Unfiltered Story #200691

My first job at 17 was at a daycare inside a gym. The parents generally pretty nice and not helicopter parents, meaning they checked on their kid maybe once during their workout. There were no age limitations, but people never brought really young babies. One day this older lady came in with a two week old in a car seat. The lady looked a little eccentric, but I didn’t think she’d be too much of a problem. The baby had an odd name, the Aztec word for star. She put the car seat on a table and asked me to sit down at the table with her, even though I had 10 other kids to watch. She asked me if I had a boyfriend and if I had kids and when I was planning to have kids. Then she told me I needed to take colon cleanser and that it would clear up my acne. In hindsight she was probably just trying to put off working out, but she made me so uncomfortable. She finally left. Then she started peeking into the glass door to see what I was up to every 5 minutes. I felt like I had to neglect the other kids because I was busy with this crazy lady’s newborn baby. The baby started getting fussy, so I sat down at the table and gently rocked the car seat. The mom saw it and storm in yelling at me about how I was going to give her baby shaken baby syndrome. I apologized profusely even though I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong. She came back the next time I was working with the baby in a stroller. She did the whole asking questions thing again and then left. I left the kid in the stroller because if rocking will hurt the baby then walking around while holding her would definitely make the mom freak out. Baby started getting fussy again, so I wheeled the stroller around the daycare room while I watched the other kids. Mom came in to check on her and said “don’t forget what I said about shaken baby syndrome.” Ok crazy. I quit before I could see her again.