Bye, Bye, Baby Gear

It is with great satisfaction that a modern mother might clear her house out when her youngest child turns 2 (or 1, or 3). She will gladly wave good bye to the bouncy seat, the gymini, and baby swing. She will cheer as the exersacuer exits. And when she surveys the soon-to-depart pile of molded plastic and colorful fabric, she might wonder, what could she possibly have seen in all this junk? At the time, it seemed necessary for maintaining her sanity, but was it?  Is it possible that keeping things simple, putting a 7 month old on a blanket with a few spoons, might have been a more satisfying arrangement for both mother and child? Didn’t the greatest generation spend their pre-verbal years sitting on the kitchen floor, banging a pot with a ladle and making hats out of newspaper?

While she lifts and hauls and divests herself of these baby-related contraptions, this modern mother might wonder if baby gear is making us all dumb. Perhaps all this gear primes mothers, fathers, all of us, to be dependent on a fix, the "perfect" piece of equipment to bring on the next developmental milestone, an app, a device to keep a child busy, a device to teach a child what we could teach them ourselves. For babies it might be standing or fine motor skills, but it quickly moves on as children get older: the alphabet, numbers, addition, reading. No doubt the list goes on.

Since she has definitively and happily closed the door on the family building stage of life, this modern mother/budding social scientist will not have occasion to test out a pared down approach with a baby, but perhaps she can re-think some of her strategies with her older children.  

A new kind of baby blues

Well mannered mothers lucky enough have all of their children out of diapers can count themselves doubly lucky for having likely missed this cringe-inducing product for the parents of very young children: the denim diaper. When introduced last spring, we tried to ignore these shocking contraptions, but we can’t hold our silence any longer, or maybe we just can't bring ourselves to tackle the big parenting issues, like whether or not having children makes you unhappy.

Whatever the reason, with regards to the denim diapers, we have ask, why? If a 40-year-old dressed like a teenager is just wrong, babies dressed like tiny adults are worse. Downright disturbing. Should we also buy our baby boys a a trucker hat, a plaid shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pack of smokes? Or a faux wallet chain? (It doubles as a plastic teether, BPA free, of course!) Or maybe a baby girl would prefer to style her denim diaper with a gingham shirt, knotted at the chest to better bare her midriff, pigtails, and a straw hat jauntily set to the side.

Why, oh, why do people like to miniaturize adult clothes for babies? Babies have years ahead of them to wear actual denim, rather than paper diapers printed to look like denim. Or they may, in the future, choose to festoon themselves in feathers, mix stripes with plaids, don spandex, or invent all manner of disturbing clothing combinations. Why not let them look like babies until, say, they’re old enough to have some opinion about their attire? As any mother of a 3-year-old can attest, it’s not a very long wait. 

Only the Best for Baby

It all starts with the hand-painted mural in the nursery and the Dutch-designed oval crib. Next comes, “We considered the Bugaboo stroller, but decided to go with the Stokke Xplory since we felt it was important for her ride higher, where she could really see eye to eye with people and develop her observation skills.” Parents can relentlessly rationalize why they paid the price of a family sedan in India for their stroller, crib or high chair. And they do. Usually its European, “safer” and “more functional,” with some special feature that none of the other products have. Whatever it is, it is not available at Babies-R-Us or Walmart. Never mind that it will be outgrown or out-dated before the rationalizing parents finish their explanation. Never mind that recounting consumer purchasing decisions rivals C-SPAN for entertainment value. These parents want to let you know that, really they’re not the kind of people who just throw it around. Really, its important to have these things. But is it? Of course not. Nevertheless, some of us have been known to occasionally dress our children in rarified “hand-wash-only” clothing or even enjoyed the sleek design and smooth rolling of an expensive Dutch stroller, but lets just admit we like the ergonomic designs and chic color schemes. Then we can try to keep those splurges to a minimum and remember to pass them on to a “good home” when we are done.

A Shame about that Name

People choose from a wide variety of names for their children these days: traditional names, place names, obscure ethnic names and, of course, made up names. Some names may bring back memories of the mean neighborhood kid who liked to play with matches. Some names may sound more appropriate for a car than a child. (Use your imagination.) Others may be a bit baffling (Wmffre?) Whatever the name, the well mannered mother never discloses her negative reaction. Where an ill-mannered mother might say, “Ugh! the last Zeus I knew weighed 400 pounds,” the well manned mother would say, “How wonderful to have a classical name.” And when introduced to darling newborn, Eithne, the well mannered mother may say, “What a lovely name, tell me how you chose it.” Whatever the conundrum, you can't go wrong with admiring the baby.

Gender Disappointment

Never is the parental axiom, “you get what you get and you don’t get upset” more true than in the case of children. Boys, girls, whatever. When you get a healthy baby, you should count yourself lucky and move on with more important parenting tasks like keeping them bathed, fed and in clean pants. Nevertheless, we have recently become aware of the internet phenomenon known as “gender disappointment,” whereby mothers of multiple children of the same sex (all boys or all girls) feel deeply unhappy about not having a child of the opposite sex. So unhappy, that they lament it online, try expensive gender-selecting fertility treatments, and may require therapy. Whatever her opinion of these antics, the well mannered mother remembers that gender is a sensitive subject for other mothers she may meet. That means steering clear of comments like, “Wow, three boys. Were you disappointed you didn’t get a girl?” Given that most parents have no control over the sex of their baby, negative comments like this are as unwelcome as appraisals like, “Wow, three kids with buck teeth. You must be upset. Are you worried about your future orthodontist bills?” Needless to say, when the well-mannered mother receives such innane comments, she smiles politely and says, “I’m pretty proud of the boys/ girls I have.”

When required to console a friend suffering from gender disappointment, the well-mannered mother resists any urge to say “You have got to be kidding me! Don’t you realize how entitled and narcissistic you sound?” Instead, she listens, smiles, nods. The helpful sort of well mannered mother might make a suggestion such as “You should really talk to Jen, she is suffering from Apartment Disappointment and has recently come to terms with her Husband Disappointment. Now she is worried her son might not get into Brown and he will have to be treated for College Disappointment. You two should really have lunch.”

Going for a stroll

The well mannered modern and hip mother knows that the fact she is pushing a stroller that costs more than her monthly mortgage does NOT afford her any special status in the real world. It is not a weapon. Nor is it a war wound. The well mannered modern mother realizes that no matter how high-tech her method of perambulating her adorable offspring there are other people on the sidewalk. These people may be going to a job, the dentist or a fabulous sample sale. In any event fancy wheels and a screaming baby do not give her the right to take up the entire sidewalk.

Diaper Danger

At the risk of violating the rule that all things biological are not subjects for polite conversation, let us mention the matter of diaper disposal. A household suffering with a child who is not yet toilet trained is incapable of understanding the olfactory damage one soiled diaper can do to a house where all inhabitants use toilets successfully. When you are a guest at someone’s home and you must change a soiled diaper, do not leave said diaper in the trash can, waiting for your hostess to properly dispose of. You might as well ask her to change the diaper in the first place. Instead, you may flush the offending contents down the toilet, seal the diaper in a sack (or two or three) and whisk it away with you to be disposed of at home. Or, you may offer to take the toxic item to the outside trash and clear the air in more ways than one.