Mommy’s Groove

I became acutely aware, early in my second trimester, that Planet Baby was a stage which served to transition me from being a pregnant woman to being someone’s mother. This sounds obvious — but the distinction was about the sense that it was not just about “having a baby”. I was becoming someone’s mother and it made me sit up and pay attention.

I dabble innocently and casually in harmless, expectant mother brain candy — parenting magazines. No big commitment to a point of view like a book purchase, I feel I am an interloper merely testing these waters in the culture of advice this transitional world offers. But the voices of experience in the parenting magazines are starting to unnerve me. I feel like a commercial pregnancy is the norm and that without a fully outfitted nursery I will be somehow deficient and unprepared to mother.

I takeaway messages about must-haves which I cannot at this early stage decode. None of it seems to be connected to my concern about preparing to become someone’s mother.

I’m going to need an infant bath and hooded towels…why can’t I get in the tub and use my towel?… I can’t survive without a bouncy chair. What is a bouncy chair and why is it standard issue?…Most Moms recommend an infant car seat which you can also stroll with…. There are strollers which convert to car seats? Or is it the car seat which becomes the stroller?…When and why do I use a bassinette instead of a crib? Do I need both? Either? Or could we sleep together?…Who’s got the data on the best choice between recycling disposables and washing cloth? Who knew that dumping human waste in the landfill was illegal? That’s not a legacy I want to leave for my children. Can I recycle disposables at the cottage or do I need a washer and dryer up there too?

All of these props, products and pacifiers appear to be essential, and therefore easy decisions. But that voice in me is challenging again. Decisions like crib vs. co-sleeping, stroller vs. carrier or infant videos vs. books seem to be about how I see this baby fitting into my life as I know it and the way I want to mother. How am I going to decide? I smell fear in these aisles…of not having the right stuff?…of parenting without a net?…of laying bare this new relationship with nothing to do but touch, admire and hold onto this new life? How do I decide, having never been a mother, what will be right for us?

I allowed myself to sit with the sense that I was spiralling further way from my confident self. Not being a big shopper in the first place, perhaps I looked at it all with healthy suspicion. But I think it was a clue for me. Like knowing a midwife would put me in a different place as a mother. It was telling me something about this new role — about the kind of mother I want to be. 

I didn’t feel like there was any space for questioning whether these purchases would help us by supporting my needs and aspirations for the way I want to mother. At least no one I met was talking about it. At that early stage, I was only beginning to consider the “why” messages behind the so-called essential purchases. I was feeling overwhelmed with choices, which were not as straight forward as the happy ads lead me to believe.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 21st, 2006 at 8:21 am and is filed under Consumerism, Mothering, Pregnant observations, The Groove changes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.