Men love babies, too

On Saturday I had to go to a workshop to finish up my first year of BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment) for my teaching credential. My support provider and I agreed to meet at Starbucks and caravan to the workshop. We also decided to bring the Little Man with us, partly to avoid having to use the lunch break to pump in the bathroom, but also because he's freaking adorable and thirdly because my support provider figured that we would be allowed to power through the paperwork faster if we had a baby in tow. (Don't worry, we cleared the baby thing with the BTSA people ahead of time, so we didn't show up to a professional function with a surprise baby).

I got to Starbucks far earlier than my support provider did, and I learned something: men love babies, too.

At one table there was a group of about 6 middle-aged men. While I was waiting for my latte to come up, one of them called over, "Excuse me, ma'am, but you have a baby on your chest." (the Little Man was hanging out in our Moby). I laughed and feigned surprise to see him sitting in there. The other men joined in.

"How old is he?"

"What's his name?"

"He's a good looking baby."

..and so on. I was kind of tickled to see a group of men interested in a baby.

And then a group of 4 young men walked in. A couple of them looked at the baby (now asleep) and asked all the same questions, and made the obligatory, "He's so cute," comments. I judged these guys to be a bit younger than me. They looked to be either in college or fresh out of it. Again, I was tickled.

...and then we got to the workshop. More male teachers came up and made comments than the women.

It was a fun day, and definitely blew apart my preconceived notions about what demographics would be most interested in a little baby.

So far we have old ladies and men of a variety of ages.