Relaxed Parenting Styles

There is a baby on the stairs, accompanied only by a bare chicken bone and a baggy diaper. The diaper looks like it is weighing her down, either because she is not big enough to wear that size or because it is full of feces. I look at the other Ugandan interns, they are leaning against the wall in white plastic chairs, looking at their nails, examining the sky, staring into blank space, while I meanwhile, am riveted in my chair, bum hovering above my seat, white knuckles are the only things keeping me attached, ready to spring into action if this baby falls. I don’t want to take the baby off the stairs, lest some mother comes screaming at me for touching her baby and generally being a weirdo, so instead I sit, ready to catapult towards this child at the first hint of danger. 


She grabs the iron railing and lifts herself up against it. A man walking by stops to shake her little hand and smile at her, I'm not sure if he is known to her or just touching her and this makes me anxious. The man walks away and the baby flounces to the ground, dragging her chicken bone through the gray dirt and quickly plopping it back in her mouth. An impeccably dressed woman in a white suit and black heels walks up to the baby, laughs, as if the little girl has been naughty, and grasps her hand. I watch this mother-daughter pair wobble down the steps together. At the bottom of the stairs she drops the baby’s hand and wanders alone into the internet cafe behind me. 5, 10, 15 minutes later she emerges and takes the dist encrusted infant into her arms and walks away.