I could no sooner imagine Doug or Liza shaking a baby than I could imagine them, ugh, hitting a baby. On the other hand, I remember once, with my second, getting so crazy with fatigue, that I was ready to pitch her through a window, which is the point where I started yelling for help...and someone from the household rescued her and gave me my ten minutes of necessary rest.
Babies can be very hard.
Joanna
Bill Bartlett wrote:
> At 11:09 AM -0500 9/1/06, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> Yikes. We had to watch a video about the evils of baby shaking before
>> leaving the hospital and sign a form saying that we'd taken it in.
>>
>> The video was on The Newborn Channel. You have to pay $5/day at
>> Roosevelt to get regular cable TV, but The Newborn Channel is free.
>> Some useful info (how to install the car seat [you have to have one
>> to leave the hospital], how to breastfeed, etc.), but lots of product
>> placement too. What a playground of product placement this is! Goodie
>> bags on leaving the hospital, goodie bags on first visit to
>> pediatrician. And the stuff ain't cheap.
>
>
> I see things are getting worse. I remember when we left the hospital
> with one of my kids (second one as I recall) many years ago I first
> went through the baby capsule thing. First of all the nurse followed
> us down to the hospital exit, it felt weird, like she was reluctant to
> actually part with the baby. Then she asks us where the car is, but
> the car park was full and I'd had to park it right down the road about
> a kilometre away. She insisted on following us all the way back to the
> car, to check that we had installed a baby capsule!
>
> It pissed me off, I can tell you. By that time it was already illegal
> to carry a baby in a car without an approved capsule, so of course we
> had hired one. It seemed almost too bizarre to take seriously, that
> maternity nurses would take it into their heads to start enforcing the
> road traffic laws. I wondered idly if she would be checking to see if
> the tread on my tyres was the regulation depth as well, or whether my
> brakes were sound. But no, apparently her official concerns were very
> specific.
>
> This from a hospital where the doctor couldn't be bothered cutting
> short his golf game and turning up for the birth, they have the
> presumption to want to check up on parents.
>
> A few weeks after our first child was born, a district nurse actually
> turned up at our door one morning completely unannounced. Obviously to
> check up on us. As if we didn't have enough to contend with from the
> baby's grandmothers. Now THAT'S what I call the Nanny State! These are
> some of the minor indignities of the life of the lumpenproletariat I
> figured.
>
> Now compulsory instruction videos!
>
> But what would happen if you refused to watch? I guess they would call
> in the welfare and snatch the kid. Probably refer you to a
> headshrinker to have you labelled schizophrenic.
>
> The penalties of non-conformism are serious, don't get me started...
>
> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tas
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