Why Do Moms Dump on Each Other?

I had this happen to me recently at the airport, twice! I'm a young new mom and I recently flew with my son and my husband to Salt Lake, a short 2.5 hour flight from Seattle. I had two older women make remarks to my face!! The first asked me if I really thought it was a good idea to fly with such a small baby (10 months at the time) during the swine flu scare. The next "preachy" comment came from a woman in her early sixties I'm guessing...well here's the scenario. My family and I were sitting waiting to line up for boarding an older man (65-70ish) who seemed to be differently abled came to say hello to my son. We spoke to him for a while and he reached out to shake my sons hand, and did so before I could politely ask him not to. After he left I grabbed my purse to get my hand sanitizing wipes when the woman behind and kiddy corner from us leaned over and said "You know, you really shouldn't let people touch your children these days." Whilst shooting rude glances towards the aforementioned man and his caregiver. I really thought she was out of line...and VERY rude! I can take care of my own without the comments of strangers! To top it all off we ate dinner at a restaurant in the Seattle airport on our return flight and right in the middle of dinner my son vomited all over himself, the table, his dinner and the floor! Aaaand he had a massive BM that went up his back right before the vomit. The waitress was so helpful and really understanding. Yet, I got glares from at least 3 women on my way out the back of the restaurant towards the bathroom to clean up...no one said anything to me, but really?! How could I have controlled something like this? To these glare giving women, I hope the scene ruined your dinner! Sincerley, Anonymous in Seattle

I recently moved to Chicago where many people seem to think it's their business to tell you how to handle your kid. One rainy day, I was accused of some degree of child abuse four times on my way home from picking up my son from daycare! One guard even accused me of slamming my son's head through a large turnstile at the train station. He was perfectly happy, and she hadn't even seen us go through it! Then another woman saw me struggling to prevent my son from kicking off the rain jacket for the stroller and said "your son is getting wet!" in an accusatory tone as if I weren't aware of that. She could clearly see that my son was perfectly happy (as long as the rain jacket wasn't spoiling his view). This never happened in San Francisco. When I first arrived in Chicago with my son he was an infant and it was a very cold week in April. We didn't have appropriate clothing, so we just layered everything on him and covered him with blankets over the Bjorn. In the two block stretch from my house to the train station a handful of people told us that his foot (covered in three pair of socks and at least a couple of sleepers) was coming out of the blanket. I thought that it was charming. I thought it showed civic responsibility that everyone would take it upon themselves to make sure that the child was warm.