New Perspectives

Sometimes, when I acquire something new or different, I begin to notice that thing everywhere. When I got glasses in high school, all of a sudden it seemed like everyone wore glasses, and I noticed for the first time the different styles of frames. When Sarah and I were about to get engaged, and for a short time thereafter, I noticed in great detail the various types of engagement rings and wedding bands that people sported. And, for obvious reasons, this past May I began to notice Honda Civics and Accords.

All of this is by way of preface to noting that I caught the dirty looks everyone gave a mother of two boys this morning in Starbucks, and felt them more acutely than I think I would have three months ago. I'd gone in because I needed some breakfast (and being in Philadelphia, had to pay for it), and Starbucks was offering free pastries. I was calmly sitting and eating my scone when suddenly a little boy, maybe three or four, decided he needed a new one. I don't know what, but he NEEDED a NEW ONE. NOW! It only took about three or four repetitions for his mother to calm him down, and she didn't go up to the counter to get a new anything, so she actually did a remarkable job considering the whole incident lasted about thirty seconds. But in that short time, I glanced around the coffee shop and saw some rolled eyes, and one other customer, a businessman in his forties, caught my eye and gave me what he considered a mutual knowing look. Those damn kids and their noise, in our space, the look said.

Except I wasn't thinking that. Granted, I wasn't in a rush, and the kids were off to the side, so the incident was somewhat contained, but mostly I was rooting for the mom to be able to defuse the situation before it could escalate. I almost went up to her to add a note of support, because I'm sure she felt mortified and felt (even if she didn't see) the smoldering annoyance of the rest of the shop. I opted not to, figuring I'd probably frighten her by going up to her, and she and her boys left within a few minutes anyway.

I've been a little worried about similar situations in public, mostly at church, since everywhere else we've been with Nicholas so far has been pretty noisy anyway, or among friends, where the crying is cute and leads to stories about 3am. It's a little easier with an 8-week-old, because I think most people realize that you can only do so much to stop him from crying. But having kids is hard, if you look around. Sometimes they get tired, or upset, and they don't always know why, and they certainly don't understand how to hold it in and gather themselves (some adults don't either, but that's a separate post). We haven't had to take him out of church yet, but we will at some point. Even so, I feel sometimes like apologizing to the people who sit around us as Mass is set to begin, and probably will get that feeling in other public places, a pre-emptive strike to ward off the look of that man on his way out of the coffee shop, who found his day inconvenienced by a child acting like ... a child.