LEAVE THE KID AT HOME

BY SANDY FRANCIS

Believe me, I get it.   You’re invited to a wedding, you have a new baby and no sitter.  So you bring the baby to the wedding, who, of course, begins crying the minute the wedding procession begins.  The baby won’t be silenced by either pacifier or bottle.  The Mother rocks him/her, gives the baby to the Father, and the kid continues to scream.  Does it occur to the parents to take the baby out of the room?   Never.  Not even with the dirty looks that flew in their faces.   Finally, one very brave woman turned to the doting parents and cast such penetrating daggers, the Mother had no choice but to leave with her screaming baby.  Yah-hoo!!!  I was that woman.

Do you know what it’s like to sit next to a 4 week old, who has a siren for a cry?  I’m not condemning the baby.  The baby did what babies do.  They do not belong at a wedding.  No matter how close you are with the bride and groom, do them a favor.  Leave your kid at home or refuse the affair.   Trust me, they would thank you not to attend, rather than to hear a crying infant as they exchange vows, which they would remember for a lifetime.   

I attended a bridal shower where a young Mother brought not one, but two of her children, under the age of four.  We were all compelled to ogle over her babies, who were tearing up paper, pulling the gifts from the guest of honor and stuffing candy in their mouths.   I had serious thoughts of calling the Department of Child Welfare, and having these darlings taken away from their oblivious Mother.   And don’t you think, this Mother was the last to leave the shower never offering to help clean the mess of sticky finger prints left by those children, who should never have been there in the first place?  

Let’s go to the airplane situation.  When my husband and I flew to Europe, we had the misfortune of sitting in front of a year-old baby, who screamed for six painful hours.  At first I was sympathetic and after the fourth hour my thoughts turned criminal.   I saw the Mother’s frustration as she paced the aisle, but I grew to hate her, too.  Forget sleep, forget earphones, forget Scotch, although I fantasized pouring a shot in the screamer’s bottle.   Couldn’t airlines have a special compartment for families with kids under three?  And maybe it could be designed to be sound proof.   Or maybe if we sit near an infant on a plane we could request a reduction on airfare.    

I remember when my friend remarried and her 12- year- old son decided to run to the altar with his Mom and her about- to- be -husband.    He crammed himself between them.   The guests politely smiled.  Not the groom.  Not I.   I wanted to drag him away by his stringy shoulder length hair.  I credited the groom for remaining.  FYI…two years later the marriage was over.

Let’s face it, those of us who have had children remember how we resented anyone who was intolerant of a whining, crying, screaming infant.  But once our precious babies grew up, that tolerance quickly disappeared.   Now we can’t fathom that our kids had shrieking tantrums in public, or when they grew older and wore Mohawks.    But they did.

Yes, I remember all too well my youngest son as a baby.  He had the loudest shriek of a cry I had ever heard.  It was nothing short of painful to hear.  But I calmly held him, soothed him, while dreaming of returning him to the maternity ward.   And when my beautiful grandson was born I smiled.  He had inherited the same shrieking cry as his Father!