The Contrarian Librarian: The Childhood Years

(My university has a lot of young parents attending. There are five or six private rooms in the library that kids aren’t supposed to be in, as there are a crèche and tonnes of other rooms, but my library is PACKED today. I see a woman come in with her little girl who is maybe four or five and I internally groan, thinking I’m going to lose out on a couple of hours of study. The woman sets her little girl up on the chair next to her with a little unicorn lunchbox and an iPad, plugging in some headphones for her. The little girl happily watches a show on the iPad, munches on some snacks, and grins at me when I glance over at her once, mostly to see if she is still there because she hasn’t made a single peep. I can’t help but smile back. She is honestly the quietest person in the whole room. Her mother works on her laptop for about an hour and starts packing up around the same time I do. I walk over to their table as I leave.)

Me: “Excuse me, miss?”

Girl’s Mother: *seemingly uneasy* “Yes?”

Me: “Can I just say you’ve got an awesome kid? I’ve never seen a kid her age behave that well for that long.”

(The mum smiles and thanks me, saying her partner was called into work and couldn’t watch their daughter and she was worried someone would tell them off for being in the kid-free room. The little girl suddenly takes off her headphones and says in a very loud whisper:)

Girl: “Hey, Mummy! We don’t talk in the library! Shh!”

(The mum and I burst out laughing. This kid had a better grasp of library rules than most adults. Way to raise a h*** of a kid, random university lady!)