.
Our culture still treats women as if we’re public property**, but you’d think that mothers of all people would be exempt from the Greek Chorus of What You’re Doing Wrong. But no – mothers might even have it worse than the rest of us. Recently, a breastfeeding mother was kicked out of a Target store in Michigan for doing what society would judge her for if she HADN’T been doing it. It’s like a psycho patriarchal choose-your-own-adventure book:
You don’t have kids? Man-hating whore.
You do have a baby? Ah, but what birthing method did you use? WRONG!
You dared to leave the house with your baby, and now the baby’s hungry and crying in the store/on the plane? Why don’t you feed that baby already?
Oooooh, you breastfeed? Why don’t you use a breastpump and bottles, or formula?
You can’t afford a breastpump and its accessories, or they just don’t work for you? Hmm, well, I don’t know, but you’re still wrong.
Mothers can’t win. Despite the fact that they’ve brought into the world and are rearing children, mothers are treated as children themselves, with perfect strangers who know nothing about their circumstances questioning their every decision. I don’t even HAVE kids and I’m already sick of it.
Can we please just stop? Can we collectively stifle this urge to second-guess the parents of other people’s children (excepting cases of clear abuse)? We can’t, as a culture, claim to value families and then throw up crazy barriers in the faces of those same families. If I see a woman breastfeeding in Target, or changing a diaper in a restroom, or anything else… I just can’t see how it’s any of my business.
**I talk a lot about the experience of women because, duh, I am one, but I’d very much like to hear from men who also feel that our culture objectifies their lives and experiences.
3 comments:
You know, I agree that we shouldn't be harassing mothers in public and acting this way. It's rude. If men have their children in public, they're given the benefit of the doubt (because they're clueless men who know nothing of babiez, naturally).
Only alternate point of view I'd add is that I'm sick to death of "kid culture" in which parents tolerate their children screaming and carrying on in public. When I was a child, my mother would take me outside if I was misbehaving, and refuse to go back inside unless I had calmed down. This is not the way anymore. I'm thinking, "great, it was SO necessary to bring that into the world, and you dote upon it. WOOO, good for you! Don't expect me to love your spawn just because it's small. It's noisy and craps all over the place." (I hate dogs too, they're noisy and crap all over the place, not to mention the smell.) When you're around new parents, all they want to do is talk about their children, ad nauseum. I can handle a little baby banter, but I get bored to tears after 10 minutes. I don't care what color your baby's BM is.
Public breast feeding/changing/whatever doesn't bother me, but if the baby is crying for more than a minute or so and you have not done a thing to calm it down, I'm going to be annoyed and resent you imposing your baby's noise on me.
Nothing against mothers, but I hate "kid/breeding culture". You've got kids? Cool! Just keep them away from me! I did not sign up to deal with children, so don't include me in the party, thanks.
I hate kid culture, too. My mom had noooooo problem taking me to the restroom or out to the car for a "chat" if I were misbehaving in public. And my parents had very clear boundaries about "grown-up time" and "kid time," and when it was grown-up time, my sisters and I played upstairs. It helped that we had each other for entertainment.
I think we can find a happy medium. The crying baby in the store might annoy me, or I may think an acquaintance is too permissive. But it is *none* *of* *my* *business.*
I like this post. A lot.
For me, I don't care if you breastfeed or bottlefeed, do a natural birth or an opted c-section. I don't care if you are into spanking or time out. I don't care. All I care is whether or not what you do works. It's this simple: if the child is behaving, or displaying normal misbehavior, you are doing a good job. If your kid is a shit, you aren't. It's that simple. And all I care about is that parents not create little egotistical, entitled, selfish shits. If your kid's not that way, you get an A+ in my book.
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