Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / June 2006

. . . .don't play with matches, look both ways before crossing the street. .
. .

Kathy 1

All this "Don't Throw Your Baby in the Garbage" stuff reminds me of my
mom when we were all growing up.

For some reason my mom was always giving us these asinine warnings
about things that we would never do in the first place. She even wrote
a column about it in one of our magazines.

For example:

When my younger brother, who stands over six feet tall,  offered to
open a window in her office, my mother warned him against accidentally
falling out the window.  My brother noted that give that the window was
set low on the wall and was rather narrow, he'd have a heck of a time
*intentionally* jumping out the window, much less falling.

Or the time that my younger sister (who was probably 7 or 8 at the
time) came into the kitchen and saw that my mom was putting on some
dried beans to soak.  When my sister went to have a look at the beans,
my mother warned her against stuffing the beans up her nose. My sister
looked puzzled at this strange admonition, so my mom proceeded to
demonstrate by picking up a bean and pretending to stuff it up her own
nose. This exhibit was not enlightening to my sister, who left the
kitchen wondering why anyone would want to stuff a bean up her nose.

When I was 27 we went on a family vacation in a cabin on the lake. I
pointed out the most enormous toadstools that I had ever seen to my
mother, who promptly told me not to eat them. I became indignant and
told  her that I had no intention of dropping down on all fours to
graze on poison mushrooms.

The worst was when I came home from college for the weekend and
informed the family that a local fraternity had been suspended because
they were trying to force pledges into sexual congress with sheep
during initiations. My mom immediately got on her high horse and
exclaimed that she hoped that none of us children would ever do
anything like that, because for one thing, you could get terrible
diseases from such activity.  We all assured her that f.cking sheep was
not in our immediate plans.

To her credit, however, she never told any of us to not throw a baby in
the garbage.  Clearly she felt that while we might be inclined to eat
poison mushrooms or stuff beans up our noses, none of us would ever
consider tossing a baby in the garbage. She is not alone in this
sentiment: Most people don't tell their kids to never toss a baby in
the garbage, because everyone knows that to do so is a horrific thing.
The only people who toss babies in the garbage are people who are so
damaged that even offers of "Safe Havens" and the like are going to be
ignored.

In fact, the same woman who would who would throw her baby in the trash
probably shoves beans up her nose.

L.