Sensory issues and..... babies.....

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Not all NTs know what to do to a baby to stop it crying. And anyway, if a baby is crying in a shop, I'm not exactly going to go up to it and start playing with it or rocking the pram or taking the baby out and rub it's back or something. Although no harmful intentions, it still wouldn't be acceptable. Maybe if I was babysitting a baby, or had one of my own or a relative or close friend had a baby, I might know how to deal with babies more.

But it's not so much young babies I'm so afraid of. It's toddlers. I mean, how the hell do you shut a toddler up? It's not just about giving them a toy. Some toddlers hate shopping, and would cry and scream until they get home. As a complete stranger, I can't just go up to the toddler and try to lull it to sleep.

I remember once I got on the bus, and a woman with a toddler got on (the toddler looked around 20 months), and throughout the whole journey he was having the biggest tantrum I had ever seen. Even the mother didn't know what he wanted. He threw his dummy across the bus, rejected food and drink the mother offered him, and she even got him out of his buggy to give him a bit of freedom, but that didn't help. He still carried on screaming. Maybe he didn't want to be on the bus. He was quite placid before they got on (I was waiting at the bus station when they were waiting). Although the poor mother tried doing anything she could to stop the baby from screaming, everybody on the bus looked agitated, and some people even moved away from the baby because they couldn't bear it. In the end, the baby exhausted himself from all that unnecessary tantruming, and he fell asleep in his buggy. But the mother couldn't be angry at him because he was too little to learn right from wrong, and so he was not to know that his cries were upsetting everybody on the bus. That was a few years ago now.

Ha! I enjoyed the joke... Well, interesting enough I just first heard about the refrigerator parent theory, while reading a book about the history of ASD and Leo Kanner, came across this term and it wasn't explained, so I was confused. Refrigerator parent? That sounds nice. I come to you and you supply me with food! But I guess it's a weird term for "cold" and "distant"?

I've seen some terribly neglectful parents, but never seen anyone yell at an infant... But this is exactly why I don't want kids. Don't want to deal with their crying

I love this post LOL. I don't want children either, ever, and most people don't seem to get that. I feel humanitarian concern and hate to see babies suffer. I don't actually like caring for them though, nor do I enjoy most little kids. They're good kids, just not my thing. I enjoy adult interests and adult conversation too much to become one of those baby-talking, rated G moms who loves cooking/cleaning. The grossness is just nasty too, and the screaming and sleep deprivation would drive me crazy.