Baby Culture
By cori • Jun 18th, 2010 • Category: The Momoir Blog
By Cori Howard
Here’s the difference between our baby culture in the West and baby culture in, say, everything other country south of the US border and many others:
I was babysitting my 7-month-nephew and my 2-year-old niece. It was a gorgeous late summer afternoon in Vancouver, so I decided to take them for a walk to the beach. My own children, ages 5 and 9, came along and so did my mom, so that I wasn’t too outnumbered.
So there we were, a rag tag team of harried adults and crazed kids running down the street, enjoying the sun. Of course, it took about 80 hours longer than I expected to walk the six blocks and by the time we got there, the kids were starving. We stopped for sushi and I sat with the baby on my lap, trying to eat and watching my own children run around the restaurant misbehaving. The toddler was on my mother’s lap. I was grateful that I hadn’t listened to my instinct to have more children because clearly, I couldn’t handle it.
But I’m getting to the point. The dinner was fine. We all ate. Nothing was broken, except the quiet of the room. It all started when we went to leave. As all parents know, the meltdowns come quick and this night was no exception. The baby started mewling, the toddler escaped and ran down the hall for the open door to the street, my 5-year-old daughter ran after her and my son was in the bathroom. My mom went to get him and to pay the bill. And I went after the others.
I got them into the side room where we had stored the two strollers, and somehow, managed to carry one stroller up the stairs with a baby on my hip and a toddler following close behind. I put the stroller beside the packed outdoor patio and tried to get the toddler into her seat. But no, she took that moment to decide that she wanted to play ball. She started to empty the contents of the stroller bag and when I attempted to abort her efforts, she started to cry. But still, with the child-free patrons looking on in disgust, I got the crying toddler into the seat, got my 5-year-old to buckle her in. Took that time to run back into the restaurant for the other stroller. Up and down the stairs and back up again and the girls were still there. I put the baby in the stroller – he was easy — and then ran back again, leaving the three kids outside alone, to claim the rest of our stuff: the two diaper bags, my purse, the jackets.
It wasn’t more than a few minutes later that my mom and son appeared. But in the intervening moments, no one so much as raised a hand to help me. No one offered to help me carry the two strollers, help watch the kids, nothing. Instead, I was watched with mild to fierce disgust, as if I was some form of bad reality show entertainment.
Now, I would wager that in a country like Mexico, that would never have happened. Someone would have taken the baby, held the toddler’s hand, asked me some questions, started a conversation, helped me to feel as though I was human, a mother doing a good job of handling all these kids and making sure they didn’t run out into the busy street. Not here. Here, in the highly-coveted city of Vancouver, I get silence and steely stares. I get disrespect and disgust. And I don’t get it. How can we continue to devalue motherhood in this way? And, what are the consequences of raising children in a culture that is so un-baby-friendly?
The recent and gorgeous movie, Babies, brings out some of these cultural differences without so much as a word of dialogue. But if offers no solutions, no creative ideas, about how we, in the West, can emerge from our very disconcerting hatred of mothers. We are, at once, infatuated with motherhood (celebrity pregnancies on the cover of every tabloid) and, at the same time, horrified by it. Mothers in our culture are left to fend for themselves in isolation. (The same could be said of our elderly, but that’s another story.)
I wish I had the solution, but I would never pretend to be so wise. What I do know is that the vast cultural abyss in the treatment of mothers and their babies in Western culture is hurting everyone. I know the answer has to start with our own children. We must teach them to help other mothers, to respect other mothers, even just to be aware of other mothers and the contribution they make, every day, to raising the next generation.
Instead of inwardly hissing the next time no one helps me, I might just ask for help. “Here,” I’ll say, kindly. “Take the baby, for a moment, will you? Oh, that’s great. Isn’t he cute?”
Writing Start: Baby Culture
(*Please send any writing submissions on this topic to cori@themomoirproject.com. The top three will be posted on the blog in the coming weeks.)
cori is an award-winning journalist who has worked in newspapers, magazines, television and radio, filing stories from across the world. Her writing (much of it personal essays on motherhood) has appeared in publications including The Globe and Mail, Canadian Geographic, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Independent, Maclean’s, Chatelaine, Flare and Today’s Parent. She is the editor of the recently published anthology, Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth about Motherhood.
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Thanks for sharing this experience that so illustrates the isolation many mothers experience. I have a lot of theories about why mothers are treated this way in our culture, but also, not alot of solutions. My hope is that because fatherhood is shifting dramatically with dads having to play larger roles, that respect for motherhood may get salvaged as well. I think you’re right, that it starts in the home, and we can play a role in having our children SEE, really SEE, moms as people.
Hi Cori,
I loved your article. I agree that motherhood is definitely undervalued in the culture - that is a great point about celebrity pregancies. But I also think common kindness is often undervalued - it could be that people just forget to help each other as well as as a reflection of our culture’s attitudes toward motherhood. I also think people always love to see a mother struggling with a tantrum - makes them feel better about their own parenting issues!
Thanks for the reminder - next time I see someone struggling - it will make think twice and (hopefully) remember to be kind.
I wrote something along the same lines awhile ago as well:
http://mummyjanie.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/why-blackberry-should-be-the-new-superhero/
I find it shocking the looks I get, from other mothers even, while I’m struggling with my kids sometimes. Shocking how few people will hold open the door when I’m pushing a stroller and wrangling a toddler.
We’ve talked a lot about this in my writing club, about the lack of a mothering community and about how judgemental we all are of each other.
I like how you ended the piece “I know the answer has to start with our own children. We must teach them to help other mothers, to respect other mothers, even just to be aware of other mothers and the contribution they make, every day, to raising the next generation.” Gives a lot of food for thought.
Hi Cori
I have seen the ignorance on busses here too. Having said that- I have also seen compassion ex. people who jump to help me open the door when I am lugging my double stoller through.
At the same time, at the grocery store yesterday, I saw a familiar toddler we knew running through the produce with out a parent in sight. I went over to talk to him as I was looking for his mom or dad. The dad came running around the corner in a frantic search and thanked me for staying with him. In a blink, the kid may have been gone.
All it takes is two seconds to help a fellow human being- makes a life time difference teaching our kids.
Sadly, yes, the elderly has it just as tough.
Thank you for this thought provoking article.
Heh, Cori,
The scene is familiar, albeit 18 years later. I tell you, I would have helped you up the stairs had I been there! Then I would have assured you, as i have many a mother, that it’s okay, my kids are worse… even if I were lying.
But with this all being said, things have improved from my foray into motherhood more than 18 years ago. I was alone, it seemed at the time. None of my friends were having kids, not yet, and many for not another decade. As a tail-end gen-x, I know what it is like to live in the shadow of a powerful demographic, and it seems that I have destined my older sons to endure the same; they are echo-x–the kids of gen-xers. Those kids who were born to a non-breast friendly public, hostile restaurants, and stairs, lots of them. I learned how inaccessible many of our public places were to those who relied on wheels. I was lucky enough to be able-bodied and energetic to boot.
These days, I wrestle my way through a forest of strollers, fancy three-wheeled types with tight turning radiuses, as I make my way to the coffee bar to order my Canadiano (an Americano for patriotic Canadians). This is a scene that no cafe would have tolerated let alone welcomed in my early mother days. There has been progress, no it is not enough, not by any stretch, but all you–we moms who are proud of our lot in life, and insist on being public are helping to make social change. Keep it up.
Thanks for your story, Cori!
Well, I’m not sure Mexico is the best example. In Mexico, someone probably would have stolen your stroller and perhaps kidnapped your kids standing alone outside. But I do get your point — in Asian cultures, at least, they seem to help each other so much more. When you venture into the child-free restaurant zone, things can get ugly really quickly. I used to be one of those annoyed people during air travel and such — now my heart goes out to the mom who I know wishes much harder than I do that her child will stop crying in the airplane. I’m sorry that nobody helped you.