I was downtown on a run today, minding my own business, and I saw something that made me really hot (hot in a bad way)!
There was a mother a three children. Two of the children were about six years old and the other was an infant. I'm not very good with guessing children's ages, but I'd say this infant was under nine months. She was smaller than my 8 lb Shih Tzu.
So the mother is walking down the hard, bumpy CONCRETE sidewalk with the INFANT on her shoulders. The child is propped up there with the mother only holding her by the tiny tiny thighs. The baby isn't even hanging on, her arms flailing around in the air. This child is so small, that it isn't even able to hold itself up. She keeps FALLING backward so that her HEAD is touching the mother's BACK!!! And one of the six year olds, runs over laughing to push her up every time this happens. The whole lot of them is just snickering, smiling, carrying on, thinking it is so cute that the baby is on the mother's shoulders flapping around like a bird on a gusty day.
I could not believe it. I was on a part of the sidewalk block with a lot of construction going on, so there weren't a lot of people witnessing this. I started to walk faster, because I wanted to be behind them if the baby suddenly fell from the tower of her mother's shoulders. Then the baby kept totteling backwards, and it was making me so angry that I wanted to go up and say something to the mom (and I feel it is appropriate to mention that her six year olds were wandering around a very large office building with many many floors alone, trying to figure out where they were, saying "I'm scared" just minutes before).
The gaggle of merry wackos kept up a good pace, even crossing traffic with the baby flying high above them all. When I went into the courthouse, they were coming up on a busier block with a police officer and a "city ambassador" (whom I have a love/hate relationship with) standing by, and I wonder if anybody said anything to her.
Parenting is just such a touchy subject. I never know when it's appropriate to say something. I mean, I'm not a parent and I've never babysat (or even HELD a baby). Do people normally do this with infants? I don't know! It doesn't seem right to me though. Ugh, it just makes me sick to think of what other careless things she's doing. I hope everything is okay!
