Taking Young Children Out in Public

As most of you know, I raised my son alone from the time before he was a year old. I really had no idea on how to go about it, except to do things the way I remember my parents did with me, and to ask my father for advice, when I couldn't remember.

The other day, I was waiting in line at the grocery store. In the little seat of the grocery cart in front of me, was a little boy, somewhere between one and two years old, with his mother. The boy was wearing nothing at all, except for a disposable diaper: no shirt, no pants, no socks, no shoes; nothing. While we stood waiting for our respective turns at the register, the mother opened a pack of Juicy Fruit gum she'd had yet to pay for and gave a stick to the child to chew.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing -- didn't the woman know better than to give gum to such a young child, just barely old enough to walk? Didn't she realize he could choke on that?

I'd already been looking at the mother askance because she'd brought him out in public with nothing more on than a diaper. I can remember well my father making comments about people who let their kids run around barefoot in stores, and other places in public. He pointed out that he and my mother had never done that with us, as they worried about things we could step in that would hurt our feet while out in public; glass, hot tar, sharp objects, etc. I remember being allowed to run around barefoot at home in the yard when I was a kid, but when we went out, I had to have something on my feet, even if just a pair of flip flops.

And even though it was a hot day, the kid should have had some shorts on over his diaper and a tshirt -- it had to be hot sitting in his car seat with no shirt to protect his back from the hot vinyl of the seat.

I looked closely at the mother, who looked like an extra from the movie Deliverance and figured she just didn't know any better.

Thoughts?