My daughter received the new Baby Alive Baby All Gone at her birthday party last weekend, and she LOVES it. She has played with it a lot, and likes to be a "mommy". This morning, she was being mommy, and I got to be the babysitter, and I decided to take advantage of all of the things this doll can do. After all, the ad for this doll notes that she is "life-like". OK- if life-like is a talking doll that is the size of a newborn with Nellie Oleseon hard plastic curls... then I guess. Ahem... I digress. She has a sippy cup of apple juice (fake, thank God) and a magic spoon that you put into a bowl of bananas and they "disappear" when you put it to her mouth. Baby Alive then proceeds to tell you- in perfect, well-mannered English- "More, please"; "Mmmm... bananas are GOOD", "Thirsty! May I have a drink?" and many more phrases. Baby Alive never cries. Baby Alive always tells you what she wants, with pleases and thank yous. And when you're done playing with Baby Alive, you can put her down and her ever-smiling face will not ask for anything further.
Oh how I wish this were real!
Working with women who are experiencing postpartum mood disorders, there is at least a piece of the anxiety and depression pie that our society contributes to. TV shows with perfect families and moms that are showered and made-up with good hair. Magazines that display stories about celebrities being back to their pre-baby body 6 weeks after giving birth. Moms clubs where moms feel ashamed to talk about what having a baby can REALLY be like- so you leave feeling ashamed and weird that you don't feel that motherhood is 100% blissful.
Playing with Baby Alive made me realize that a lot of this thinking starts in early childhood! Most little girls like to play with dolls and be "mommies". You feed the baby that never cries, never has a diaper blowout, never smears boogers through their hair, never projectile vomits all over your clothes for the seventh time that day... and falls asleep when you put it down. This message is played through media, and by the time the baby comes along, women are led to believe that mothering should be natural- that you just know what to do. You will immediately be back to your pre-baby body, bond with your baby, and get them on a schedule ASAP.
So what can we do about this? Well, I'm not going to take Baby Alive away. That would just be too tramautic. But I do my best to help women and my friends who are pregnant get a dose of reality. Being a mom is GREAT-- but not 100% of the time. You will feel helpless. You may feel sad. You will feel incompetent. You feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility for this needy little bundle. AND-- it's all worth it. But it's hard at first. And just when you have it down, it changes! It will take a LONG time to lose the weight. You may not shower every day. And it's OK to not love every single minute of it. I hope to pass these messages along to my daughter when it's her turn (hopefully far far far down the road) so that if she is struggling, she will talk about it and ask for help.
Until then, we have Baby Alive. "More please!"
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