Dear Prudence,
I’m a mom with a young son and we enjoy visiting the library together. The children’s librarian is very sweet and I get the sense this is her first job in the field (she is young and seems a little overwhelmed, but does a nice job in the children’s department). After a recent storytime, another parent pulled me aside and asked if I saw “what had happened.” Admittedly, my son was being a little squirmy that day so my focus was on him more than the story/activities, so when I asked, the other mom told me that the librarian, who was wearing a short-ish dress, had been sitting in the chair with her knees apart and (to paraphrase more politely what this mom said) was revealing more than she should have.
(I’m honestly not sure if she was saying she wasn’t wearing underwear… that would be crazy, right?) Between juggling my son and the turn the conversation took, I was completely taken aback and didn’t ask any follow-up questions in the moment. I did see that the librarian was wearing a sundress but didn’t see the revealing moment(s) myself, although I could see it easily happening if she wasn’t paying attention to how she was sitting.
The other mom apparently went to another library employee and complained but I don’t know if it was addressed in any way. The librarian still wears similar clothing to work but I haven’t seen anything inappropriate in the few interactions we’ve had with her since then (we’ve been back to pick out books but storytime was on a break for a few weeks so we haven’t seen her in that context since).
It looks like storytime is going to start up again in a few weeks and I’d like to take my son. But what do I do if the problem continues? I don’t want to embarrass this poor young lady, and I’d think this would be something you’d want to hear from a supervisor rather than a random library visitor, but I don’t even know how to talk to the manager without drawing attention to myself having this conversation since it’s a small library. I also don’t trust the original upset mom not to make a scene if she returns. I see no reason to stop going to this library, as it has a lot of great offerings and is super conveniently located. I don’t have an issue with the librarian otherwise, but it feels like a potentially fraught situation that I want to handle respectfully and appropriately (and without making me someone whom library employees side-eye or hate). Do I just have to handle this in one of those tough growing-up/learning about the world conversations with my son and leave the librarian alone?
—Storytime Snafu