Well, That Kinda (Really) Hurt

I was going to make a blog about this just after it happened, but I got distracted with talking to Rian about it instead, so here it is now.

I have a cousin named Vinnie. Cousin Vinnie had a baby boy with his ex-girlfriend a little less than a year ago, and he's named Vinnie, Jr.

Every Saturday my family holds a get-together where, if you know someone in the family and/or are family, you can come eat, hang out, play games, all those kinds of good things. Well, Vinnie and Vinnie, Jr. were there, as per usual, so I went out and decided that, hey, I kinda want to hold the baby.

I'm just making faces (kissy face, opening my mouth really wide to mimic him, wiggling my eyebrows) at him and helping him jump on my stomach (because jumping is something he loves to do), and my Grammy comes out of nowhere and says, and I honest to God am quoting, "She just wants to shake the hell out of the baby; I can see it in her face."

She laughed as though to play it off as a joke, but big Vinnie got nervous. He got nervous real fast. He tried to be polite by saying, "Alright, I think I'm gonna bring him to sit in his chair outside now," but I could see it in his face that all he wanted to say was "Alright, give me my kid back now, that's enough of you being around him."

Now, I'm not a fan of kids. Even as a kid, a smaller kid, at least, I still didn't like kids. But the thing is, I've always had a natural motherly instinct. I would never even dream of hurting a child, a literal infant, in any sort of way.

I have three siblings (sixteen, nine, and almost eight), and I roughhouse with them, sure, but they're big enough to fight back, and it's not like I'm trying to severely or even minimally injure them. Good sibling fun, y'know? They all survived being a baby around me, so obviously I'm not that bad, right?

I even helped my mum babysit Vinnie, Jr. not even a week ago. I let him jump on me, pull my hair, steal my glasses, etc. without a single complaint or even slightly violent action. I put up with that for a good four hours. I was exhausted and had planned to sleep as soon as I'd gotten home from school, and instead I'd ended up watching and playing with the baby.

I'm so very against people harming kids, especially when they're bigger and the child is completely defenseless, so to have not one, but two people basically say to my face that I'm not fit to hold a baby, especially after how much I've put in to making sure that he didn't hit his head on a table or get lonely while he roamed the house in his walker, it just... it hurt.

I get that I'm not fit for a lot of things. I get that, even if I wanted a baby, I'm as far from ready to have one as can be, but I put so much effort into being careful around that child, and apparently it wasn't enough for people to overlook the simple fact that I don't want kids of my own. Apparently not wanting kids translates to "I must harm and possibly kill every child I come into contact with."

It made me upset and, honestly, a little sick. These people who go around saying how mature and responsible I am make jokes about me killing a kid (and scaring the dad of said kid to the point where he doesn't want me around his kid anymore), and act like it's nothing. Like it doesn't affect me.

I don't give a fuck about a lot of things, I'll admit, but, like I said, saying I can't do such a simple task as holding a baby (who was happy and smiley and squeaky as could be with me holding him) really kind of does a lot of damage.

I don't know. I still feel kind of stupid for getting so upset about it, but Rian told me that I have a right to since my feelings were hurt. Has anyone else had this kind of problem, or is it just my luck?