Lifestyle

Subject of Viral Shaming Photo in the Airport Speaks Out

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Tony Maples Photography

 

A stranger snapped a photo of Molly Lensing with her baby in a Colorado airport last year, and the picture is still haunting her. The picture showed Lensing looking at her phone while her baby laid on a blanket on the floor right in front of her. ABC 13 writes that the photo went viral after the man who took it added the caption, “Albert Einstein said, ‘I fear the day that technology will take on our humanity … the world will be populated by a generation of idiots.'”

Thankfully, the man has since removed the posting, but the photo is still finding its way around the internet with people lining up to shame Lensing for putting her baby on a blanket on the floor.

Lensing is now speaking out to tell her side of the story. Apparently, she had spent over 20 hours at multiple airports after a series of mishaps and a Delta computer malfunction. “Anastasia had been held or in her carrier for many hours. My arms were tired. She needed to stretch,” Lensing told Today. “And I had to communicate with all the family members wondering where the heck we were.”

She says that people found her on Facebook and sent hurtful messages. She even feared losing her job. Thankfully, other moms have stepped up to defend her. Mary Katherine Backstrom wrote, “We do not snap photos of exhausted mothers in the airport and shame them publicly. This is gross and needs to stop. I’ve been this woman. My flight delayed, running on zero sleep, fearful that my baby might slip straight from my arms and onto the floor if I nodded off … I wish she knew that there are mamas who understand exhaustion and imperfection and don’t choose to pounce someone in their weakest moment.”