Dear Editor,

As mothers, we want to do all we can to keep our children healthy and clean, but it’s hard to take them out in public when the resources needed to care for them aren’t there.

Today, while visiting the Easter Bunny at the LaGrange Mall, my 4-month-old needed his diaper changed, so we went in the restroom. However, there was no place to lay him, so it took both my mom and I to change him because we had to place him on top of a wet countertop.

Thankfully, I had a changing pad in his bag, but it not only made it difficult for us but also hard for others leaving the restroom to wash their hands. While we were cleaning him, a woman walked over and threw up in the sink right next to my child’s head. She did not care that there was a helpless baby laying right there.

Livid is an understatement on just how mad I was, but if the restroom had a changing table it wouldn’t have been an issue. We picked him up, half-changed, and placed him on the hallway floor where hundreds of people walk each day, so we could finish changing him.

I understand there may be a changing table in Belk’s and/or Hobby Lobby, but if I am shopping on that end of the mall and my child is screaming because he has a dirty diaper, I should be able to go in any restroom and change him. After talking to other moms, this seems to be an issue in several stores and restaurants in LaGrange. There is no excuse for parents to have to lay children on a nasty floor to change them.

I spend my money that I work for in that mall, the least they can do is make it easier for parents to be able to enjoy a trip to shop, eat or just to go see the Easter Bunny.

Amanda White

LaGrange