Babies on Buses

What kind of miserable life, or sadistic streak, would compel someone to drag an infant through a poor, dirty, tropical country for a vacation?  If having a child is such a pleasure, then stay home and enjoy it before the kid grows up and starts asking for money.  Why three American women with hand-held infants were on the Nicaragua to Costa Rica bus trip is mind-boggling.  Back home, they surely think of themselves as "good" mothers, so why does leaving the country make it okay to subject their helpless progeny to the hazards of bad roads, bad drivers, strange diseases, unsanitary food, and bad emergency care?  None of the locals had their infants on board.  They know enough to leave them where they belong.  Even worse, American babies push crying to a new level.  Babies from underdeveloped countries have little to gain from crying, so they don't.  If you really want to be an ugly American, inflict your high-decibel parenting failure on a hot, crowded bus for 10 hours.  Two of the women were also dragging along ineffective males, displaying their multi-tasking ability to enjoy vacation, raise a family, and hold a man.  Maybe it is a new female fad.  Back at the office, they can swell up with pride and say, "Oh yeah, I spent my eco-friendly vacation in a poor country, helping the locals, taking care of my new baby and my husband, and it was so much fun."  Nothing advertises motherhood as well as a screaming child.  The third woman was on her own, but her homeliness made me think she was taking the baby on a victory lap just to show that she actually could procreate.