OMG, How Did My Children Ever Survive My Parenting?
My daughter rolled small slices of banana in finely smashed graham cracker crumbs and placed them in front of her 10-month old. “It’s easier for her to grab hold of them,” she explained.
“That’s so clever,” I said. “I never thought of doing that. I think I handed you the whole banana as soon as your hand was big enough to hold it. But,” I added quickly, “I pulled the peel halfway down.” She glanced at me in what I thought was wonder.
Parenting is so different today, so exacting, so foreign. New mothers don’t want to hear how you did things.. I take several deep breaths, then when I’m just shy of hyper-ventilating it all comes tumbling out: a suggestion, like, shoes for her tiny feet, for instance. I mean, I’m all for bare feet; I kick my shoes off most anywhere. I wear my flip-flops spring to fall. But I’m not learning to stand, to walk. And, what if it were winter? All new mothers have their generation-style book. If it’s a desperate moment, dial up somebody whose last name ends, M.D. At last resort, call a friend, preferably one with a baby herself.
When I was raising children, my go-to book was First Twelve Months of Life. I read it constantly, anticipating motor skills one by one, and delighted as each proved true. My parents gave me their turn of the century baby-raising book-–a huge blue book stained with tears. I told my mother, “I don’t need that. Things have changed. Nobody does that any more.”
She told me back, “Well it was good enough to raise you. And you turned out all right.”
Uh, should we have that discussion? What would I be arguing against? So I took the book home and buried it out of sight–a place that’s never seen light.
But, here’s the thing–I know now what I couldn’t have known back then: I know how my parents felt. As a new grandmother, now, I’m thoroughly re-educated about new baby products, new designs, even new colors; did you know we have new colors in the world? And they say the world is round. (I want to hear from you grandma’s out there!)
Mommies have gone back to cloth diapers with a slightly different twist…they’re inserted in a rubber panty. I hate them. They’re such an aggravation to stuff together. And everybody’s breast-feeding now! I’m so happy about that. It’s all the rave with doctors. Believe it, gals, there was the time not so very long ago when no doctor, at least in Tacoma, WA., wanted a mother to breast feed!Their reason: because you don’t know exactly how much the baby is consuming. Doctors could look you in the eye and tell you that! I remember the tears when I couldn’t find a doctor who supported my determination to breast feed in 1976.
Just wait twenty or thirty years, young mom’s, when your precious babies have babies of their own and they come home one day to instruct you, “Mother! Any doctor will tell you that the only cradling a baby should have is by their personal robots. A human might drop them, you know. Really.”
But milk will continue to flow from the breast, and babies will always need a diaper. A day arrives when those little pearly whites break through one by one, and that’s nature’s way of introducing solids. They roll, then crawl; one day they stand on their feet and soon after, they take off. And there’s no holding them back. Those little feet will seek out the world as soon as they’re able. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.