A game of babies

The other day I saw something that illustrated clearly to me the struggles we have with compassion as a society.  In a forum about the World Boardgaming Championships which I attended two weeks ago someone was complaining about baby changing stations in the bathrooms in the convention centre.  You might imagine that people would be complaining that there weren't enough change stations, or that the change stations were only available in the women's washrooms.  I have encountered both of these issues personally.

But no.

The complaint was about changing stations existing at all.  The complainer was unhappy that children were being changed in the washrooms, because he expected people with children to take them back to their rooms to change them.  His preference was that change stations would be eliminated entirely because that would get rid of the problem of people changing babies in public spaces.

His complaint was pitched around the idea of contamination.  He didn't like the idea of the possibility of fecal matter from baby changes being spread around, and expressed concern that other babies might get sick if they were changed on the same change table that another baby had used.

This nonsense reminds me a lot of the arguments used to try to force breastfeeding out of the public domain.  It is entirely driven by people's ick reactions, with the added twist of sexualizing breastfeeding parents and/or babies.  Some people will be honest and just say that they are icked out by the whole thing, and although I think they should just shut up and cope at least they are being honest about why they object.

It really riles me up though when people make bonus 'safety' arguments to justify their attempts to control others just based on an ick response.  The idea that baby changing stations should be removed to help the babies is transparently absurd.  Toilet seats aren't removed to 'help' adults who don't want to spread around fecal matter.  We don't ask fully grown people to walk long distances to their rooms to use the washroom to reduce contamination.  But some of those adults still seem to feel justified asking parents and babies to travel this way.

In the same way some people insist that breastfeeding ought to happen in cars or washrooms to get it out of the public eye.  It is usually pitched as a way to make things safer for children who might accidentally see a breast, with no thought as to how much of a problem it is for the baby or the person feeding them.

The classism is these arguments really gets to me.  Some people have enough money that they can easily set it up so that they aren't the ones who have to cope with a baby's needs.  When they want to go out they just pay to have somebody else deal with their children.  Rich people are also in a much better position to have one of the baby's parents dedicate themselves entirely to child rearing which makes dealing with these logistical issues simpler.  But many people don't have the money to farm out baby care and they have to bring their infants along with them.  They don't have the resources to sequester their infant's bodily needs away from all the people who are made squeamish by them.  It is a situation of a rich person being angry at a poor person for the crime of being poor.

Even when it is a choice we should support it.  Even if someone has plenty of money we ought to set up the world so that they can care for their babies as they go about their day.

I totally understand that some people, especially those who have never made a baby, can find it hard to know what a caregiver needs.  That small bit of ignorance is easily enough cured.  The real problem is people who know what caregivers need and then insist that they not get it in order to keep babies at bay, and do so with bogus 'safety' arguments.