I’m a mom. I like babies. Even when the cutie patooties are crying, I still like babies.

What I can’t stand is the baby brigade. I’m talking about the team of moms who stroll into coffee shops, restaurants or the bookstores with screaming babies. These women commandeer corners of a room, seemingly oblivious to the destruction and disruption their little darlings are causing.

They operate under the belief that having a baby gives them a license to annoy.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about the irritable, hungry baby who cries out. Babies are babies. They do what babies do. Who blames them?

I blame the moms, the ones who think "Baby on Board" means leaving manners and common courtesy at the door.

This past weekend, I was watching the men’s gold medal Olympics tennis match on television when I heard a baby screaming in the stands. Tennis great John McEnroe, one of the commentators and no stranger to temper tantrums, questioned why someone would bring a baby to a tennis match. 

“Take them to beach volleyball,” he said, noting that everybody screams there.

I’m a card-carrying member of the United States Tennis Association and even I find it hard to sit through an entire tennis match without squirming. But a baby?

When news broke of the horrific mass murder in Aurora, Colo., many folks, like me, asked, “Who takes a baby to a midnight showing of Batman?”

Members of the baby brigade. 

I understand how difficult it may be for some to find a babysitter. Sometimes moms work so hard that they are seeking any day out, just to breathe. But those who wheel their screaming kid into a quiet library and allow them to continue screaming unmercifully are just plain rude.   

Walk the baby outside. Come back when little Timmy has calmed down.

The only thing worse than the screaming baby is the LAM (Loud Animated Mom). You know the one. She’s speaking loudly, as if the baby were deaf.  These moms love putting on a performance for us, the unwilling audience: “Uh huh, uh huh! MOMMY WOMMY BABY WABY?”

The baby can’t understand a word coming out of her mouth. I imagine these women have gone coo coo after being cooped up and just want somebody, anybody, to listen to what they have to say. 

Screaming mall babies don’t bug me. They sound like white noise. But the screaming mall baby at a jazz concert? Ugh. 

So what’s a mom to do? Quietly and quickly comfort your baby. Address whatever needs he or she may have and get the heck out. The babies don’t mind. Obviously, they don’t want to be there. That’s why they're crying.