She Tuned Out A Crying Baby At A Restaurant And Kept Enjoying Her Dessert, So Her Friend Chewed Her Out For Being “Heartless” And Not Caring About The Child, Saying It’s A Good Thing She Doesn’t Plan To Have Kids
People react differently when a baby cries in certain public settings, such as a plane or restaurant.
Some freak out and get angry, some ignore it and shake it off, and some empathize with the parents and try to make them feel better.
One woman was recently out to dinner with friends and was scolded for acting indifferent and continuing to eat when a mom sat with a crying baby at the restaurant.
She recently went to dinner with two friends, Ann and Kim, who are both dealing with baby fever. Ann is 17 weeks pregnant, and Kim and her husband have been desperately trying to have a baby. It seems that babies and pregnancies are the only things Ann and Kim want to talk about these days.
“Though it doesn’t interest me much as someone who doesn’t plan on ever having children, I happen to have developed a good tolerance for pregnancy [and] child-related topics because all my friends are either pregnant or parents,” she explained.
“During dinner, they spoke only about pregnancies and childbirth, and I was hoping to catch up on other topics. I couldn’t get them to talk about anything else despite politely and subtly trying to change the topic several times.”
Although disappointed in her friends, she remained respectful and participated in the conversation, as she understood that was very important to them.
Later, a baby at a table near them began to cry when dessert was served. At first, the crying was noticeable, but she could tune it out, especially as the mom was doing everything she could to calm it down.
However, Ann and Kim could not tune out the crying. They weren’t angry about it but felt sad for the baby.
baranq – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
“My friends noticed how I [was] enjoying my dessert and not contributing to their conversation about how sad they feel for the baby and how it’s making their heartache,” she recalled.
“They were having some sort of ‘physical reaction’ to the baby crying. I [told] them I didn’t hear the baby cry anymore. They asked me if I had a hearing issue, so I explained how it was like background noise to me after the first ten seconds.”
Kim and Ann gave her horrified looks and suddenly bit her head off. Kim told me it was a good thing she wasn’t going to have children because she was “heartless,” Ann told her she felt bad that she wasn’t experiencing the same feelings as them.
She couldn’t help but laugh, thinking Kim was simply joking around and Ann was being a bit hormonal due to her pregnancy. But then, her friends got angrier, telling her it wasn’t a laughing matter.
At first, she tried justifying her friends’ behavior by acknowledging that Kim is going through a tough time and Ann is in a special condition with her pregnancy. However, the more she’s thought about the situation, the more ridiculous she’s found their reactions.
“Kim texted me today saying that I need to start showing a little more concern towards crying children if I am to spend time with her future children,” she added.
Unlike her friends, she believes that just because she can physically bear children doesn’t mean she should break out in tears whenever she hears a random baby cry.
Should she feel bad for ignoring the crying baby, or were her friends being unfair?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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