Not Babying New Mothers

(I’m at the supermarket checkout, getting all of my stuff scanned. Behind me are the self-scanning checkouts. The place is fairly busy, and out of nowhere comes the scream of a newborn. Of course, everyone looks over to see what’s going on. There’s a woman, possibly in her late twenties, early thirties, all alone, trying to scan her groceries and calm the baby at the same time. The kid is having none of it. You can clearly see that this poor woman is trying to decide whether to calm the baby down now, or get the scanning done quickly so that she can comfort him longer. During this, the kid is screaming blue murder. Suddenly, I see the woman who was behind me in the line go over to the lady.)

Woman: “Hi, I was just over there with my husband and toddler, and, please tell me if I’m crossing the line, but would you like me to hold your baby for you?”

(Now, this woman is clearly very pregnant, as well as having a young son, so she’s obviously not only done this before, but has nothing but sympathy for the young woman in front of her.)

Young Mother: “Oh, wow, thank you so much. That would be great. I’m almost finished. I’m so sorry for the noise. It’s just I’m here alone, and—”

Woman: “It’s really okay, don’t worry about it. It’s tough with a newborn. You’re doing fine.”

(With this, the young mother picked up her newborn and handed him to the other woman. He stopped crying almost immediately, and his mother went to finish up with her scanning. During all of this, the other woman stayed close by, never going out of eye shot so that the new mum could always see where her child was. I was all done and out the door before I could see how it ended, but I thought it was lovely that a stranger would go out of their way to help a struggling mother. Kudos to you, wherever you are.)