Accidentally Crunchy
I never in a million years thought I’d be one of those crazy, baby-wearing hippie mothers. You know the type: no-vax, co-sleeping, attachment parenting, anti-circumcision, cloth diapering, exclusive breastfeeding…the kind of mother you look at and think, “Gahh…does she even wear deodorant or shave?” No, I rarely envisioned myself as a parent (even into my late twenties!), let alone as one who would reprogram her entire mindset if a baby entered the picture.
But a baby did enter the picture. Being in our thirties when we finally had a baby, my husband and I had watched dozens of friends and family members go through the ups and downs of pregnancy, childbirth, and child rearing. We listened to their experiences and opinions on everything from doctors to diapers to sleeping to solids, and by the time we found out we were pregnant, we had our own set of ideas about what was best for our baby. Or so we thought.
If pregnancy and early motherhood have given me one take-home message, it’s that control is the greatest farce into which humans have ever bought. My husband and I were convinced we would circumcise if we had a little boy…then decided that if we wouldn’t do it to our daughter, we wouldn’t do it to our son. We knew we didn’t want to know the sex of our baby until “it” was born…until we discovered that “it” was at risk for Edward’s Syndrome and we wanted something else to focus on during the month-long wait for our followup appointment (it’s a girl!). We planned to have an unmedicated waterbirth in the hospital, in a darkly lit room with just the two of us and our midwife present…instead our daughter decided to join the world butt-first, and I delivered (no caesarian, thank God and my midwife) my frank breech baby to a circus of medical professionals and family members in a brightly lit room, on a good ol’ hospital bed.
After L arrived, we agreed to vaccinate using the AAP’s schedule…but then we did a little more research (after she had already received her first shot) and decided that early vaccinations were not the route we wanted to take. We thought cloth diapers would be all we’d ever put on her little bottom…but the convenience of the hospital ‘sposies kept us in throwaways for the first sleepless week of L’s life (though we converted to cloth afterward). We had a baby bed ready and waiting in a room that would give us our own space…but L’s never once left our bedroom. And solid foods? We’re six and a half months into the blessing of parenthood, and she’s never consumed anything but breast milk.
So while all of those habits seem to throw us so far to the left of crunchy that you might expect us to live in a self-sustaining commune somewhere off the grid in Utah, we live in a massive, polluted, wonderful city and, truth be told, probably watch too much TV, play on the internet longer than is recommended, and use microwaves and plastic more than we should. Lots of our friends vaccinate, circumcise, sleep train, formula feed, and wouldn’t touch a cloth diaper with a ten-foot pole, and they’re no less our friends for any of those choices. I guess my point is that there’s no one-size-fits-all for a baby and her parents. And even if you think you know exactly what you are going to do with your little one, don’t beat yourself up if you have a change of heart or if life slaps you in the face with a new direction. Just figure out what works well for you as a family, do the best you can, and enjoy every minute you have with your kid before she figures out she’s too cool to be seen with you anyway.
Heather Bond is one of those crazy, baby-wearing hippie mothers (who does shave and wear deodorant). Her four girls – one baby and three furbabies – keep her constantly on her toes. When she’s not working full-time or mothering full-time, she loves running, photography, and anything – from paint to dough to mud – that gets her fingers dirty. She blogs regularly at Haphazard Hues.
