Mrs. Kulkarni was playing with her 2-year-old niece today, and she (the niece) got hurt. The toddler immediately started crying, loud enough to grab the attention of everyone in the room. I could immediately see the guilt dawn upon Mrs. Kulkarni's face. It feels bad enough that a baby is hurt, feels worse knowing that you were involved in it (and may be partially/obliquely responsible for it) and then it feels worst seeing everyone look at you and probably judging you.
From my perspective, I wasn't judging her at all. Babies are by themselves quite careless, very delicate and very quick to cry. Quite an awful combination. On top of that, them being cute doesn't help either. One look at them and you'd immediately want to pick them up and play with them. Despite being very careful around them, they'd find a way to hurt themselves. Accident-magnets.
I wasn't judging Mrs. Kulkarni, and I don't think anyone else in the room was either. You spend enough time with babies and you know that very rarely does the blame attach itself onto the adult involved, at least not directly. But, that didn't stop Mrs. Kulkarni's eye water up a bit when her niece started crying.
It was all over in 2-3 mins, as soon as the baby was distracted with something else. It was interesting event though, and I thought I should note it down somewhere as a reminder to myself when in a similar situation in Mrs. Kulkarni's shoes
"Babies get hurt. It's fine. It's most probably not your fault. Most people in the room don't think it's your fault. The baby is almost definitely fine too and will stop crying soon. Don't worry."
No comments:
Post a Comment