Ok, I'll admit it. I am a "babysitter". Twice a week, my wife and I spend a day with our two Grandsons. They are a three year-old, and a four month-old.
Let's face it... sixty years old and three years after my cardiac arrest, I am
not as quick-in-the-head as I was when our own son was so young. My memory of what happened one minute ago is no longer perfectly reliable. Fortunately, my memory of what happened decades ago is still intact. I remember the many subtle lessons my son taught me about being the guardian of a child, when I spent some years at home, being "Mr. Dad". (Don't even think about calling ME Mr. "Mom".)
Years before that, I was determined to become a child psychologist, studied it, and worked with distressed children in a state hospital.
Armed with this experience, I can babysit successfully. I FEAR NO CHILD!
I can rely upon myself to guide these two little boys away from trouble, away from harm, and away from disappointment. I do have a problem, though, with a few things and these are: DISAGREEING with GrandMa, Mommy and Daddy, and a multitude of women who think that they are somehow perfectly endowed at birth, with infinite wisdom, regarding the "rearing" of children. Well, if that were true, you and I wouldn't be just two well adjusted individuals, living in a world filled with idiots! Would we?
The problem upon which I have become focused is a baby who cries too much. You may say that he does not, but if you were taking care of him all day, you wouldn't say that.
He's only a few months old, and I'm told that babies at that age cry - "That's what babies do!" I remember when his three year old brother was the same age. He cried a lot, too. So did the baby next door, and the babies at the park, and the mall babies in shopping carts. And you may think me arrogant, Ma'am, but I'm going to tell you WHY they cry so much and why they need more GrandPa's like me to make their little lives a little happier.
To get right down to it, the problem - most of the time - is with their diapers! Not IN their diapers - but WITH their diapers. In other words, It's the damned "diapers"! And no, not the soft, cloth kind that some of you devoted Moms still believe in (God bless you for it, too!), but these cheap, convenient, and marketable plastic ones. As with any product that causes more harm than good, that men like me sharply refer to "a lousy piece of crap!", these no-good plastic poop-catchers are instruments of INFANT TORTURE and were designed in the Devil's own workshop. That's right. And I'll tell you why.
(Still with me? :)
At this time, Mama, a little demonstration is in order. You can actually try
this experiment, or you can just imagine it.
1: Take a stong rubber band that must be stretched to fit over your wrist.
2: Now, stretch it over your wrist.
3: Leave it there for as long as your baby would go without a diaper change.
4: Time's up! Now, you look me in the eye and tell me that your skin, under
that rubber band, doesn't hurt.
Well, you can't, because you have a red, sore, depressed ring around your wrist. If that rubber band is as strong as the elastic band in the diaper's leg openings, your fingers are probably tingling right about now, because of the loss of oxygen. I remind you that I am one whose heart stopped, and left me dead for over 15 minutes, and I know what a loss of oxygen does to a body. It kills cells and it hurts! Now, of course, a diaper isn't going to stop your baby's
heart, but it can sure put those little feet to sleep, and that kind of tingling isn't good for anybody.
Now, the next time your baby cries enough to drive the pidgeons out of the barn, just stop and LOOK at your baby's groin, and SEE the red ring that the
elastic has gouged into the skin. You know that's sore. LOOK at your baby's
cute little behind and count the number of pinch marks all over those sensitive little Angel buns, caused by wrinkled plastic. If your baby was wet, or even a little damp, those marks will be multiplied and stinging viciously.
OK, so now we have a little baby with cyanotic skin. (Excuse me, Mom, that
means no oxygen.) When you hold your baby upright, the crying usually stops or at least is lessened. And you think, "All this baby needs is to be held." It seems true enough. Yep... until you sit down and hold the baby on your lap, or lay the baby down, hoping against hope for a nap. Then the crying starts again. Worse than before! Pick up the baby, walk the baby, rock the baby, and maybe the crying will stop again. But not for long. That situation is getting worse as time goes by, and the baby is feeling even more pain.
If you would just remove that awful excuse for a diaper and "rub the little red
marks away", the crying will not only stop, but soon your baby will coo and
giggle again. It's that easy. If you must continue to torture your baby with
those 'Pants of Pain', then at least put a strip of soft cloth between the elastic bands and the poor child's skin. Lay a nice soft flap of cloth over those Angel buns, too. Or, better yet, USE A REAL DIAPER. Not convenient? Sorry about that, but it's not about you - it's about the baby! Two years of that torture and you'll have a child who is sad, angry, "fussy" (what a "weasle" word that is), and stuck with a personality built upon early childhood misery.
So, you don't believe it, huh? You think that because the Baby Product industry caters to you everyday, and hugs you everyday with drippy compliments, that you know more than GrandPa? Well... you DON'T! And your baby suffers for it.
OK... OK... so it's not your fault. You didn't make the diapers. That's true.
But you know who did. Isn't it time that you stood up for your little bundle of
joy and told those sadistic money makers that your child is too deserving of
happiness to be wrapped in their "Pants of Pain"? Don't give them any more of your money... until they stop treating you like poop. Stand up for yourself,
Mom, and for your baby.
And listen to GrandPa... just once!
- - - - -
Originally published by me on Monday, April 11, 2011
2 comments:
rturri said...
Comments on this post are MOST welcome.
Thank you!
Bob
April 14, 2011 3:55 PM
Ruth said...
Couldn`t agree more. Ruth
April 21, 2011 9:15 AM
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