Treat My Daughter Like A Dog
If you’re like me, your 4-month-old loves music. When my wife and I are trying to calm our daughter down, one of the best things we can do is play music for her. That’s why we’ve enjoyed taking here to the music on debate square concerts over the summer. That’s where we have found out how well she can behave in public. That’s how we discovered that her favorite song is “Moonlight Serenade.” Those concerts have also shown us that when it comes to behavior around babies, teenagers are more appropriate than adults.
At one of the concerts, we ran into a couple of speech students of mine who were thrilled to see our blossoming family, especially our little one. As excited as they were, I got the feeling they were simultaneously terrified. The kept a respectful distance, and never made a move to so much as pat our daughter on the foot let alone ask to hold her. Compare this to many adults who came up, (some of whom we only have a fleeting familiarity with,) who had no hesitation in stroking or pinching our daughter wherever there was available flesh.
Now obviously, some of what follows is simply being a new and therefore overprotective parent, but there are some sanitation concerns that should not be taken lightly. My wife and I immediately wipe down our daughter wherever contact was made because the risk, while slight, is potentially untreatably fatal.
It sounds obvious but a young child’s immune system isn’t equipped to handle a wide range of invaders. Exposure to foreign substances is part of how the immune system grows and develops defenses, sure, but it can easily be overwhelmed. We don’t give 1st graders differential calculus books because we know they need to have some exposure to multiplication first. Same thing.
You have to look no further than Des Moines just a month ago where a newborn died from a type of herpes, (HSV-1 for you science nerds,) likely contracted from contact with an otherwise healthy seeming adult. Of note, not only is this a recent and local case, according to a Mount Sinai study, infant deaths from herpes are on the rise.
It doesn’t have to be those big scary diseases, either. Something as simple as not getting all the dirt from under your fingernails can lead to the wrong bacteria very quickly ending up inside of a child who is ill-equipped to handle it.
Even if you don’t buy into the sanitation argument because you think bacteria and germs are just conspiracies cooked up by “big medicine” to hook you on “healthy practices,” there is respect for another person’s right to personal space to consider as well. You aren’t allowed to pet a dog without permission just because they’re cute, smaller than you, or the pet of someone you know. Why can’t we respect this right for babies? Either you think baby rights are protected by their guardians until the child is capable, in which case you should ask the parents before touching, or you think babies have rights themselves in which case you need to get consent from that child. Good luck with that. If strangers come up and touch my daughter without first obtaining consent when she’s 16, that’s assault. Why do we permit it for younger children when they’re even less able to protect themselves?
I’m not perfect at washing my hands and it’s impulse to want to touch babies, especially perfectly adorable ones like mine. All I’m saying is before you touch a baby, ask permission, like you would for anyone else.
