Babies in the Workplace

Community Approach to Parenting

   Having happy babies in the workplace seems to cause many people to feel invested in the babies' well-being and makes them want to participate in loving and caring for them. Willie Jones of Magical Journey Bookstore described how the

   baby excitement starts when a woman is
   pregnant. When the baby comes, everyone
   wants to crowd around. Even though they're
   not related [to the baby], it really became a
   sense of support and excitement. They
   pretty much act like a family. It seemed a
   natural extension of the phrase 'it takes a
   village to raise a child.' Everyone signed on
   to that without ever discussing it. Babies
   brought out the maternal and paternal
   instinct in everyone, including customers.

Babies are natural charmers--they tend to draw people in. There's a sense in our culture--even before a baby is born--that babies are part of the community. Many pregnant women have had the experience of strangers walking up to them and touching their bellies without even asking first, and the impulse to touch newborn babies is even stronger. This makes sense from a biological perspective (even if not from a "personal space" one)--babies are so utterly helpless, and children require so much dedicated care and attention, that it makes sense that adults would be "programmed" to instinctively reach out to children.

This community care is actually a more natural approach to parenting than our more typical arrangement of isolated parents at home alone with children. Babies in the workplace results in a social network for parents, a supportive, caring,