Bringing up Baby

It’s heartening to see that writing letters can still make a difference.

After the first episode of the British ‘documentary’ series Bringing Up Baby aired on the ABC last week, outrage has been building. The show purports to show how modern families can follow the techniques of three popular baby-trainers of yesteryear in an attempt to demonstrate which method is best. One of the ‘mentors’ used on the programme is Claire Verity, a disciple of the Truby King method, popular in post-war England. Ms Verity takes this outdated advice even further in some cases. I found myself screaming at the telly when she told a new father he couldn’t kiss his own baby and when she encouraged parents of a three-day old to sit back with a glass of wine while their daughter screamed herself to sleep in alone in a cold room. To Verity, cuddling is a no-no. As is following safe sleeping guidelines, apparently.

After parenting forums ran hot with outrage all week, the ABC decided to continue to air the series – with a disclaimer. ‘Verity is not qualified. SIDS and Kids guidelines should be followed, not what this mad woman does’ pretty much sums it up.

That’s all well and good. But a disclaimer aimed at would-be parents who are viewing the show can’t save the participating parents and the non-consenting babies who were subjected to this ‘experiment’. That damage is already done. The question I’d like answered is, how can any public broadcaster support something so unethical in the name of entertainment?

I really hope those parents gave their babies some cuddles off-camera. It’s heartbreaking to think that they didn’t.

Serving to Live

Obama has talked a lot about service. Cynics say he’s trying to align himself with JFK (presumably minus the brains-being-blown-out part) and others say he’s just being practical – the mess is so big that it just can’t be cleaned without everyone mucking in. My money’s on a little of both.

I’ve talked about service a lot lately too. Well, I’ve talked to myself about it. I’ve been thinking about the difference between service and submission, and the different levels of respect we give to various types of service.

Being a mother (and to a lesser degree, being a wife) is all about service. A mother – especially an attachment-parenting type mother – is available to serve her offspring twenty-four hours a day. I read something recently that described breastfeeding as the most selfless act of all and I’m not sure if it is entirely selfless but it is certainly all about the giving.

Personally, I have a great deal of ambivalence towards the level of service involved in mothering. It brings joy and untold rewards, that is true. And perhaps more than that: it’s necessary. In my mind, choosing to have a child means choosing to look after that child in the best possible way – and that means a little selflessness. But without making the required sacrifices that parenthood brings, what would be the point? You won’t hear me talking along those lines after a 4am wake-up-call. If I say anything at all beyond ‘arrrrggggnnngggffffthhhh’ it’ll be something with four letters. But still – I get up. Not responding when I’m needed is unthinkable. A non-0ption.

As a society we have a truckload of ambivalence about this service stuff too. Anyone pregnant with her first child knows this first-hand – all of a sudden, her needs are subjugated to those of her foetus. And should she dare to drink a glass or wine or eat a rare steak in a restaurant she’s likely to draw everything from furtive whispers to open criticism to flat refusal from wait staff. And all this after spending an afternoon having all and sundry either touch her abdomen without asking, comment on her size, tell her eye-watering tales of their own episiotomy scar or offer parenting advice: invariably along the lines of ‘don’t ever let your baby cry, it will get brain damage’ or ‘don’t spoil it – crying is good exercise for babies’. She is expected to take all of this with serene grace because she’s just so lucky to be a host organism and no longer requires a brain of her own.

But she better not get too complacent. Because when that baby is outta there, being a host organism is no longer good enough. Oh no. She needs ‘me time’! Preferably at the gym or the beautician so that she can return to her ‘pre-baby’ self as soon as possible. And she’d better learn how to avoid letting her baby manipulate her – because babies need to be trained not to cry, since their crying is inconvenient and interrupts mummy and daddy time. Or, perhaps she needs to learn how to respond to every sound her baby makes and prevent any crying at all – which means holding her infant 24 hours a day. Which shouldn’t be a problem, since she can use a sling to help her do laundry and make dinner.

In reality what most of us strive for is a happy medium between disappearing into baby-service altogether and not spending enough time loving our children because we’re distracted by our own adult lives. But of course there is no such thing as a happy medium – just a host of compromises which usually require one person in the family to have their needs put aside at any given time. And a Darwinian battle for ascendency to avoid being the family member in that default position.

Anyway, all of this is not really what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say is that our valuing of individuality, ambition, and power detracts from the value of service. As a mother and a feminist, I believe – I need to believe – that spending this time in service of my family is not subjugation because although it is not paid work, it is vital and valuable work. It is work I can be proud of.

I remember a conversation with a fellow feminist and mother, back when I was pregnant, about cloth nappies.** My friend had said that the very thought of having to wash and dry nappies on top of all the other work involved in raising her two wonderfully active boys was enough to scare the bejeezus out of her and I totally sympathised. In a writing class I went to that afternoon, I scribbled ‘will drudgery make me a drudge?’ It was a real fear and one that still grips me sometimes.

But I resist it. Because I know that being the mother my daughter needs, the mother I never had, is as important to me as it is to her.

I think that when we conflate service of this kind with submission – to the patriarchy, to a stereotype, whatever – we devalue the work that so many women do.

And what is so wrong with service anyway? Serving one’s country in war is considered one of the most honourable and noble tasks. Serving the community as a volunteer – aid worker, tuck shop lady, firefighter – is seen at the least as a worthy contribution, if not some kind of higher calling. And the word doula comes from the Greek word for servant. Many women who do birthwork talk of themselves as birth servants – and so they are. Their role is to support the mother: no more and certainly no less. To give such support is an honour and it requires skill and the ability to put one’s own needs and opinions aside. 

It’s refreshing to hear the leader of a country known for individualism and greed talk about the value of community service. I hope his words have some impact and encourage a new spirit of volunteerism. I also hope that those of us who care for others in our family every single day without economic reward, will start to feel as though that work – that service – is precious, skilled, valuable and worthy of acknowledgement by other feminists. And everyone.

 

** Incidentally, I did go ahead with the cloth nappies. But it’s my husband who usually washes and dries and folds them, after he’s gotten home from his paid work and played with our daughter for a while. Because serving a child and a family and a household is men’s work too. Of course.

Five books I wish I had read before having a baby

I’ve read a lot of books about pregnancy, birth and parenting. Some even before I was pregnant. But like most people, I didn’t know then what kind of parent I wanted to be, or what kind of challenges I would face. Now that I’ve read even more about this whole parenting caper as I’ve frantically searched for my own answers as well as expanding my knowledge in preparation for doulahood, I thought I’d share some of the gems that I’ve recently discovered.

1. Breastfeeding…naturally This excellent book about breastfeeding is produced by the Australian Breastfeeding Association. It is definitive, up-to-date, readable and comprehensive. I challenge you to find a breastfeeding question or difficulty that is not at least mentioned in this book. Even better, it comes free with a subscription to the ABA. I really wish I had subscribed and met my local group before I had the Bean. We live and learn!
2.  The Attachment Parenting Book This guide is by peadiatrician Dr. William Sears and his wife Martha Sears, a nurse and lactation consultant. I would recommend pretty much anything by any of the Sears famliy, who never fail to put a baby-centred but positive and practical spin on their advice, which comes from a depth of knowledge and experience that few parenting ‘experts’ can boast. This book in particular is great for expectant or new parents – whether Attachment Parenting is something that you think you want to do or not. Before I had the Bean, I confess, I thought that parents who practised AP were mostly hippies who didn’t believe in discipline or boundaries. In other words, I had no understanding of what the AP philosophy actually is. When I read this book I was so thrilled to find that many of the practices I had instinctively gravitated towards were in fact part of a parenting style with proven benefits. Well worth a look.
3. Fresh Milk by Fiona Giles is a wonderful book. It covers all the stuff about breastfeeding that may not be in the more practically-based guides. Reading this book made me want to jump up and run around topless in a lactation celebration. It doesn’t shy away from the more complex or unnerving elements of lactation and breastfeeding lore, such as wetnursing and sexuality (or putting some breastmilk in the chaplain’s tea). Everyone who has breasts, or loves them, really ought to read this.
4. Pinky McKay’s Parenting by Heart is a great introduction to parenthood. McKay is one of my favourite parenting ‘experts’ — she writes warmly and reassuringly. She is a certified lactation consultant and her advice is breastfeeding-friendly. She acknowledges that all children and parents are different and that no approach should be one-size-fits-all. She gives mothers permission to carry their infant around all day, if that is all that will calm both of you, regardless of what Aunt Mavis might say about ‘spoiling’. At the same times she gives mothers permission to shut their bedroom door and spend an hour painting their toenails while Aunt Mavis takes care of the baby, if that is what is needed. I wish I had read this before I entered those wild and desperate early weeks of parenthood when I was most vulnerable to the well-meaning ‘advice’ we are all bombarded with.
5. The last book on my list today is one I have not yet finished reading. I picked it up at the library, thinking it was a book about natural birth, only to discover later that it is actually a compelling and fascinating treatise on the fallout from blanket testing for foetal abnormalities. Anyone who is pregnant, or might become pregnant, should read Defiant Birth by Melinda Tankard Reist. Whatever your stance on abortion (mine, for the record, is firmly pro-choice), it is horrifying to read of how many women are encouraged to abort foetuses who later turn out to be perfectly healthy children; or of how many mothers of disabled children are now asked why they didn’t ‘have the test’ — the assumption being that had they undergone prenatal testing their children would have been aborted. I confess I meekly went off for my prenatal testing as referred by my obstetrician, only questioning afterwards whether I had really wanted to. Pro-choice I may be: but informed choice it must be, right from the question of whether to have a test in the first place. Aside from airing this important and little-discussed issue, the book also allows for a space for the stories of people whose pregnancy outcomes may not have been what they had hoped. Stories that are hard to read, but important. I imagine anyone who is facing the reality of a worrying result from prenatal tests would gain much strength and courage, as well as knowledge, from this book.

Weeping woman

For someone who writes about Spilt Milk, I don’t seem to do a lot of crying. At least not recently.

I’m not sure when it happened, but my teariness seems to have dried up. When I was pregnant I was drowning in salt water on a daily basis: first it was the overwhelming joy that kept rushing through me, then it was the misery of becoming the lady-with-a-bucket who couldn’t leave the house for fear of public vomiting, and later it was clearly the overdose of womanly hormones that made commercials for toilet paper into a weeping event. As if that weren’t enough, after giving birth my tear ducts seemed to become a direct line to whatever part of my brain registered love, stress, tiredness, happiness, fear, frustration or, well basically anything. The “baby blues” hormone withdrawal engulfed me on day four and didn’t seem to leave for about a week. After that, I struggled so much with exhaustion and cracked nipples and resurging anger towards my own mother that I suppose it made sense that I wept practically every day. I got used to it, and people around me got used to it, but I still felt disconcerted by my inability to stop myself from welling up. I felt a little unhinged.

Eventually, the rivulets dammed up.

It could be that I’ve grown in confidence. It is surely much to do with having enough sleep to sustain human life for a change. It is no doubt linked to the new ease with which I can feed and bathe and care for Little Bean, now that we are used to each other. It is probably also because I have cast off those festering resentments; in acknowledging that old pain I have been able to ease it.

I’m sure that there is something more biological happening. With the end of nighttime breastfeeding has come a more ‘normal’ hormonal cycle. It seems that the hold that Little Bean has had on my chemistry and thus my body is slowly lessening.

But with a greater sense of normality and control over my responses has come the great gift of willing surrender: Little Bean’s effect on my emotions hasn’t diminished, not really, because I don’t wish it to. I guess this is what attachment is.

This morning she lifted herself up onto all fours, in a stance she has been practising for a few weeks now. And then she shuffed one knee forward after the other, and her hands, and crawled properly for the very first time. It was shaky and brief , like so many beautiful things are.

I was so grateful to be there to see it that I wept, and hugged her, and wept some more.