The Gutierrez Gang

I don’t think I’ve ever conversed with as many strangers in my life as I have this past year.  There is something about babies, whether you are growing or holding them, that just opens you up to random conversations with people who you have never seen before in your life.

When I was pregnant, I didn’t get too many odd comments from strangers.  Oh sure, there were the occasional overly personal questions like, “So, are you going to wait awhile before having your next one?” Or, “So, are you planning on nursing your baby?”  And let’s not forget the “Whoa!” I received a week before delivering.  But, for the most part it was the same old, “When are you due?  What are you having?…etc.”  I guess people know they are treading on thin ice when speaking to a pregnant woman.  The old adage “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” is most applicable to anyone who would like to comment on the enormous size of that baby bump.

But since having a baby, I’ve been exposed to a whole new world…the one where it’s okay for strangers to offer advice, touch my child, and ask super personal questions.  Oh, and the oohing and aahing over my baby (from a distance), which is the one I appreciate the most.  Sometimes it’s nice to be so vulnerable to personal interaction with another human being (I am a stay at home mom, you know), but sometimes these interactions leave me more puzzled than smiling.  And it comes from the most unexpected people.

Take for instance, the other day, I was standing in line at Subway.  In the middle of me creating my ideal sandwich and trying to keep a heavy baby on my hip, a middle-aged man in a tie pipes up behind me.  I thought he was going to comment on my baby or something, but instead he asked, “so how was the delivery?” Huh?  Did a middle-aged man stranger just ask me about giving birth?  I tried not to miss a beat, so I said, “oh, great, it was easy,” and turned to tell them that yes, I do want lettuce, but he continued, “oh, because I’m a chiropractor,”  which made me wonder if he was about to scold the way I was holding the baby, “and, sometimes the doctors get overly zealous when pulling out the baby, which twists their necks and later they get middle ear infections.”  I nodded like that made sense to me.  ”So, if later on, he’s getting ear infections, I can just do a simple little tap on his neck…”  He searched for his card but didn’t have one, and left me to finish ordering my sandwich.

Or, take, another time this week when I was in Costco.  I had the baby in his car seat in the shopping cart and was happily walking by when an old man stopped me.  He just wanted to look, that was all.  He saw I had a baby, and he wanted to see it.  It was very sweet, but also kind of funny.  I mean, you don’t usually think of old men as being interested in stranger’s babies.  In fact, if I see that a smiley old woman is about to walk by, I kind of slow down, and prepare myself for conversation,  but often times, they just keep on walkin’ not even caring that I have a baby!  What in the world!?  She didn’t want to see my baby??  I guess you just can’t win.

But, what I get most comments from are those women whose children are long past the baby stage.  They look at me while I juggle my baby, diaper bag, and groceries with a mixture of complete pity and understanding,  and an intense ache to have those days back for themselves.  They tell me to enjoy this because it “goes before you know it,” and then share stories about how they can’t believe they have a 10 or 26 year old.  These comments, although sweet and true, always make me sad.  I am well aware of how fast time is going.  Even three months ago feels like yesterday.  And I AM enjoying this time- not that I’m some special mom or super great, it’s that my baby is so wonderful.  I could live in this stage forever.  Maybe those moms are trying to tell me to take the extra time to give extra kisses and extra cuddles now, to hold him when he’s crying even if he’s supposed to be napping, because in a few years, even months, it’ll all be different.

And then, there are the fellow parents.  These are the ones who are right there in the thick of it, just like I am.  Usually they have their own infant, which makes it almost obligatory for one of us to strike up a conversation.  Someone will ask, “how old,” or “what’s his name?’ and then the conversation goes from there, until you are pulled into another checkout line by the clerk who clearly didn’t see that you were actually enjoying this baby conversation.  Often times these conversations are with the mothers, but sometimes, they are with the fathers.  Yesterday, at Henry’s, I was trying to cross the parking lot with the baby in my arms.  A young guy pushing a large train of carts smiled at me and said, “take your time!  I know what it’s like!”  We conversed and he shared his 5 month old daughter’s stats, and I shared about my son, and in the end he asked if I’d had a natural birth or c-section (again with the men asking about the birth!).  It was a very pleasant conversation, mostly because you could see what a proud daddy he was, but it was funny to me that somehow I’ve joined this club.  There’s this unspoken rule that makes it totally normal and fine to talk to a stranger, to ask them questions, and to interact, just because I have a baby.

And then I realized, that we really were made for community.  We were made to interact with people, to want to get to know someone.  It is at our core, because that is what God made us to desire.  If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have cared to put Eve on the earth.  But in a world where there is violence and selfishness and most people are only looking out for numero uno, it makes it hard to find a way to walk up to a stranger and ask them how they are doing, or to put yourself out there for rejection.   But, babies, well, there is something about babies that allows an old man to interact with a young mom, or a store clerk to share advice, or a middle-aged woman to offer encouragement.   They prompt rough, scruffy looking men to hold the door open for the stroller -toting mom, and 2 young moms share a “look” while bouncing their fussy babies in the check out line.  I hope I’m not sounding like babies are the answer to world peace or the glue that holds us together.  But I do feel like having a baby has opened me up to a world where people aren’t so cold and mean, and that strangers can come up and talk to you.  And even if they are odd or nosey, or sometimes nasty, most of the time, they interact because they care, and because they need to feel connected too.  And so, with joy I tote around my stranger magnet.  I smile when they admire and I thank them for their advice, and most challenging of all, I try not to make them feel weird for having just asked that question.  And I know that one day, I’ll be the one telling the young juggling mom to hang in there and enjoy it because it won’t last very long, oh, and if they are having a lot of middle ear infections….