Cool or Not Cool: Leaving Your Human Baby Alone in the Other Room at Starbucks While You Wait for Your Iced Double-Shot

A while back, FIPS asked this same question about a laptop and an open purse. I would place an unattended laptop and purse in the other room at Starbucks in a category like “Idiotic or Really Idiotic,” whereas for a BABY, the question might be “Today’s Parents Are Too Overprotective or Call Child Services?”

Walking from the coffee-making room to the coffee-drinking room in the Starbucks on 7^th recently, I was startled (like, cartoon-startled; I think I reared back) to notice a very young baby in its car seat under an empty table close to the door.  My head started swiveling looking for a caretaker of some kind. A woman across the room and I made eye contact, launching into that pantomime where we both signal to the other, “Uh, is that … yours?” and of course, it’s neither of ours, and then she’s standing up, and I’m looking into the other room, and we both have our eyebrows up and our eyes bulging, when finally a woman casually glances into the room, and I pounce: “Is that yours??” Affirmative. Then Mom turns back to the coffee bar (while my new friend and I are now rolling our eyes, relieved, but judgmental as hell), and eventually, with exquisite casualness, strolls slowly over to her baby, picks up the seat, and moves to the back of the room.

I mean, it’s not like she was Danish or something. Who’s the nutjob here, her or me?