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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Okay, I have another example, haha. You take your crawling 10-month-old to baby and me music class - a class designed for babies under 18-months. There is a mom in there who has her open purse on the floor, and it's got all kinds of baby bait in it - keys, juice boxes, wallet with cards, etc. Your baby is 10-months-old - yes, she is old enough to be learning basic discipline, but she's not very good at it yet, because she's 10-months-old. Your baby keeps crawling over to the mom's open purse, and you keep telling her no and dragging her away. Eventually she starts crying and you have to leave. Okay, yes, it's good for babies of all ages to learn limits, and I guess this was a good learning opportunity. But still, you brought her to this class so she could play and sing songs for half an hour, and now you have to leave because some other mom can't just put her purse out of the reach of the babies? Notice I didn't say I tried to control anything - I didn't tell the mom to put her purse away. I did what the other PP said, I tried to control my child as much as possible and then I left. But come on, I can't be annoyed at this other mom, at the very least?[/quote]

You can be a little annoyed because what she did is thoughtless, but honestly, stuff happens. You can't control everything. You could also ask her if she'd mind putting it behind her, but most people (including me) don't do that, they just seethe silently. This dynamic plays out all the time. I can't tell you how annoying I find it that at the Whole Foods I go to, people with fewer than 10 items feel like getting rung up at the Customer Service desk instead of going to the express check-out line, when I am actually waiting to return milk bottles which can only be done at Customer Service. But you know what, the store lets them do it. So I get a bit annoyed but I don't say anything because what is there to say? If I cared enough I'd stop buying glass milk bottles or go to a different store. But I don't. So I suck it up.

A lot of parenting in open spaces is the same. If there are that many thoughtless or annoying people where you go, you go somewhere else, wait til your kid is older, or resign yourself to having to be more hands-on in that particular activity than you'd hoped. But there isn't much point in getting worked up about it and in 8 months you might be that mom with the 18 month old who forgets that a 10 month old is attracted to stuff that an 18 month old doesn't care about.[/quote]

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