It's My Library & I'll Cry If I Want To

A young couple and their baby have become new and frequent users of our library, which ordinarily would not necessitate a blog post, but they are no ordinary family.

The young couple initially came into the library with the baby in a carrier, and they sat in a remote corner while they each read their books. This made the couple happy. This did not make the baby happy. The tiny baby cried pretty much nonstop for three hours. I don’t know babies – they are creatures I avoid – but this one could not have been a full year old. Each time I walked past the couple, I eyed them disapprovingly, hoping they’d take the hint and try to do something with the baby. It seemed that by the time my patience and tolerance ran out, they inevitably were packing up to leave. This happened a couple times when, on their exit, the mother approached me with all smiles and quietly asked me if it was possible to use one of the tutor rooms the next time they came in, so that the crying baby wouldn’t disturb as many people.

There was a huge part of me that wanted to ask, “Why don’t you actually DO SOMETHING about the crying baby, like take care of it, rather than hide in a closed room?” Alas, I did not. I simply pointed her to the proper authorities who could give her information about the tutor room.

This week they returned. They returned and were locked away in the tutor room, which may seem to be a soundproof room, but it is made of glass and drywall, so it merely muffles the sound slightly.

Slightly.

I walked past the room, looking in glaringly, and the parents sat there in the dark, reading their books, ignoring the crying baby.

A while later, after I decided the crying had to stop or they had to leave, I was going to go back and say something to them, but a coworker approached my desk with a question. As I answered her question, the couple and their now quiet baby passed my desk, and when they were out of eyeshot, I rolled my eyes at my coworker. She looked at the couple and then looked back at me knowingly.

“What? Were there books on the kid’s head?” she asked.

“WHAT?!” I wasn’t even quiet, I just yelled it right at the reference desk. What the heck did she mean?

“Well, they came to the check-out desk the other day with the baby in the carrier and they set books and movies all over the baby in the carrier, so they wouldn’t have to hold the books separate from the baby. I didn’t even know there was a baby in there until they loaded all the books and DVDs. She had like three DVDs on her head!”

I demanded, “Are you serious?”

She concurred. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Why we offer computer classes, when these patrons have lived this long without computers and will continue to live without them, yet we get ignorant, young parents who come into the library and have NO CLUE how to be parents, and clearly the most important lessons we could offer our community have more to do with life lessons than cyber lessons. While we’re at it, some classes in common courtesy and how to drive would be useful to our community as well. Perhaps a seminar on gratitude and how to wipe your ass after you use the toilet might be fortuitous.

Yet, I can’t get so high and mighty without mentioning that I helped one of our circ clerks the other day, who needed to scan a few pictures and email them to her daughter. This is a woman who has a computer at home, uses a computer all day at work, communicates with our Outlook email as much as the rest of us, but has no clue what the Internet is all about. Once she had scanned her photos, I told her to go to her email account and I’d show her how to send an attachment. She opened an Explorer window and then started typing the address in the address bar, only instead of typing “yahoo.com”, she typed her entire email address in the address bar. Error. I suggested she first go to Yahoo.com and then sign into her account. She had no idea what I was telling her to do. I showed her and typed it in myself, bringing me to Yahoo’s homepage, and she still had no idea what to do from there. Then she had no idea what her password was. I asked how often she uses her home email and she admitted it was only once in a while, and she just saved all her passwords on her computer so that she didn’t have to remember anything.

So, I suppose if we’re going to start teaching people and playing holier-than-thou, we should probably make sure we have equipped ourselves first with all the skills we hope to offer the public. If everyone on staff passes the Wipe Your Ass class, we’ll move on to the How To Send Email class. I’m wondering if we have more than two people on staff qualified to contribute to a How To Behave With Your Baby In Public class.