I let a stranger touch my baby today.
Sure, she was ringing up my groceries, had an official name tag and everything, but we had never met.
In my past life, the one before moving to a West-Texas border town, someone you didn’t know was called a ‘stranger’.
‘Strangers’ and, specifically, the treatment of them, are handled with news coverage, lessons from your Elementary School Principal during school-wide assemblies and even appear in educational segments on Sesame Street. Children in the Northeast Region of the United States of America are expected to be well-equipped to handle strangers before learning how to drive. I was always a good student. I was a stranger-ready person. I learned the steps of how to handle people whom I didn’t know:
First, with suspicion.
Next, caution.
Then, casual conversation.
Then, good-bye.
Until we meet again, when the ‘stranger’ will receive promotion to ‘acquaintance’.
Even then, several rounds of the above steps are necessary before we can mutually say we know each other. Several rounds of suspicion, caution and casual conversation are required before you are allowed not to be my ‘stranger’ and, therefore, allowed to approach or physically greet my infant. Period. Rules are rules.
It has come to my attention (slowly, awkwardly, embarrassingly) that here, in the Southwest Region of the United States of America, on the border with Mexico, there is no such thing as a stranger. There is no prerequisite to relationship here. Anyone you meet, anywhere you meet them, could be a friend or family member of your close friend or family member and, therefore, deserve your attention, your baby’s affection and, perhaps, even an invitation to your baby’s next birthday party. And you will serve them a meal at the party, or it doesn’t count. That’s another blog post.
This understanding, I have come to appreciate in a myriad of ways. However, I have been on a learning curve these last ten years since my relocation from the Northeast USA to the Southwest USA. The journey has not been easy. Even in the description of these geographical regions, completely opposite words are used:
North. South.
East. West.
When my first child, my baby girl, was born less than two years into my new assignment in the desert, I was woefully unequipped to parent her in this new-found stranger-free society.
I first came to this realization in Wal-Mart. You know, where all true ‘myself vs. society’ realizations occur. That’s another blog post.
My month-old princess, my precious precious, my heart incarnate, was facing forward, feet pointed up, kangaroo-style in a baby carrier called a sling. I was new to baby-wearing at the time, and this was my daughter’s favorite position in the carrier. Only her beautiful head of hair, under her hat, and her beautiful toesies in her shoesies were visible. I soon realized, even that limited exposure would prove to be too many accessible newborn body parts for post-partum hormones belonging to a young mother from the not-South, not-West part of our country.
A woman in her Abuela-years happened to be cruising the same shopping circuit as I was. This happens often, you get into an aisle-by-aisle shopping cart waltz with a customer who shops in the same pattern. Each aisle signaled an acknowledgement of one another’s presence. First, a smile at me and my baby. Then, a smile and a longer gaze and a coo. The next passing-by was a long, visual examination of my sling and a disapproving grimace. The cereal aisle demanded yet another greeting, smile, gaze and some unintelligible sweet Spanish noises toward my baby and I was getting weary of the social obligation. Don’t misunderstand, she was a friendly grandmother-type with a nice smile, but I was grocery shopping. By myself. With my first baby, being carried. At Wal-Mart. And after the cereal aisle, the interactions were no longer quite so friendly. You see, in my mind, we were strangers. In her mind, we had interacted several times and she, therefore, was now allowed to advise me on my parenting choices.
“Are you sure she’s not going to fall out of that thing?” She paused to ask.
“Oh, yes,” I said sweetly, smiling, always desiring to inform and educate, first. Right? “I am sure. You see, she’s protected by padding and cloth all around and it’s under her bottom and her bottom is down….” I scramble my defense together, simply describing the complicated gravity and bio-mechanical principles in the baby wearing traditions of millenniums of women.
“Ok, I guess.” She shrugged at me. A smile for the baby.
Phew.
Next aisle, she smiles. She pauses. I ignore her. She gets closer. I close my eyes. And turn toward the pasta sauces. Barilla, Classico, Prego, Ragu, Great Value. “Are you sure she’s not going to fall out?” She has my daughter’s foot in her hand and she is shaking it.
“I am sure”. I back up and turn toward my cart.
She comes closer. “Because… you know… I don’t know…” She is shaking her head and tsk tsk-ing at me, while now tugging my daughter’s foot.
I was done politely informing.
“She will only fall out if you keep pulling on her foot like that and pull her loose, out of the sling. So. Stop. Please? Now.”
She backed up and grimaced, shaking her head some more. “Oh-kay, if you say so.” She sang at me. Another smile and more coos at my baby.
We kept the waltz going for a few more aisles, silently. I was glad we were agreeing to disagree and politely finishing our grocery shopping. It went so well that I might have almost forgotten about the tension between us. If no ante had been upped, I would have been annoyed at some other customer at Wal-Mart by the time I finished and Abuela-stranger would have faded to memory.
But, there was no fade. The opposite, entirely. (She makes a long appearance in this very blog post, after all.)
Her husband, lost in the underwear and tire aisle, joined her at her shopping cart. She had back-up. I was outnumbered. We were in frozen foods. So close to the check-out. So close.
“Mira,” she begins at her husband, “look at this baby. Isn’t she going to fall out?” And she grabs my daughter’s leg. Again. And tugs. Again.
All my many moments of stranger education flashed before my eyes, landed in my hormone-infused brain and shot direct orders of my next course of action to my bated breath. I didn’t recognize the shrill snarl that came from my throat. I didn’t notice the inordinate amount of customers buying frozen vegetables at that moment and that they would all be witness to my next sentence.
“If. You. Touch. My. Child. Again..” My voice raised. Pitched and rolled, “I. Swear. I. Will. Call. The. Police.”
And, for added emphasis, “Watch. Me.”
The whole aisle froze like the peas and pizzas and taquitos and Eggo’s that were also cringing. The looks on their faces and the gaping jaws spoke volumes to the disturbance I had just caused. My reaction couldn’t possibly be explained to the crowd around me. They had no history, just a kindly elder couple greeting a newborn and a crazy woman screaming threats. The benefit of the social doubt did not lie with me, but with those greeting me. For they couldn’t possibly mean any harm. They couldn’t possibly be.. ‘strangers’.
But they were to me. Then and still. I have never since, ever seen them at any birthday party.
And yet, today I let a stranger touch my baby. My fourth-born, almost one-year-old baby boy, in a sling, smiled to show his Christmas-gifted two front teeth, and flirted with the check-out associate. She smiled back at him, receiving his greeting. He reached out his hand to touch her, for she was no longer a stranger to him. She received his incipient handshake and laughed at his gummy grin.
Sure, I am a more relaxed parent with this baby than with my first. Sure, my babies are full of personality, are irresistible and I can no longer deny the public an interaction with these blessings. Sure, I wasn’t at Wal-Mart.
But really, truly, I have evolved. I have changed. I would like to think I have grown. And, improved. I welcomed someone I didn’t know into my world for a moment. Before suspicion, caution and casual conversation were even possible.
I haven’t forgotten about that day and that couple. They remain in the forefront of my mind. They are an ‘x’ marking the spot on the treasure map of my character journey, for they represent the first time my ‘stranger’ world-view was challenged. Sure, this woman came on stronger than any other Abuela that has since greeted, tugged, prayed for and left her powdery scent lingering on my babies.
I did, after all, know her the longest.
TheFronteraMama 