Posted on 04/16/2011 7:33:22 PM PDT by TheDingoAteMyBaby
A coworker came back from a trip to the coffee shop steaming mad. Here's Sarah's story:
I'm meeting my husband at Starbucks today for a quick coffee and while in line I smile and coo at a 5-month-old boy in line ahead of me who was with his father and brother, a toddler.
When I get to the concession stand I hear the baby start to make those familiar hunger sounds, that “eh eh eh” sound I know all too well because I have a 4-month-old and 2-year-old.
By the time I am mixing my fifth sugar packet into the coffee the baby is crying. I turn to see that the father is done mixing his own drink well and he is in business discussion with an associate. He’s holding his happy toddler but not even acknowledging the crying baby in the stroller.
I sit down with my husband and the cry escalates to a blood-curdling scream. As a mom I can’t stand to hear the cry. All I can think about is walking over and swooping the baby into my arms. My husband is even wincing, not because the scream is painful but because we know it could have been prevented if the dad was just paying attention.
A man sitting beside us hears what we're talking about it so he joins in. He tells us he is thinking of calling the police because he’s not sure what else will break the father’s attention from his conversation. He says this loudly, hoping the father will hear. He doesn’t.
My husband suggests I do something, so I walk over to offer help. I ask if the baby needs food. The dad takes me up on the offer by handing me his toddler and he starts to make a bottle for the baby. As he does this he continues his conversation with his associate and is distracted so much that even when he’s done making the bottle he doesn’t give it to the baby.
His associate steps in, picks up the bottle and says “are we going to do this?”
The father gives the baby a couple sucks at it, but then takes the bottle away because he decides he doesn’t want to feed him at Starbucks and says to the baby: “You’re not going to like this but let’s go upstairs.”
I hand the toddler back and watch them leave as the baby begins to scream again. I hope he didn’t have to wait much longer, poor thing.
Scenes like this drive me crazy and I’ve witnessed it way too often. An infant cries to communicate and that's even a last resort communication. If you pay attention, infants give you clues as to what they need before the crying begins. Letting a baby cry that long just teaches them that crying is the only form of communication that works and as a result you just get more crying.
In my opinion an infant does not cry to manipulate and it certainly isn’t spoiling to respond to her needs. It’s not the same as when my 2-year-old cries because I won’t let her have ice cream for breakfast.
Since there’s no mention of puppies in that sack, it’s obvious your pop was a kindly man.
Thanks for posting this! Crying is how a baby communicates. I’m glad when other conservatives understand this.
He was a fair man, but cruel... ;)
I thought motion puts babies to sleep, no?
Once I had kids, I found it much easier to tolerate crying children.
Some babies just cry for the slightest of reasons; a child who is hungry isn’t going to die if he has to wait 10 minutes. God forbid the baby is breast-feeding when the father has him out with these folks at Starbucks.
I’m thinking it will be more fun to see the woman’s two kids hopped up on sugar and getting everything they want by even threatening to cry. Although the mother did suggest she ignored her 2-year-old crying for “ice cream”. Maybe if he just asked for Yogurt with 5 packets of sugar.
Not if the baby’s mom is fraught and constantly yelling at them for crying.....only making it worse.
I’ve seen the kids whose parents put them first.
“5 packets of sugar? 1 cup of coffee? How utterly strange.”
Probably a venti (20 oz)... and a double shot espresso added. She sounds kind of wound up.
I was just thinking maybe she waves an ice cream cone in front of the kid, takes a lick of it, and then sticks it back into the refrigerator in a bag.
This ol'gal could be a total nut ball.
But which one is a POPULAR DADDY?!
Okay, so what did you do?
My kid (3 months old) is VERY fussy (lots of crying). My wife says that she has to try to put the breast into his mounth between breaths to get him to stop crying. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t.
He’ll move his head, and then get mad that the breast is no longer in his mouth and start crying again. It’s all pretty frustrating.
It doesn’t pay to mess with people nowadays.
Good way to get your block knocked off- or worse.
Best way to handle a situation where you see child abuse is call the police.
(I wouldn’t call this abuse- unless it was to the patrons having to put up with the screaming)
Imgine what’s going to go on when he gets teeth!
Today he's decades older, and he'll sit down to eat with everyone else and he's not going to eat a bite for 10 minutes.
This was built in.
I agree. Once you have kids, it is much easier to tolerate crying children. Oh the relief you feel when you know it is not your kids crying.
My two youngest were breast only babies. They would take nothing less than milk from mom’s breast. Not even pumped milk from a bottle was good enough. Man those kids would scream if they did not have momma.
Oh please....the kid will wreck NOTHING because he will have learned that he doesn't run the world....if you ask a question, "no" is a perfectly honest answer. One of the main problems with today's youth is that they were never taught the difference between a child and an adult!!
You would think it would be hard to maintain a converstation with a business associate with a screaming baby nearby. Why didn’t he just give the baby the bottle and then keep talking?
At least he didn’t smother him co-sleeping. SO many urban (usually welfare fat) moms are doing this where I live it’s a freaking epidemic and nobody gets charged for anything.
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