Study: You Should Put A Hat On That Child

The study looked at the reactions of 30 women to the way you had chosen to attire your child for the 300-meter trip.

Jerusalem, May 11 – A survey of fellow pedestrians and other individuals whom you passed with your baby indicates that you should definitely put a hat on that child.

The poll, conducted this morning as you walked the child to day care, drew a nearly unanimous response from females over the age of 40, to the effect that your child will either be too cold in this spring weather and fall ill, or receive too much exposure to the sun and get sunburned or suffer heat stroke. Respondents were about evenly split between the two concerns.

Dr. Yenta Bizibati led a team of researchers in conducting the study, which looked at the reactions of thirty women to the way you had chosen to attire your child for the 300-meter trip. In an interview, Dr. Bizibati told PreOccupied Territory that they sought to obtain hard data on the possible ways in which your parenting could be critiqued, in order to contribute to an ongoing societal effort to make your business their business.

“Israelis have always felt a sense of real kinship with one another,” explained Bizibati. “That sense crosses ancestral barriers of Ashkenazim and Mizrahim,” she noted, referring to Jews of Eastern European and Mideast or North African pedigree, respectively. “To show our concern for one another, especially our precious children, we contrive to find ways of expressing care, specifically ways that impugn the choices and sensibilities of the person actually caring for the child.”

The study’s data bore out the hypothesis that such behavior is not the province of any particular Jewish sub-group. “Among the women who urged that a hat be put on the child, two were recent immigrants from Ukraine and Lithuania, and five boasted parents from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia,” noted Bizibati.

Rubbernecker Buttinsky, one of the researchers, said that even at a more granular level, ethnic origins had little to no impact on the responses. “The Russian-speaking women, while they agreed the child needs a hat in this weather, made opposite arguments,” he explained. “One expressed worry that a young child’s skin might burn if kept in the sun for the few minutes it takes to get to day care, whereas the other offered a stern but heartfelt rebuke that the child needs a hat to keep the chill off, and maybe even a thick pair of socks.”

Similarly, said Buttinsky, the Mizrahi women were evenly divided over the reason your child must absolutely wear a heat right now, you horrible, ignorant parent. “We had a tie among that demographic between, ‘Aren’t you going to put a hat on that poor thing? It’s chilly out!’ and ‘It’s got to be so uncomfortable like that on such a warm day! You should really shield that little head from the sun,'” he continued.

Dr. Bizibati intends to conduct a follow-up study to examine what the same demographic groups think of your choices in feeding your child.