Yes a poor choice. I think the tone of the article was admiring, and I think the choice of “infesting” was intended more to convey that this woman was dealing with extenuating circumstance that maybe the author or someone else would consider extreme, but one with she handled rather routinely.
You are right, whereas the liberal response could likely be something like:
1. "What is this women doing with 3 young children (did she ever hear of contraception or abortion), especially when she is obviously struggling to care for them."
2. "As a psychiatrist I can say that the mother obviously does not realize the emotional damage that she is inflicting upon the child by not giving proper attention to his cries for attention, and meeting them. The author should have reprimanded the mother or called child services."
3. "It is cruel to let a child [who actually sounds like he is at least 5] suffer like that [cold hands] due to his poor choices [a jacket with no pockets], and expect him to learn what kind of jacket to wear."
4. "What is this women doing dragging three young kids around? Maybe she cannot afford day care, and which is a reason why we need the government to pay for this."
5. "The women sounds like one of those misguided stay-at-home career mothers who and likely believes in the physical discipline of children, thus likely producing another future angry male."
For the record, i think children are a blessing from God and are to be loved and cared for as such, but that lack of discipline and not teaching them to be self reliant (in dependence upon God) and to make do in difficult situations is a degree of a form of child abuse. The same hands that hug may have to sometimes spank.