It was an older woman who touched my belly. My response was to ask her if I could grope her tits. She wasn’t happy with me.
My plan: try to grab hands before they reach me, use the Stern Voice to say “NO!”
According to a grad student I trained, The Voice makes sounds like the Word of God. Damn, I’ve always wanted to be like Tulip, not Jesse. I know it makes the cats freeze with an “Oshit” look on their face.
Me, too. I would never even think of doing that.
If a stranger did that to my wife, they’d find a surly guy uncomfortably close.
Damn you, Lib, I was eating spaghetti.
You know, here in the cuddly friendly hi how y’all doin’ South, having been fully acclimatized, drawlin’ accent and all, I would not touch random strangers unless I wanted my fingers broken. This includes their infants.
Now, I WILL play peek-a-boo with the little spud in line at the grocery store or make faces at the kid at the other table, but only the children of good friends get their toes tickled. And considering that I know how I feel about touching when I don’t feel well, I wouldn’t touch even a friend’s pregnant tummy unless given permission. I do not get that someone would, even if babies make me go all girly and pink.
Autolycus, why are any people shaped differently? It’s just the way it goes. Some women are in maternity clothes by two months and have 6-pound babies. Some women hardly show and give birth to 9-pounders.
Mouse Maven, that voice will stand you in good stead in about a year or fifteen months. Along with “Ah, ah, ah!” Freezes my kids in their tracks, and they’re almost grown up.
Maybe you can perfect the move I’ve tried to teach my girls–fling your hands up like you’re startled, preferable catching at least a little face with one. You can’t be blamed for reacting when you’re startled, can you?
As the loan dissenting voice ('cause a thread’s not interesting without one, yes?), though I can understand not wanting gropage by strangers, at the heart of their insensitivity is an expression of their deep reverence for the miracle of birth.
Certainly a mother wants to be noticed and revered once the child has been born and is a force of its own. Betcha wish for the public’s adoration when sweetums is two and terrorizing the local Chili’s.
I personally, in general, haven’t the slightest interest in birth, babies, or the people involved in either. However, on the occasions that those close to me have been chock full of a person, I seemingly have an involuntary urge to touch the mother to be’s belly. I can’t say why exactly, except somewhere in my brain I’m trying to form a bond that I don’t quite, but somehow hope I will, feel if I make physical contact. Of course, that never really happens, and obviously , per the OP, this is no more a satisfying experience for the mother than it is for me ( good intentions not withstanding).
I agree that it’s important and we did look around a little bit at preschools before we even had our son; however, requiring children to be able to read before they even enter pre-school is, to me anyway, extremely ridiculous. Good behavior is one thing, but academic achievement that early seems to be reaching.
By the way, I’m intrigued by your experience. Did you do any sort of tests on children to see if they qualified for any of the preschools where you worked? And if so, what does qualified mean? Well behaved? How can you tell a kid is well behaved, especially from a short meeting? Is it easy to tell, or something more intuitive? I’m really curious - I’ve never met someone who worked for a preschool (other than the people at my son’s day care, of course, which also offers a preschool program).
Bleh.Realizing how cold I sounded and missing the edit time, my rambling words aside, I do wish you the very best** Mouse_ Maven **.
With Moon Unit, this didn’t help - people were delighted and intrigued by the sling and wanted to check things out. I was especially touchy with her because she’d been a preemie, and was at higher risk for respiratory ailments. One woman came up from behind me and reached for the baby without me even seeing her.
They never did find her body.
just kidding. I only maimed her.
Well, you can beg all you want, but you can’t touch this
Seriously, I love rubbing a pregnant tummy, and I’ve seen some beatific smiles, but never a stranger or without permission, what’s wrong with people fer crissakes.
You know, Maven, I keep coming back to that Far Side cartoon with the 3 mice saying " It sounds like the farmers wife has really flipped out this time." and in the backround you can see her with a carving knife.
Miracle of birth and all aside, touching without permission is still a violation of personal space.
Frankly, my repsonse depended on my mood that day. I also hate casual contact; I am not a “huggy” person.
You have an irresistable urge to touch something that doesn’t belong to you–but somehow in a museum or when the “thing” is some else’s child or money or whatever, that urge is fought off. Why not for expectant moms?
Other stories: I once had a friend of a friend (who had a baby boy 2 months before my daughter) come up to my infant in her stroller and pry her mouth open–she didn’t believe that my daughter already had 2 teeth, while her son had none. I do so wish my baby had bitten her.
I also had a friend come visit #1 son. This woman was an RN, yet she bristled when I asked that she wash her hands prior to holding 5 day old him. She had just come out of the bathroom and she had the nerve to tell me, “my urine’s sterile.” We aren’t friends anymore (not over just that, but it was a Sign).
Some mothers are insane. The good ones realize it and cool it after a while. The PIA ones don’t…
We didn’t sort kids at either pre-school. I was speaking in defense of taking the choosing of a pre-school seriously. The system might be crazy, but it isn’t crazy at all to play the game in order to get the right care center.
I agree with everything you said. Even good behavior is a little silly as a criteria since pre-school is when the child is learning behavior skills. I like to think kids’ behaviors aren’t really set in stone until 1st grade. 
(Only half-kidding.)
It is often easy to tell from a short meeting whether a kid will be a serious behavior problem, but it depends on the type of problem. Kids with anger management issues, for example, might not be noticed until a few days or weeks in. About half of the time you don’t even need to meet the kid. Meeting the parent is enough. I met one memorable parent who, in our first encounter, mentioned that he would routinely use food as a method of discipline for his daughter (i.e. no dinner if she got her dress dirty). This isn’t child abuse in my state, but it damn well ought to be. And I knew from that moment that this girl was going to have issues with behavior; and lo and behold she would act out (especially around snack time, surprise surprise) because she needed some attention (and love). Which, to bring us full circle, argues for not screening based on behavior. In my book, the kids that need the best care are the ones that aren’t getting it at home.
:eek: I can’t even imagine doing that. Heck, I’m scared of touching babies at all. I might accidentally scratch them or hurt them or warp their fragile baby psyches in some way. I just say, “What a cute baby!” and move on.
You’re welcome. 
I’d never go up to a pregnant woman and touch her belly, I respect personal space, and I’m surprised that respect is not common, unless invited, no touchy…
then again, I’m NO fan of kids/babies/etc, and i actively go out of my way to avoid them, showing me a baby is like showing a cross to a Vampire, it triggers my evasion instincts, i try to put as much space between myself and the infant/child/etc as possible…
basically, this was caused by “The Job From Hell” at least 10 years ago, i was a traveling photographer for American Slaver…errr…Studios, they worked inside wally-worlds setting up a photo studio for a week at a time, then moving on to the next store in the territory
…after 8-10 hours a day dealing with screaming, caterwauling brats who didn’t want their pictures taken, it made me really start to hate the noisome little buggers…
So, Mouse Maven, congrats on the pregnancy, i’m sure the little Mouseling will have a great family, she clearly has a great Mom, you won’t have to worry about uninvited touching from me, though
AIEEEE…a Baby!!!takeitawaytakeitawaytakeitaway…
Hey Mousy. Hope you are doing well.
You may not actually believe this, but I allowed folks to touch my belly. And now, I love seeing pregnant women. I also miss my belly. My daughter is 21 months old and I long for the days when she was safely inside me. I miss rubbing my belly. I miss her NOT being able to do swan dives off the couch or bashing her head into things.
Promise me that you will tell me if one day, you look at your child and you wish you could have her safely inside you again, where she couldn’t cry or get hurt, where the world wasn’t unfair to her. So forgive me if I extend my fondness looking back on my pregnancy and envy you having that awesome belly to rub and trying to talk sense to someone who isn’t born yet (No, really, you don’t need to hang out under my ribs, really). I try to contain myself. But oh, how I miss my belly.
Will you at least give yourself a few good scratches on the side of your belly? Just once, for me? It always felt so good.
My willful-since-conception baby is upstairs sleeping and she looks so grown up and she’s getting the hang of temper tantrums and runs around with a bucket on her head, but once upon a time, she was all mine. Heck, she was a part of me. Now, she’s a vivacious little vixen who just keeps growing. I tell her if she keeps it up, I’ll trade her in for a newer model.
You have such an exciting adventure ahead of you. Be gentle on us folks who remember it fondly. and who LOVE those bellies!
Heh. You know, I could tell exactly what this thread was going to be about even before opening it (or looking at the poster’s name, in fact), even though this has NEVER happened to me at all (and I’m currently working on baby number #3 - race ya Mouse_maven ;))
I can’t work out if people here are politer, or if I just look intimidating. I’m leaning towards the latter.
I recommend you grow six inches (vertically) and walk around with heavy glasses and a scowl. Then you’ll never need to use The Voice at all.
Well, not till the Mouseling starts to crawl, anyway…
And if you are present for that wondrous moment, do wear a cup. She just may reach over and grab your crotch so that you too can share in the joys of childbirth.
What is this big obsession with pre-school? I never went, and I’m a proud member of the Dope, so I can’t have turned out that obtuse! Seriously, I stayed at Grandma’s house when the parents were working. Much better, had a lake with plenty of geese to taunt.
And for those wondering, an enraged goose can run at almost exactly the same speed as a 4 year old. Almost…
Nah, she told me the entire convo was in English. I think it scared him more.
This is exactly me. I like to play with the babies from a distance, but would never presume to touch one (or one in the making) without invitation.
Of course, I’m also sometimes the person that does the blood tests on babies, so while I have the warming pack on their little footsies, I do like to play with the toes, touch the little cheeks, and maybe even tickle a baby tummy depending on how much is exposed to me. (Especially when doing venipuncture - I have to try to calm them down!) So I do get some baby touching in my day-to-day life. And I do wash my hands first.
One of our neighbors growing up went into transition and proceeded to try to strangle her husband with the IV tubing.
The kid’s nickname was BJ. He should have been.
:eek:
(I missed this before)
What are preschool hours like round your area?! We just went to look around our first ever preschool this morning (term starts next Feb here) and they do 12 hours a week…even with two working parents and kids in daycare you’d clock up more time than that just on weekends.
Or are you meaning a sort of integrated daycare/preschool program? (I have no idea how those work)
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