“AITA For Ignoring A Crying Baby In A Restaurant And Continuing To Enjoy My Dessert?”
More and more adults are choosing not to have children. According to a 2021 Pew survey, 44% of non-parents in the U.S. say that they won’t or are not at all likely to have children someday. It is a big life decision that can impact your friendships and relationships in the long term. Once people have children, they might have less in common with their friends who are not parents.
One Redditor experienced this possible rift with her own friends. As she was out with them – one who’s a parent and the other who’s pregnant – an interesting argument broke out. The friends called out the OP for not responding maternally to a crying baby, calling her “heartless.” Wanting to check if her reaction was as inappropriate as her friends claimed, she turned to the Internet.
Some people might argue that dessert is the best part of a meal at a restaurant
Image credits: Alev Takil / unsplash (not the actual photo)
But this woman didn’t get to enjoy hers because her friends called her out for ignoring a crying baby
Image credits: Juan Encalada / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Sarah Chai / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: pupetteer
Experts say that maternal instinct is a myth
Image credits: Sean Roy / unsplash (not the actual photo)
The main problem that the OP’s friends seem to have had with her reaction was that she didn’t react maternally to the baby’s cries. That was probably due to the widespread myth of maternal instinct. It’s the notion that all women have an innate behavioral response to children and instinctively know how to care for them.
However, psychology professionals no longer believe that this phenomenon is true. Dr. Catherine Monk, a psychologist and professor of medical psychology in the departments of Psychiatry and Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University Medical Center, told Healthline that “the idea of a maternal instinct can be quite exaggerated.”
She says that what people call ‘maternal instinct’ comes from experience. “This ‘maternal instinct’ of a sixth sense for one’s child and what they need comes from intense closeness and deep love, spending hours with and thinking about the child.” So why should a woman respond to the cries of a baby when it’s not even theirs?
Adults who have not had children do react to a baby crying
Image credits: Antoni Shkraba / pexels (not the actual photo)
The sound of a crying baby does produce a physiological response in adults. In 2012, Oxford University researchers found that a baby’s cries speed up reaction time in adults. This supplements previous research on how hearing crying babies can elevate heart rate, blood pressure, and hand grip strength.
Professor Kringelbach commented on the research: “Few sounds provoke a visceral reaction quite like the cry of a baby. For example, it is almost impossible to ignore crying babies on planes and the discomfort it arouses, despite all the other noises and distractions around.”
Christine Parsons, Ph.D., a psychologist and associate professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, told The New York Times that this is how humans differ from other animals. “Rodents have to have given birth before they care about pups. Humans don’t have such a selective response.”
It’s not only mothers who can experience a bump in oxytocin (a hormone that’s connected to maternal bonding) when interacting with a baby. Grandparents and adoptive parents can feel it, too.
“Both undergo similar neuroendocrinological transformations—even in the absence of giving birth or of lactation,” Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, professor emerita at the University of California, Davis, told National Geographic.
A friendship between a parent and a child-free person might need more work and effort
It can be hard to navigate a relationship among friends once they start having children. Sometimes, people might start feeling that they don’t have enough things in common anymore.
Research shows that the quality of friendships decreases after people have kids. And the earlier they have them, the greater the decline is.
Ellen Walker, Ph. D., writes that both sides should meet in the middle if they wish to keep the friendship. For those who are child-free, she advises to be more understanding – having a newborn is a new learning experience for the parent.
Even if you’re child-free, it is still your friend, and you should respect their position. Try getting your friend out of the house without the baby for at least a half-hour walk. The new mom might even appreciate it if the child-free friend would take the time to get to know their baby, whether that’s just by visiting or even babysitting occasionally.
The friend who has children should be understanding toward their child-free friend as well. The first thing they should understand is that, contrary to stereotypes, child-free people don’t lead selfish and self-indulgent lives.
One of the worst insults a friend throws at their child-free friend is that not being a mother leaves them empty. Dr. Walker recommends friends shake off this opinion if they want the friendship to continue.
The OP gave more context about the friendship, her choice to be child-free, and what dessert she was eating
The consensus among the commenters was NTA
Poll Question
Thanks! Check out the results:
Subscribe to Access
Exclusive Polls
By entering your email and clicking Subscribe, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Privacy Policy.
Thank you! You've successfully subscribed to newsletters!
You May Also Like
Woman Refuses To Chip In For Babysitting Because She Doesn’t Even Have Kids, Asks If She’s A Jerk
Do you think childless individuals should be expected to chip in for group babysitting costs during friend gatherings?
17 Y.O. Is Done Sharing Her Birthday With Her Late Twin, Parents Are Not Having It
Do you think the girl should be allowed to celebrate her birthday without the remembrance of her deceased twin?
All I read here was two people saying "you're not the same as us, therefore you are wrong". This is a toxic situation. I am child free by choice and all of my friends have children. I have never enjoyed the company of children either. My friends accept me for who I am, have never judged me for different choices, and can speak of a variety of subjects. They are amazing mothers, but being a mother is not their entire identity. I hope OP sees this as what it is, two toxic and entitled people, and not representative of mothers everywhere.
Yeah I don't even think they believed what they were saying, I think they just wanted to feel special or something. It reminds me of a group of mean girls at school trying to make her feel weird or sub-par for not wanting the same things they want.
Load More Replies...
I'm 42 with two kids 2 and 4. I would totally tune out strange child crying once I saw that the child's caretakers were trying to soothe them.
And to add to that, I kind of feel "good" that it's not MY child that is crying this time. Good is not the right word, relieved neither. I love my kids. (youngest is 9 now). But I kind of.. look with pity to people with crying babies. And then go back to enjoying what I was doing because it's not my responsability. (yes yes ofcourse I check if the child in question is being taken care of, if their parent is present or nothing serious is going on.)
Load More Replies...
Get new friends. Those "B's" are not real friends. More like overgrown mean girls. I do know if I was out with "friends" who were so nasty, I would have plopped money on table and walked out, either without a word, ot telling then you feel sorry for their babies , because the women are awful and will probably be awful to their kids, too
All I read here was two people saying "you're not the same as us, therefore you are wrong". This is a toxic situation. I am child free by choice and all of my friends have children. I have never enjoyed the company of children either. My friends accept me for who I am, have never judged me for different choices, and can speak of a variety of subjects. They are amazing mothers, but being a mother is not their entire identity. I hope OP sees this as what it is, two toxic and entitled people, and not representative of mothers everywhere.
Yeah I don't even think they believed what they were saying, I think they just wanted to feel special or something. It reminds me of a group of mean girls at school trying to make her feel weird or sub-par for not wanting the same things they want.
Load More Replies... I'm 42 with two kids 2 and 4. I would totally tune out strange child crying once I saw that the child's caretakers were trying to soothe them.
And to add to that, I kind of feel "good" that it's not MY child that is crying this time. Good is not the right word, relieved neither. I love my kids. (youngest is 9 now). But I kind of.. look with pity to people with crying babies. And then go back to enjoying what I was doing because it's not my responsability. (yes yes ofcourse I check if the child in question is being taken care of, if their parent is present or nothing serious is going on.)
Load More Replies... Get new friends. Those "B's" are not real friends. More like overgrown mean girls. I do know if I was out with "friends" who were so nasty, I would have plopped money on table and walked out, either without a word, ot telling then you feel sorry for their babies , because the women are awful and will probably be awful to their kids, too
41
66