"My most defining moment as a mother."

It took this surprising moment for this woman to feel she’d really earned her mum-stripes.

My son is 11 months. Soon he will be a 1-year-old. And it got me reflecting about my year as a mother. My ups and downs, my proud mummy moments, my no- so proud mummy moments. Most of them I have shared on my blog.

But it occurred to me I never shared one of my most defining moments as a mother. One that I am proud to say taught me to trust my instincts and stand up for what I believe in, even if it means having a difficult conversation with a stranger in public.

I was at the ATM in town. My little one was snug as a bug in his pram. He was wearing a bear beanie (beanie with ears) and a cardy knitted by nanny. He was cute. Super cute in fact!

I had him facing away from me while I was withdrawing money, not sure why really, perhaps because I sat my wallet on top of my pram to keep it close – you know how you keep it close in case someone sneaks up behind you – well I was doing that.

Anyway here I am minding my own business when I hear a click of a camera shutter. I turn around and find a woman pointing her iphone at my son.

I look at her.

She looks at me.

She smiles.

I don’t smile.

I think to myself…. “Oh no you didn’t” and waved my imaginary finger in the air!

“Did you just take a photo of my son?” I ask.

She laughs. “Yeah, he’s just so cute”.

Now as far as I am concerned, she has just broken the cardinal sin of public privacy (a juxtaposition if I ever heard one!), but she broke it.  To say I was p!ssed off was an understatement. I was livid.. LIVID I tell you. Anyone that knows me, knows that I do not tolerate any breach of privacy (despite the fact that I have a blog, I can guarantee you I am a private person).

So I unleashed banshee Lauren – well not quite, I wasn’t rude or aggressive, but I was so wild!

“Oh no,” I said assertively. “You do not take a photo of another person’s child without their permission.”

I was seeing red and wanted to yell at her and slap her around the face with a used nappy.

See this picture….

This is what I wanted to do.

But instead I took a deep breath and continued.

“I don’t know you – you don’t know me. I don’t know what you’re going to do with that photo. I don’t know where you’re going to post it. You need to delete it now!”

I think she peed herself.

I am not sure, but the look on her face told me something was happening in the downstairs department, or, maybe I had just made my point abundantly clear. It was hard to tell.

I don’t understand. How can people be so…. so docile? How can they not know the etiquette of taking photos of other people’s babies – of strangers babies – you just don’t do it. Either this woman is as dumb as a sack of hammers, or there is something seriously wrong with the world if people this kind of behaviour is okay.

Anyway, she fiddled with her phone and said she had deleted it. I only hope she did.

I walked off mumbling under my breath about rudeness and I may have said a few choice words… “stupid-cow” being one of them.

But unfortunately the damage was already done.

How do I know that she didn’t Snap Chat it to half a dozen of her friends. Or posted it on Instagram or Facebook for 1000 of her friends to see?

The truth is, I don’t.

I just have to hope that no one else finds my baby as cute as she does. Doubt it though, he’s damn pretty cute.

This was originally published here and is republished with full permission.

How do you feel about people taking photos of your baby?

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