So we went. Ten or Fifteen minutes in we were stopped by a very earnest woman with a clipboard from the NCSF. She proceeded to lecture us on how people on the religious right are trying to shut down Folsom and I am a terrible person for bringing in my baby and giving them more ammunition. There were very thin hints that if Folsom shuts down I will be at least partially responsible for taking it away from the 400,000 people there. When I relayed this story to a friend at the fair his response was, “And did you tell her to go fuck herself?” I kind of wish I had said that. We were at the fair for less than an hour and I felt pretty shamed and dirty the whole time and not in a good way. My daughter is four months old. She won’t remember this. I won’t be bringing her ever again because she might remember and that’s crossing a line.
And you know what? If Folsom shuts down it won’t be because of my four month old. And despite her scare tactics, I don’t believe that my child is going to be taken away by CPS now. Our house may be mildly cluttered, but it’s cluttered primarily with books that I am reading for a graduate degree and baby gear. Our daughter is huge and healthy and extremely happy. And it’s not as if she is using a dildo for a teething device. Give me a break.
I’m sorry, that sucks. People are so dumb about (other people’s) kids sometimes. Wish I had something more helpful to contribute…
And it’s not as if she is using a dildo for a teething device
And if she was… I could actually see that working pretty well. Just make sure it’s a clean one. 😛
I hate people who pull shit like that. CPS should be just that- Child PROTECTIVE Service, not a terrifying threat to be hauled out to beat parents at every opportunity.
Dude….. She’s 4 months old.
It was great to see her and you two (I miss you).
I mean I wouldn’t bring a toddler (which I saw) or a elementary school kid (which I’ve seen in past years) but an infant, you’re totally ok….
That’s how I feel. If she were even six months I feel it would be starting to be more sketchy because she would be communicating more. Right now she is so oblivious to the world I can’t see the harm in it.
But I wouldn’t bring a toddler or an elementary aged child. I think that is not cool.
I was so happy to see you…and once again, what a beautiful little girl!
People are lame everywhere, I guess. =/
my wife had a pepperoni as a teething device!
as far as her remembering things…
at what age do you have your earliest memories?
Something in the range of two. For me, part of what I use to judge this sort of thing is her ability to communicate and her attention span. By eight months old kids are starting to communicate at least a little, rarely but sometimes at six months. I don’t know of four months old really communicating. Her attention span is approximately equal to a gnat’s so I don’t think she would notice anything. Besides, if she has no schema for ‘sex’ then she doesn’t have any idea what is going on.
I went to Folsom for the first time this weekend, and have to admit I couldn’t imagine bringing my baby there. However, to say that it would somehow harm the baby (esp at 4 months) is downright foolish. There were older kids there, though, and that really made me uncomfortable. If anything there are outfits people wear that are scary for adults to see — how is a kid going to feel about that? — and forcing kids to participate in such a highly sexualized environment borders on abusive, in my not-so-humble opinion.
Did she literally say that you were a terrible person for bringing your baby, or just that you’re giving fuel to the religious right’s fire? Because I can see it as fuel for their fire. But it’s still within your rights to bring Shanna, but like that dude running around with the sign saying Obama is going to create a flood of abortions, it’s also within her rights to say something. Of course, it is also within your rights to tell her to fuck right off… 🙂
Yes another reason I support NCSF barely. I had a literally ten year fight with Susan W and NCSF over whips in the NYC gay pride parade because somehow she felt that this had some dangerous dark connotation to the vanilla public that had to be kept behind closeted doors.
what the???
if *i* saw a gay pride parade
and there were *no* whips
i’d think *that* was deviant…
Yeah the same kinda scare tactics were used from how dangerous whips are in a parade which is pretty minimal to how were violating some non existent perception the general public and giving the religious right the power to shut us down.
In the years I helped set it up and threw whips including my 8 foot blacksnakes the only accident that occurred was due to a guy on a bike riding to close to someone throwing a signal whip.
No one was hurt in anyway damaging and that was that, the cyclists who whoosh thru the parade and people on inline skates whizzing by without looking have more accidents over the years with out counting the damage to ears having to travel down 5th avenue only a few feet from the SPlash trucks booming loudspeakers.