By Gina Fenton of Extreme Mom
Call me a prude and a party pooper (pun totally intended), but I don’t find the new trend of festively painting babies’ bottoms for holidays even a teeny bit cute.
My moral compass registers NO pretty much immediately.
Don’t get me wrong; baby bottoms are adorable. In fact, I’m admittedly guilty of taking the token naked-baby-on-the-changing-table photo (belly side down) of each of my newborns when they came home from the hospital.
I also have no problem with tots darting around the beach or kiddy pool in the buff. Any seasoned parent knows bathing suit malfunctions are not uncommon and tots love a good strip tease. They’re practicing autonomy- doing it all by themselves. Mastering the skill of dressing.
It happens. Kids are streakers from way back. In a family-centered environment, it’s not that big of a deal.
I suppose my comfort meter alarms over-the-top at the mere thought of anyone restraining (they absolutely are holding them against their will) a baby so they can festively decorate their privates with paint.
It’s not cute.
Babies are not chalk boards or blank canvases, for God’s sake.
We just don’t paint our offspring for our own selfish entertainment.
Again. It’s not cute.
Worse yet is posting these humiliating photos on the Internet for everyone and their brother to copy, paste and pin to Pinterest where the copy-paste-post cycle will repeat for all of eternity.
Soon enough, Pumpkin Butt will grow into a child with emotions who’s capable of independent thought and will more than likely resent the hell out of the artist.
Way to go, Mom.
Don’t insult my intelligence by comparing hand and foot prints. It’s not even remotely close to butt prints. We’re comparing apples and oranges, in which case this one happens to be a pumpkin.
My four kids (ages 13 – 20) remain horrified to this day when they view the changing table photos.
And I do mean HORRIFIED.
I can’t even begin to imagine how they’d feel had I painted pumpkins or Easter eggs on their butts and posted them on the Internet.
I know I’m going to get a lot of hate mail on this one. C’est la vie. I’m advocating for the babies, and I’m not budging.
It also invites us to open an entirely NEW conversation that goes something like this: when explaining GOOD TOUCH – BAD TOUCH to your four year old, where does mommy doodling on baby sister’s bottom or making canvas butt prints fall on the spectrum of what’s acceptable?
How confusing.
Where do we draw the line?
This post was originally published on Extreme Mom.
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About Gina Fenton
Gina Fenton is a registered nurse, blogger, wife, mom of four and advocate for special needs and mental health. She writes the over-the-top humor blog Extreme Mom for sanity preservation and her own entertainment. Gina lives in Upstate N.Y. with her family, two dogs and That Goddamned Cat. Her adventurous everyday tales can be found on Extrememom.net. Her writing has been featured on popular sites such as NurseTogether, Mamapedia, Bonbon Break, BlogHer, Mamalode and Project Underblog.