On the flight over there was a baby crying in the bulkhead three rows ahead of me, like always. The last time I’d been on an international flight, the requisite crying baby’s parents had seemed shattered, wincing every time their kid started up again with his deep-throated bad-seed growls. If you glanced over at them they would make eye contact with you and give you a resigned, apologetic shrug, then keep their shoulders hunched and tense as they made conciliatory gestures towards their little beast. It’s not like I’ve ever seen the look in the eyes of tortured prisoners who are ready to confess to anything, anything just make this pain stop but probably those parents’ eyes weren’t that far off, and they were dark-ringed and sunken. After a week of vacation in Mexico. I thought about them for weeks afterward. How does anyone do it?
This baby was different, though, or its parents were different. The mom was one of those ethereally pale Eastern European beauties, but more hearty peasant than razor-cheekboned Bond villainess type. Her husband was a potbellied boy with the swollen look of a high school athlete just recently gone to seed. Their baby was a baby from a baby-food ad, with a perfect round head and an angelically joyful expression, whenever it wasn’t screaming its impossibly tiny little face off. But the beautiful young mom seemed unfazed. She greeted her fellow passengers’ stares with an abstracted smile and then turned her gaze to look into her baby’s screaming-reddened face with a look of unflinching love. Much later in the flight, when the people lucky enough to be able to fall asleep were all asleep, the potbellied husband dangled the baby from his arms and let him “walk” up and down the aisle, gurgling with glee.
In my early 20s I read a lot of celebrity weeklies, partly because my job “required” it and partly because the guilt hadn’t yet eclipsed the pleasure and also, I suspect, partly because it was those magazines’ golden age — no tabloid plotline has since surpassed the mythic resonance of Brad and Jen’s divorce. Anyway the big story in these magazines is always celebrity fecundity, and so the young female reader of these magazines starts to think often, almost against her will, of Baby Joy. If none of your friends have started to become parents, the interviews with postpartum celebrities really are your only source of information about what it’s like to become a parent. The part of these interviews that always made a big impact on me – the part I suspect makes a big impact on a lot of young female readers of these magazines, and probably accounts for a large part of their power — was always the part where Celebrity X would, in describing her Baby Joy, say something like, “Before I had Baby X, my life was all about me. Now, it’s all about her. I’m so grateful for that.”
This sounds great, being freed of self-absorption, self-obsession, maybe even self-consciousness, for all time. But the critical reader of Us Weekly is left wondering: is there a way to gain this freedom without enslaving yourself to something else?
Recently I downloaded the paradoxically-named software Freedom, which disables your computer’s internet access for set periods of time. (The software’s designers recommend you start with smaller increments and work your way up to days or hours). I don’t need it now, though, since I’ve found myself, semi-unexpectedly, at Internet Addiction Reeducation Camp. The last time I was staying in this apartment there was one spot in the front bedroom that got wifi but now those beams seem to have migrated and there’s only the one spot in the kitchen that even sort of works, only not for either of my computers. So: no phone, no mindless browsing, only sporadic and interrupted access to email that requires jumping through hoops and waiting your turn to use an unfamiliar machine for brief periods of time. This is, of course, exactly what I need, but not exactly what I want. But maybe I’ll eventually become grateful for this curtailment. Like a lot of things, I guess, it sounds good in theory.
Before I had Baby X, my life was all about me. Now, it’s all about her. I’m so grateful for that.”
But the critical reader of Us Weekly is left wondering: is there a way to gain this freedom without enslaving yourself to something else?
I’ve always LOVED this sentiment, because it is the perfect, quintessential miscue of our selfish, self-absorbed society: the idea that our own children are an acceptable receptacle (Rebecca? What’d you think of that?) for the displacement of our personal guilt over not being kind or charitable or good enough to compensate for our rampant materialism (me too, guilty!) and our shocking disregard for the pain and suffering of others.
“Well, at least I love my child.”
The operant condition here is the possessive “my child.” That should always be read as a proxy for the word, “me.” ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS!
So…the quotes above should really read as follows:
“Before I had Baby X, my life was all about me. Now, it’s all about
herME. I’m so grateful for that.”But the critical reader of Us Weekly is left wondering: is there a way to gain this freedom without enslaving yourself to
something elseYOUR OWN SELF?As the risk of unleashing the pedantic moralist within (get back in there!) what one really longs for is a sentiment more along the lines of:
“Before I had Baby X, my life was all about me. Now, it’s all about
herNOT JUST MY OWN CHILD, BUT ALL THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD, RED AND YELLOW, BLACK AND WHITE, ETC.. I’m so grateful for that.”But the critical reader of Us Weekly is left wondering: is there a way to gain this freedom without enslaving yourself to
something elseTHE GREATER GOOD OF ALL MANKIND, GOD BLESS US ALL, EVERYONE?Anyway, like everything in life, to get to the right answers, you have to ask the right questions.
Another homerun hit! The IARC must be a good thang!
(fave image “…screaming its impossibly tiny little face off.”)
“…Yes, I’m free!
Yeah, back in the U.S.S.R.
Ha ha”
Yep, that damn old eternal question: IS freedom slavery?
I’d always believed freedom was having nothing left to lose. <{closet hippie}
so well said. i look at my sister & friends with their infants/toddlers… and moments of such pure joy are inevitably followed by such stress & defeat. there’s really no way to have it all. but that’s such a great question– is there a way to “find” your less self-obsessive self without giving yourself up completely?
Hey, having fun?!
Geez, didn’t realize how much I was jonesing for an EM post – Whew!
So, babies on your brain?
Government propaganda or incontrovertible instinct?
What a terrifying prospect, for young human females, this conversion process must be.
Attempting to empathize brings to mind the old cartoons where the screaming heroine was bound spread-eagle to the top of a huge log, moving slowly towards an equally huge, rapidly churning buzz-saw. And of course, movies of “Alien” genre probably don’t do much either to allay the fears of les jeunes femmes. And that’s just the beginning…
My hat’s off to you!
what’s the deal with joshua stein? i just checked out gawker for today for the first time in years and he has written EVERY SINGLE STORY on the front page? what is going on????
I some unrelated thoughts while reading this blog, two of which remind me, depressingly, that I am old old old (-ER, anyway, than cool, young, adventuring EG):
First, EG wrote: and also, I suspect, partly because it was those magazines’ golden age — no tabloid plotline has since surpassed the mythic resonance of Brad and Jen’s divorce.
Ah, my dear EG. You speak with an appalling (NOT) lack of awareness of a few (at least) decades of tabloids which did, in fact exist prior to your guilt inducing perusal of them. Brad and Jen…HA! I know nothing of their exploits, except what I distractedly looked at while in line with oftentimes screaming toddlers…But I remember some juicy and guilt inducing storylines myself, from back in MY day. And, I think, back in even older “old days” there were even better stories, I think. I mean, what about Liz Taylor’s exploits? I mean, BEFORE she developed that thing for Michael Jackson? Just to name one….
And then, Hal, I had THE SAME thought as you. Emily, you don’t know many parents, I think, at least not well. Their total dedication to their little ones? Almost always TOTALLY narcissistic. I am not saying I am not guilty myself. But I do try to be self aware. I love the way Hal put it so I won’t add anything more.
@petunia heh, you’re asking ME? I think maybe anyone else in the world might be more qualified to answer that question …
Consider that the Oglok of Labrador have more than a hundred separate and distinct words for “snow”.
(+ or -)
Sweet Jeebus, there are a lot of narcissistic people here.
Before I had kids, a crying baby was something to be avoided. Now, not so much. It’s like I have a notch filter set for whatever frequency they modulate on and I look past that to whatever is causing the problem. Babies don’t like to cry. But it is the only thing they can do; they have a binary form of communication.
@1
I’ve always LOVED this sentiment, because it is the perfect, quintessential miscue of our selfish, self-absorbed society: the idea that our own children are an acceptable receptacle (Rebecca? What’d you think of that?) for the displacement of our personal guilt over not being kind or charitable or good enough to compensate for our rampant materialism (me too, guilty!) and our shocking disregard for the pain and suffering of others.
Gee, is it still about you?
When you have children, you love them with an unrequited love. They will never love you back as much as you love them. When you have children, you get to, you are allowed to love them, as opposed to being required to love them. Turn up the wick, let it shine. It feels good to love.
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