Acceptable baby mama behavior - airplane version

I went to visit San Diego last weekend, which is to say, I went to hang out with nine babies and their parents for three days. Especially if you’re friends with a group of young mothers, you learn pretty quickly to be careful about judging how they raise their children, and, if you have no children yourself, your reaction should always be to SHUT UP whenever anyone offers advice or criticism. And because the directives fly fast and furious towards and around the parents of newborns, as far as I can tell, the only way to survive the first couple of years is to just ignore everyone around you.

So while I was all prepared to be the non-judgmental friend once I landed in San Diego, something happened on the plane ride there: I realized that NONE of my friends could possibly be as bad as this woman, sitting next to me with her two-year-old.

Acceptable: Reading books to your baby, quietly, to keep him occupied.
Unacceptable: Singing the books to your baby.

Acceptable: Asking for a specific drink for your baby.
Unacceptable: Refusing to participate in the trash collection at the end of the flight because he “needs to eat all his ice.”

Acceptable: Apologizing to your neighbor when your toddler throws a hardcover book at her face.
Unacceptable: Giving the book back to the toddler.

Acceptable: Playing a DVD for your baby.
Unacceptable: Singing along to the Barney DVD (by the way, this woman was my age, and I thought our generation came of age in the “Barney is stupid” phase—haven’t we moved on to something more hip? Or at least retro-chic, like Sesame Street?) and refusing to turn the machine off as the plane is preparing to land, because “he’s watching it.”

Acceptable: Breastfeeding
Unacceptable: Breastfeeding the same child who had been chomping on ice the whole flight and just ate a handful of peanuts.
(Lindi’s response to this, by the way, was, “What if the baby chokes on the nuts while it’s drinking?” which wasn’t exactly why I brought it up.)

So there you have it. I hope every single one of my friends takes the attitude of this woman—screw it all, because you’re going to be judged regardless of the decisions you make as a mother. And, frankly, this woman was only really being judged by the childless bitch sitting next to her, and, really, what does that matter? To all my newer mommies: Screw them all. Your kids are going to turn out fine.

But if you breastfeed to the point that there’s a chance your kid could bite your nipple off, my judgment won’t be silent.