Our journey to build a family

Happy Holidays...Joyeuses Fêtes...Wesoych wit!

What would you do? The following is a story of something that happened to me and Sylvain Briand yesterday afternoon at Whole Foods Market. What would you do? W...hat are the rules and regulations? The question has been put to you, as well as to Yasir Naqvi and the Ontario Human Rights Commission. You decide to spend some quality time with your family, so you go to the farmer's market. You arrive, make a few purchases, and then decide to have a treat. So you settle for a coffee at Whole Foods Market. The cafe is situated on the ground floor. It is busy. You order your coffee and a muffin. Just before leaving, your baby indicates that it is time to change its diaper. You get up, and proceed to the bathroom. Once there, you notice that there isn't a change table. You are left with a choice: change her on the floor, or return to your table and proceed to change her there. A baby doesn't give you much time to respond to her needs, so you decide that the only safe place to change your child is back at your table. You clean the table, you pull out your change pad, a pee-pad, and all the other things you need. Within one minute, everything is done. During this time, three individuals complain to the staff. One of the employees then approaches you in a very public way. Through her comments she implies that you should change your child elsewhere. You tell her that if Whole Foods Market had a change table that was located in a convenient bathroom, you would be happy and more comfortable to have changed her there, but because they don't, you had very little choice in the matter. The employee was surprised to find out that her area was not equipped to cater to families, and left. This is not to say that Whole Foods doesn't have any change tables. They apparently do on the second floor. But when your baby needs to be changed, as a parent, you do not have the time or luxury to negotiate with uninformed staff or start looking for bathrooms on every floor in the off-chance that one of them has a table. We left the store feeling unsettled and unwelcome. Why not just install a change table in all the bathrooms. Is it that difficult? You can follow our family journey on our page: Our journey to build a family.