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This is how you hold a baby. Beijing, June 2013.
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I learned pretty quickly when I was pregnant that ‘Beijingren’ love babies! They really love them. And they know all about them. Even better they are very happy to share all that information with you. Whether you’d like to hear it or not.
This might sound like any other country, but I think perhaps people were just a bit pushier with their unsolicited advice in China.
One friend couldn’t leave her apartment without well-meaning neighbours chiding her for not putting socks on her newborn infant. They didn’t care it was 35C outside. Another was told off for taking her daughter out the house before she was a year old. (I exaggerate, but I did tell people Ted was three months old when he was closer to four weeks, to avoid the tutting).
So it was, I found myself taking Ted for an early morning walk in his pram through our apartment complex.
I was pretty excited as we’d barely left the house since he’d been born thanks to the terrible air pollution. Ted, however, wasn’t playing ball and started wailing within minutes of leaving the apartment.
I hoiked him out of the pram and onto my shoulder to calm him down. So I’d got baby in one hand and I was pushing the pram with the other.
Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a couple of ladies out for their morning exercise.
I gave my smug new mother smile, knowing they would probably want to come and have a chat. One of them seemed particularly keen, and started making a bee line for us, so I slowed down ready to say how old Ted was in my best Mandarin. “Yes, he really is three months!”
No sooner had I stopped than Lady Number One was tapping me on the arm with a very cross look on her face. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but clearly something was offending her.
As we weren’t getting anywhere with words, she took matters into her own hands and prised Ted from my shoulder. With great exaggeration she turned him around and cradled him in her arms, looking at me pointedly. Clearly, I had been taking huge liberties with the welfare of my child by holding him upright against my shoulder. Babies should be held firmly in the crook of your arm.
I was kind of shocked by this whole exchange and a little bit nervous, but I still had the presence of mind to take a photo. Or two. It’s not everyday you get an impromptu lesson in baby care on the street from two little old ladies. Ted, sensing he was finally in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing, instantly calmed down and did a model baby impression while I worked out how to ask for him back.
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Lady Number One holding Ted in the correct position.
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