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I paid a visit to new parents last week, their first child, a 90-day-old girl, and it brought back memories of my own fatherhood — ignorance, dread, fear of dropping the child or over-swaddling it and cutting off oxygen to the brain and leading to drug abuse and years of treatment — but what astonished me was the calm of these parents, their confident pleasure, their mastery of the situation.
These two had studied up for this. They used terms like "cognitive stimulation" and "maximization of proactive engagement." They kept a chart recording her versatility skills — vocal intensity, 2.4, and analysis/synthesis, 1.3 — intent on giving the infant the best possible start in life and nurture her individuality while also preparing her for the collectivist constellations of the high-tech life ahead. Back in my fathering years, I just hoped not to burp my baby too hard and cause disorganized thinking.
Some parenting skills remain the same, such as jiggling. I remember my grandma jiggling my younger siblings, standing them on her lap and gently bouncing them, which calmed them down, perhaps due to a primal memory handed down hereditarily and chromosomally of riding on a maternal backpack on a horse crossing the Great Plains. My mother walked around the living room with tiny twin boys in her arms, jiggling them for hours, as a result of which she had the upper-body strength of a stevedore. It's good to know that some aspects of parenting remain standard.
And then there is the baby carrier, the cloth pouch worn by a parent holding the infant close to your body. We had one back in the ancient Seventies, a BabyBjörn, and it was expensive and had a zipper and I used it in fear that the child might smother in it and I'd be sent up for infanticide. When my second child came along years later, there were dozens of carrier devices on the market, one made of silk and cashmere selling for $800, which I thought a ridiculous waste of money and then was attacked by guilt — is not the emotional health of your child worth eight hundred dollars? What cost limit does a caring parent put on goods and services to help an infant function confidently and adapt to difficult life situations?
The young couple I saw last week simply used two loops of cloth slung around parental neck and arms, holding the infant securely close to the parental warmth, a primeval device similar to those probably used by Tibetan sheepherders in the 12th century as they slipped through the forest needing to keep the baby silent lest its cries alert the Mongol pursuers and bring them galloping up with sabers flashing. The carriers worked. Tibet exists.
The couple's little girl lay bound to her mother's chest, sleeping peacefully, in a relationship that seemed more egalitarian than hierarchical, and I looked at her and remembered no such comfort in my infancy. No carrier for me. I lay on a blanket on the floor surrounded by giant adults staring down at me, feeling dread, ashamed of my lack of toileting skills. I was persecuted by an older sister. Dogs sniffed me, chandeliers swung high overhead, men in big boots walked inches away, death lay on every hand. Considering my childhood traumas, I've done fairly well for myself. I'm okay on the printed page anyway — aren't I? don't I seem somewhat adept at language? Grammatical, at least? At least I can spell okay.
The little girl I saw seemed anxiety-free, aside from fear of starvation, which she expressed from time to time. She was on the road to translating ideas into actions to solve problems. Quite an improvement at three months.
And yet, there is no problem so threatening to a child as the Perfect Parent. I've seen this again and again, the gentle rational well-prepared parent who winds up with angry fascist children covered with gothic tattoos, the loving enlightenment of the elders forcing the young into rebellion. Amish parents whose kids turn to Black Sabbath for comfort.
My daughter, at 27, does well with a smart caring mother and a helpless father. It has taught her kindness and mercy. She often needs to resist her mother but when she sees me, she takes me by the hand and helps me over the rough places. She occasionally argues with her mother but with me she's taken on a caregiving role. Kindness is a beautiful thing. I've come to depend on it.
Garrison Keillor is an author and radio personality. His latest book is "Cheerfulness". Buy it at a 38% discount! by clicking here. Sales help fund JWR.