Another "unsolicited touching" thread, sorry.
I was in the pub today with DS2 (4 days old) (no no, I wasn't getting leathered, it was just the most convenient place to get a coffee and to feed and settle him out of the cold).
As we went to leave, I wheeled him past a table full of people who were, er, full of Christmas spirit and desperate to have a look at him in his pram.
I didn't mind that at all, so I stopped the pram and started answering re name, birth weight, did he give me a rough time etc.
Then, to my surprise, two of them whipped out their wallets and started digging around for loose change. They each produced a 20p piece and said it's a Scottish custom to rub a coin on the new baby and leave it tucked into his clothing somewhere. It brings good luck. I didn't mind, did I?
At this point all I could think was "I've never ever heard of that custom but Omg, surely coins are some of the least hygienic things you could possibly contrive to rub on a new baby", and I didn't quite manage to construct the polite refusal that I ideally would have liked. So they went ahead and rubbed the coins on his cheek. Then we left, with their boozy good wishes ringing in our ears.
One of them was very pleased that he managed to get DS to "hold" his coin himself, by tucking it in his coat sleeve, but the other (a woman) gave her coin to me and said aside "obviously it would actually be very silly to leave a coin inside a baby's clothes...you will take that other one out as soon as you get out of here won't you...Ok, good".
So...just on the basis that I felt instinctively uncomfortable with this unfamiliar ritual, I do rather wish I'd come up with some way of firmly putting them off, though without being rude to them...but based on other threads on here lately I'm now starting to feel that I really should have been as "forthright" as was necessary to persuade them to desist. But they were so nice, and so genuinely pleased to see my baby - and are they that likely to have done him any harm whatsoever, really? I was rather touched by the joy they took in a child they didn't know and who means nothing to them, but who they wanted to celebrate simply for being born.
(I do wish it to be noted that I did not go overboard re the hygiene aspect, and I refrained from rubbing his little cheek raw with a wet wipe as soon as we were out of sight. I Let It Go).
WIBU to let them do the weird money thing - was it pleasant and harmless, or have I actually kind of let my son down a bit by not protecting him from such random acts by strangers? I don't know, and quite possibly I'm just vastly over thinking the whole thing as I'm a hormonal new mum.