The Irrelevant Baby.

Disclaimer:  If you have long toes when it comes to this subject, retract them lest they are stepped upon.  Ye be warned.  And yes, there will be generalisations.  But if I’d list all possible exceptions, this would be too hard to write down (or read for that matter) smoothly. 

Right.  Have been thinking about writing something on this subject from as soon as revived blog.  But felt it required some thought.  Hope haven’t over thought it now.  Off we go.

This side of the world we’ve managed to create a very strange paradox when it comes to babies.  Babies… or better, parents seem to be a favoured prey of the Big Companies Who Make Us Stuff.  They’re so juicy in their insecurity and desire to “get what’s best for baby”.  Absolutely irresistible morsels of money.  Walking piñatas stuffed with money.  The joy!

And so it begins.  There must be at least twenty different kinds of each baby product to choose from.  All claiming to be the best.  Poor parents.  Of course there is the obvious and sometimes even necessary stuff (such as car seats), but the amount of useless crap that is sold is enormous.  Have found that out after first child was born.  Several items were left unused.  When second child was on her way, bought absolutely nothing.  Ha!  Not even clothes as we didn’t know whether she’d be a boy or a girl.  Her brother’s clothes would do perfectly fine for those first days. 

Apart from vaguely useful stuff (have learned that still could manage without half the “must haves”), there are the mind boggling useless gadgets.  You can buy stuff that holds the bottle for you.   Chairs that rock themselves.  Formula machines (like the Senseo or Nespresso coffee stuff). Define the cry machines.  Etcetera. Etcetera.  The list goes on and on.  Forum I visit has a thread on those things.  Think that it’s  a hundred pages long by now.

Strikingly, all those things have one thing in common.  To make life easier.  Life of parents of course.  Heaven forbids that anyone would actually care about what the baby wants.  And there’s the sadness in all of this.  The baby is completely irrelevant. 

The general idea here seems to be that babies (and small children in general) are manipulative monsters whose only goal in life seems to make the lives of their parents a complete and utter hell.  New parents are thoroughly drenched with this idea even before their baby is born.  If baby cries, do NOT pick him up.  You don’t want to spoil him do you?  Well, do you?  And if baby keeps crying (after everything you’ve done to pacify him – well, except from picking him up, because that is big no-no) and it all becomes too much: leave the room and you’ll feel better.  Put in some ear plugs and you won’t hear the wailing infant.  Yay!  None of those books seem to stop at how the baby feels.  All left alone.  Crying in his cot.  In desperate need of his mother.  Because – shock horror -  those strange babies only want one thing:  being held by their mother.

One might think that one good look at a human baby would be enough to tell people this.  Can’t think of creatures that are more helpless (unless maybe some other newborn animals).  Babies are designed to be with their mothers, or at least with other people.  Defintely not designed to be all alone in their cots left crying.  If human babies were meant to be left alone they’d look like baby deer or something.  Fawns make themselves small and keep very very quiet when their mother is off fouraging.  Human babies will cry their lungs out.  Hmm.. Why ever so?

And so we end up in the situation that when a baby cry we’d do everything _ except_  picking the baby up and providing him with the physical closeness he desires.  And no, you will not spoil your baby.  Giving a baby attention and affection.  Tsk.  The sheer audacity!  Needless to say that personally am completely taking the risk of spoiling minis for life this way. 

Apart from the – and sorry, can’t find a better word to fit how I feel about deliberately letting a baby cry – cruel advice parents are given when it comes to crying there is another thing that stupefies me to no end.  WARNING:  Breastfeeding rant coming up.  Get out while you still can or swallow the rage.  Not breastfeeding a baby by choice.  Do note the last two words, they are important.  I’ll bolditalicify them.  There. 

Whenever someone says things like “breastfeeding is nothing for me/I am not the type for breastfeeding/my breasts are for my man/…” have to pick up my jaw from floor.  Not the type?  Of course.  Some people say women are snakes, but was under the impression that that was only meant in a metaphorical way.  Obviously this must not be the case.  Silly me.  Anywayz, will not rant on and on about breastfeeding (maybe some other time), but will focus on the one thing that is almost always said.

It’s better to have a happy formula feeding mom than an unhappy breastfeeding one.  Oh?  You may not be the type for breastfeeding, but your baby is.  Oh.  Too bad for baby then.  Honestly, I simply do not get this way of thinking.  And not because want to pretend to be holier than thou.

This, among other things that are holy in our way of raising babies (sleeping through the night for instance, let’s not get started on that one).  Everything is focused on making the parent’s life as easy as possible.  As if there never was a baby at all.  Now, may be wrong to assume this, but don’t we expect our lives to be changed drastically when a new baby arrives?

Personally never thought would be getting as much sleep or having as much of fun outside my house as did before baby came along.  Call me strange.  And yes, would love to sleep for eight hours consecutively.  Or go to restaurant whenever feel like it and whatnot.  But hey.  Is it so much of a sacrifice to be a bit less selfish for those few years that our children are so small and utterly dependant?  There I said it.  Selfish.  Of course, this way fits perfectly in our socially completely unhinged society.  Mistake me not.  Am happy that live here and that can live in comfort.  Am grateful that my children are born in an environment where they’ll be given ample amount of chances.  But – for the love of the gods – would it hurt us to be more nice to each other?

Yeah, Big Bad World Out There.  But really, you do not need to toughen up your children when they’re fresh out of the womb.  Am sure they’ll learn at one point that life is a bitch.  But can we postpone that for as long as possible?  Would like to be the one comforting them when the realisation hits them, not the one causing it, thank you very much.

And now, for the necessary patching up of all those toes I might have stepped upon.  No, am not attacking every single mother who does things differently.  Am attacking the way western society thinks we should deal with babies (or anyone else who can’t stand up for themselves for that matter).  This “selfish” way has been completely grinded into our heads and most of the time people are unaware that there are other ways.  Books, caregivers, our own family, … push parents in a certain direction.  Was headed that way too.  But luckily, before mini #1 was born read a book.  Am still grateful I did.  Was so shocked by it that decided on the spot I would _not_ do that (quite sure that was not plan of the author).  Would go by my gut feeling.  Gut feeling works excellent btw.  So well.  Sigh.  At least we got past the point where we thought babies were something like pot plants.  Ten minutes of attention per day was more than enough during the first months.  Seriously.  But long way to go still.