I know I make fun of people with kids. A lot. And I write a lot of posts about SmartCar-sized strollers, school-age children in strollers with their ankles dragging along the ground, crazy yuppies who name their kids silly things, and people who try to be hipsters after the second trimester. So I was trying to move away from all that and be nice, on the off chance I have kids someday and my readers chase me around Washington with printouts of my blog.
I was laying off the kid stuff. Until yesterday. I was headed home from the grocery store when I saw a family walking up to my apartment complex from the parking lot. Mom, Dad, Grandma, and 5- or 6-year-old daughter. From the daughter's tutu, I guessed they were on their way home from a ballet recital. Everybody looked happy and wholesome.
There was just one thing wrong: the daughter was being transported in a Baby Bjorn. She was hoisted into a contraption designed for infants, and strapped to her dad's belly. She stretched across him from neck to knees. The kicker? She'd been strapped in for a trip of less than a block.
People, if your child is old enough to take ballet, and too big to fit in a stroller, and is larger than your torso, there is just no excuse for digging out the Baby Bjorn. It's just undignified.
In the comments, please please please tell me a logical reason why someone would transport a school-age child in a Baby Bjorn.
16 comments:
AMEN!
It's about the parents...they don't want their "baby" to grow up.
Big ballet baby was beat, hurt her feet, bubba bore her broken body back to bed.
JCINDC, can I get a "preach it, sister!"?
Lemmonex, you may be on to something.
Jamie, is that a musical reference?
Just random rhyming! Don't know where it came from...
ah damn blogger attempt #2
there is no reason - its stupid. Just like when kids get teeth they shouldn't be sucking on moms boob anymore either. Once saw a 5 yr old latched onto moms boob - that skeeved me out.
Jamie, I think you may be my first Poet Poster.
Zipcode, please don't get me started on breastfeeding!
Baby has polio and the tutu was just a cruel joke. When they get home, they sit her in a chair 5 feet away from the supper table.
Or maybe Dad just has some sort of tumor that they dress up to try to avoid embarrassment.
And please expand on how Zipcode could get you started on breastfeeding.
Gilahi, maybe the dad has a child-shaped tumor, or an attached twin, and that wasn't his daughter at all!
I can rant about breastfeeding almost as much as I can about big strollers. Ladies, I get that it's natural and lovely. But toss a blanket over yourselves! Call me prissy, but I don't want to see nature in progress.
Amen Shannon
Shannon there is the slim chance there is a good reason for this. Children adopted from an orphanage setting are way benind in their ability to connect emotionally. It can be a very serious problem for htem and the best way specialists have found to counteract it is to "regress" them to childish behaviours -being fed being carried etc. for a period of time (I do admit it is a very slim chance that this is what was going on here and much more likely they are just over indulgent parents)
Punishment? Although I'm not sure for whom...
Tina, that's really interesting. I've read about attachment issues/orphanage adoptions, but hadn't heard about that form of therapy. Thanks!
Marissa, the punishment was for me. Clearly I was bad in a previous life.
Maybe the ballet recital was like that scene in Poison's video for Every Rose has Its Thorn, where Bobby Dahl (the bassist) was so wasted (perhaps from playing his heart out?) that the crew had to lift him up and help him off the stage. The girl just gave it her all and had nothing left. You know how athletes are; they like to leave it all on the field.
Child abuse? That's all I got.
Mike, sure...but I think the roadies were doing piggyback rides...but I would pay cash money to see Poison hoisted around in Baby Bjorns.
Lacochran...I dunno, I think I'm the one that got abused here.
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