i don’t understand the people who are arguing that little babies should be touched and held, and that friendliness and love is good for them.
WELL, DUH.
nobody ever argued that we should all just keep to ourselves and avoid human contact, that we shouldn’t watch out for eachother or be friendly. i might have mentioned something about being shy and not liking it when total strangers approach me, but i certainly don’t chew them out over it. i understand the impulse, i’m just shy.
the ONLY argument that we have been making here is that you ASK BEFORE YOU TOUCH.
this should be common sense, people. whether mommy does or doesn’t mind you playing with the baby, she is not going to be offended by asking. just give her the choice!
The woman was (God forbid!) taking joy in interacting with BG’s baby. WHAT A CRIME!
To wait outside the stall in order to berate this well-meaning woman was shockingly rude.
Get a grip. If you don’t want to interact with the human race, then stay the hell at home. But don’t attack people for having the AUDACITY to show a little affection to a beautiful baby.
But she TOUCHED her, you say. Fine, since some of you think this is a good enough reason for attacking a well-meaning person, how’s this? If you are soooo freaked out about germs, then BG should have smiled sweetly at the woman, wheeled baby out of the restroom, and then immediately disinfected her baby’s hands with the disinfectant wipes that I just KNOW she carries in her diaper bag.
But making a big, ugly scene ("Excuse me, Excuse me, Excuse me, Excuse me) was flat out ridiculous.
Jesus fucking Christ, I would love if one person would kindly point out where I said that strangers have a right to touch your baby or that a parent doesn’t have the right to ask that you don’t. I’ll say it one more time - I only offered a different perspective as another mother of a premature baby.
What I have issue with is the knee-jerk over reaction “kick your ass if you invade my space” attitudes that a few of you have (can you say over-reaction?) If you don’t like it - fine, explain it to them. I didn’t like my pregnant stomach touch either, but I politely told people to stop. But to go into a rage, wait around a bathroom stall just to vent a spleen, or threaten to kick their is a little sad.
Mayflower - I still have all my fingers and arms and until I get bit, I will continue to pet dogs that appear safe. If I get bitten, oh-fuckin-well.
Also, my own pediatrician suggested exposing my daughter to my son when he had chicken pox so they could get it over with while still young. I see that Jill posted some information on the subject as well, so unless you have a better cite, I will tend to believe my doc, Jill, and that fact that both kids are still quite healthy at 17 and 20 years old.
and i’d bet that the people in question acknowleged your request, probably apologized. how would you have felt if they had completely and totally ignored you the way the woman in the op ignored bubble girl?
and, diane, you did say that people should ask before touching. but a lot of other people in this thread have implied that even that is leading to some kind of cold, heartless world where no one ever even talks to eachother. take tomcat’s post, for example. there is a huge jump between not pawing someone’s kid without permission and not stepping in when you see a crime taking place.
and i’d bet that the people in question acknowleged your request, probably apologized. how would you have felt if they had completely and totally ignored you the way the woman in the op ignored bubble girl? would you have maybe tried harder to get her attention? possibly confronted her and told her that you didn’t appreciate that, even if she was still pretending you didn’t exist?
gosh, that’s what bubble girl did.
and, diane, you did say that people should ask before touching. but a lot of other people in this thread have implied that even that is leading to some kind of cold, heartless world where no one ever even talks to eachother. take tomcat’s post, for example. there is a huge jump between not pawing someone’s kid without permission and not stepping in when you see a crime taking place.
[[What I have issue with is the knee-jerk over reaction “kick your ass if you invade my space” attitudes that a few of you have (can you say over-reaction?)]]
Naw, that’s just how some people talk when they’re sitting at a keyboard.
If the person had already stopped touching and was either ignoring me out of embarrassment or trying to avoid a confrontation, why the hell would I want to badger an apology out of her? Fuck, what’s done is done, let it go. I am sure she got the point.
One more observation that I forgotten to mention earlier. There have been a few “ewwww gross icky bathroom hands” regarding this lady, but if I read the OP correctly, the woman touched the baby’s hands BEFORE she used the toilet, right? Not saying that her hands were minty fresh, but they were hardly crawling with poop germs if she hadn’t touched a stall, toilet paper, facet, bum, or the “out” door yet.
Actually, ma’am (yet another hijack) I, personally, hit a co-worker who ‘invaded my personal space’ by flicking the back of my ear when I was a. very upset already and b. in the middle of debugging an annoying application. It wasn’t conscious, either, it was reflex. (I actually didn’t see who it was until after my fist made contact.)
Not proud of it, (almost) wish I could apologize, but the guy gives me a 6’ wide berth when we’re in the same room now.
I can respect that most of the populace has more control over their actions than I do, but I don’t take it for granted. Some people are very touchy about personal space, to the point of panicing. I would presume that some babies are, as well.
Yeah, I would say this thread has blown way out of proportion, even if I wouldn’t have said the same of the OP. (the woman walking away and ignoring mommy would piss me off, too. maybe she was deaf?)
Diane–what I meant by the dog reference was not meant to say that I hoped it happened. The point was that a dog who doesn’t want to be touched will be very definite in letting you know–and it can speak for itself this way. Babies can’t always do this–they depend on us. That’s all I meant. And also, as was pointed out in an earlier post, a dog will react much more strongly than we have talked about ourselves doing, if you were to reach in a touch one of her puppies. Our way may cause some embarrassment, but the dog will be eating finger sandwiches for lunch. It’s quite simply a natural response and you may not like the dog, but you took your chances and it’s a pretty well-known fact that dogs can do this. I don’t think you’d say that she overreacted.
Yeah, and since I was never exposed I got Chicken Pox at age 21. Worst fucking 2 weeks of my life. To this day I have scars on my stomach and back, and a completely irrational avoidance to taking baths (I had to soak in those damned outmeal baths that make to water grey and dirty looking, had these spots on my body that I couldn’t get rid of, and went a little nuts. I can’t take a bath now because of it- totally screwy, I admit, but still.). So yeah, expose your kids if you can. I’m pissed-off that my mom never did. I lost 2 weeks of work and money, eventually had to quit because I was still too sick to do my job properly a month later, and that doesn’t even touch the medical bills. Inane? Think again.
I will willingly take a step-back on my position, or clarify it a bit more. Yes, a parent should have complete say over their child. I’m just against the knee-jerk ‘space’ reaction. Bubbles could have done what a few have suggested- wiped the kids hands and called it a day. Confronting someone for that was over the line in my opinion. Accosting someone for views that you ASSUME are universal just makes people bitter, and the world a less nice place to live in. You reap what you sow.
And a few have proposed that what the lady did was rude. She ignored her. And? Your assuming that the lady knew what bubbles wanted to talk about. But she seemed pretty shocked by the altercation, which I would think meant she was caught off-guard. Do you stop and talk with everyone who tries to get your attention? She didn’t know- yet another reason to think it was simply a nice lady who likes babies enough to say hi. Oblivious to pissing people off, because she didn’t intend to piss them off. She was happily humming to herself and then got accosted for something that she didn’t mean as bad.
In her day, people stopped and played with kids, and I do believe we had just as many problems with diseases back in the day. Today, we just have different ones (except for those nice Small Pox germs we are reading about).
Tomcat, I had chicken pox in childhood and I have scars all over my body. I had blisters large enough to cover my entire palm (luckily those ones didn’t leave scars). I had to have them punctured and drained by a doctor.
Anyway, I doubt the woman in the bathroom was carrying chicken pox, so maybe this is irrelevant.
I found the woman’s initial reaction a bit odd. It does seem that she was caught off-guard by Bubble Girl, so I find it hard to believe that she knew all along what Bubble Girl wanted to say to her and was ignoring her for that reason. But then why was she ignoring her to begin with? I imagine she is the kind of woman who simply found the baby adorable and couldn’t resist coming up to play with her. I would think that she would be happy to talk to the baby’s mother.
I think we all agree that the woman was almost certainly not a baby-snatcher, kidnapper or child molester. She was also probably not carrying any germs which could have infected the child. She was probably a nice, loving person. Her fault was that she did not acknowledge the right of Bubble Girl to determine who her baby comes into contact with. She did not deserve, in my opinion, to be spoken to harshly. Bubble Girl lost her temper after being ignored twice.
I’m not the type of person to adore strange babies. However, when my cousins were younger I loved to play with them. I also loved to give them candy. But I found pretty early that I had to ask their parents first. Some of them weren’t allowed bubble gum. The parents thought they might choke on it. I thought they were far too old to merit such concern. But I respected the parents’ wishes. Some children were not allowed chocolate, some weren’t allowed candy at all. Every parent wants to raise his or her children differently. I don’t think that a world in which they are allowed this right is such a bad place.
Thanks for the info!