post #21 of 21
5/19/04 at 11:14pm
Quote:
we were at the library story time today and there was a woman with a 1 month old teeny baby. The baby was wide awake and she just sat the bucket carrier beside her and left the baby in their. When he started to cry she just jostled the carrier. I see this ALL the time. Babies crying in the bucket carriers and the mother sits there for 5 minutes jostling the carrier and trying to push a pacifier into the baby's mouth. If they do finally pick them up they seem irrated and put them down again as soon as they calm down.
but then... we can't really blame the parents individually, IMO ~ look how our culture expects us to raise our kids. look at how the magazines and movies and TV shows all portray parents responding (or in most cases, *not* responding) to their infants. i say if we're going to be mad at anyone, be mad at the media. be mad at the advertising industry and the toy industry. be mad at the government, if you want to go that far, for fostering this culture that requires us to be detached (referencing the thread you may have seen here recently about US maternity leave policies).

for a lot of parents, they honestly don't understand *why* they should pick up their kids. the message of "just put them in a contraption, that's where they're happiest" is all around us.



just wanted to add that.