Baby gone bad

Nils Ling

My daughter phoned me the other day near tears. She had just come back from a shopping trip with my grandson.

My grandson is, of course, the best-behaved and most beautiful baby ever in the history of babies. Which I know is quite a broad claim, given that there have been a number of babies born since the dawn of time who were fairly cute, and a few who were downright beautiful. I hear, for example, that in about 1387 A.D. in Shropshire, England, a baby was born to Elric the Butcher and his wife Meg who was absolutely adorable and exceptionally well-behaved. And I’m sure he would have been a close second.

But my grandson? Hands down, most beautiful and well-behaved baby ever. And hey, it’s not just me saying this; my wife agrees completely. And my daughter seems to concur “usually. But not on this day.

“He was awful,” she said, near shock. “He wasn’t just crying “he was screaming in anger about something, and I don’t know what it was. He was dry, I’d just fed him, nothing was poking him or pinching him. He was just going ballistic for no reason at all.”

Ah, I remember it well. The “no reason at all” reason for crying. It was our kids favourite reason.

I am always amused when I read books for young parents and the author says something like, “Babies don’t cry for no reason. There is always a reason. Just find it, and solve the problem, and your baby will stop crying.”

I feel like I want to reach into the pages of the book, feel around until I find the author, smack her (or often, him) across the head and say “Come back when you've had a child or two and tell me kids don’t cry for no reason.”

Of course they cry for no reason. Every experienced parent knows that. Billions upon billions of parents since history began have played “Pass the Baby.” (–He’s fed, he’s dry, there’s no reason for him to be crying, but he’s screaming and you have to take him now because I can’t stand it any more.” “OK, but don’t go too far away. I'll hold out as long as I can but I need you to be within earshot in case I have to pass him back.”)

Billions upon billions of parents have, at some point, looked helplessly at a child who is shrieking angrily directly in their faces and had the Very Bad Thought that they won’t admit to anyone in the world because they are afraid it makes them a Very Bad Person.

(Oh, you parents know which thought I mean. The one that starts with “You know, at moments like this I can kind of understand why ...” And then you stop and shake your head and you know you would never ever do anything like that, and it’s not his fault, he’s just a baby, and you can’t believe you even let that thought waft through your mind. But it did, completely unbidden, and now you worry that just because you had the Very Bad Thought you might be a Very Bad Person. But you’re not. Just so you know. you’re just a Very Tired Parent.)

My daughter was worried that everyone in the store was staring at her and judging her because she had such a horrid monster of a baby. She finally gave up, left her shopping cart in the aisle and took him out of the store, just to escape what she knew was the contempt of every parent there.

She needn’t have, of course. Nobody who has ever had children looks on a screaming baby in a store and thinks bad things about the parents, or even the child. What the experienced parent is thinking at that moment is, “Not my kid. Not my problem. Thank you, God.”

Of course, it’s my daughter’s first child; to her, he’s the only baby ever born. When he is cheerful and happy and smiling, as he is 99.9% of the time, she feels proud that she must be doing something right. And when he’s not, she’s sure she must be doing something wrong.

Neither is true, of course. He’s just a baby, and he’ll behave how he behaves and any mom who thinks she’s completely in control of how her baby acts is just making her own life much harder.

So as a parent, you do what you can to make sure your baby is happy. And if you've done that, and your baby goes into meltdown mode in the middle of the supermarket, all you can do is just push through the moment and know that there will be smiles later on.

Probably just gas, but still. Smiles.

This feature: From Nils Ling’s book Truths and Half Truths. A collection of some of his most memorable and hilarious columns.