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How Wrong is it Not to Care?
The New York Observer ran a piece in its March 27th issue that lodged in my craw a little bit, but not because I felt obliged to argue with it. The writer took issue with the way people have been bashing Britney Spears for taking her infant son for a spin in the front seat a few weeks ago. In the second paragraph she admits to holding her newborn in her lap in the taxi on his way home for the first time. (Her husband sat beside her with the car seat in his lap. I am assuming they had the car seat because I had to prove I had one, actually my kid had to be IN the car seat before I could get past the security guard at the hospital where he was born.)
I'm not sure why the writer and her husband didn't stick the baby in the car seat just that once- while they had it in the car and everything, but her husband's knees' relative comfort on their ride home from the hospital is no concern of mine. Really, though, why do we care that Britney or the author drove around with an unsecured baby? Certainly Britney broke the law by not having her kid in a carseat; I'm not sure what the rules about taxis and infants are in New York City (anyone?). But I am curious about the vitriol.
According to the article, people have been weighing in all over the place about how low-class the Spears must be not to strap her kid in, how she doesn't deserve to have a child... savage things. But why is this such an affront? Don't tell me she's a maternal role model. People may want to sing and dance and look like Britney, but her mothering skills are happily under the radar. Don't we have other people in the world doing more appalling things to children than this to worry about?
The Observer writer clearly doesn't feel so anxious about taxis as I do. Reading her piece and her gentle mockery of the Sit n' Stroll (I gently mocked it her too- called it ugly actually) made me feel a little uncool for having bought the unattractive contraption, but without it, I was too frightened. Maybe she only goes on very short trips and never has to scoot up the FDR Drive or the West Side Highway to visit various sets of grandparents. Perhaps she has more faith in the world. There's a possibility her worrying energy might be preoccupied with fears of germs and problems with mass transit. I don't know.
And what makes me so scared of cabs anyway? Is it the bad driving or the uneasy suspension? Do I not trust other drivers? Is my problem more with the world, generally? Was I really that susceptible to the absolutely insane ravings of the Infant CPR and Baby Safety teacher I had? "E," all of the above, probably. But I don't have time to get peeved with the choices she makes that I find odd or unwise. I'm not going to report her to the police or wag my finger or hope that she learns a lesson. I understand saying someone's an idiot, but when people start cursing others for doing stupid things, I get mystified.
I would never shut up if I had to wish terrible things on everyone I saw doing something idiotic. People drive backwards up the cross street near me. Jaywalkers frolic in the street when the light turns green. People still ask me for directions to the World Trade Center once a weekend. None of them deserves tragedy.
So why is the carseat thing a scandal? Contrarywise, why does the Observer writer feel she has to brag about being carseat-free? It doesn't really have the cache of riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Do tell. I don't feel comfortable without a carseat, but I do other crazy things. There are a few people I know who thought I was wicked for drinking coffee from weeks one to 40. My first request once visitors could make themselves manifest the morning after Felix was born? Hospital Starbucks. And I'm still walking the streets.
posted by Elise at 8:16 PM
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