When I restarted this blog, Substack gave me the option to choose two categories to “tag” the Palmer Press. Since I didn’t have a real plan, I chose philosophy and humor. Both were a stretch to begin with, but while I tweaked some setting this weeks to prevent replies from going to spam, Substack suggested I change my categories to philosophy and parenting. I guess I’m a Mommy Influencer now. I’m going to try to write my next post about something that has nothing to do with parenting, but this post won’t buck the trend. Elizabeth, Aaron, Wei and I were heavily featured in some Uppababy social media marketing a few weeks ago, so it’s any day before I can start promoting baby products. Ask me anything about the luxury strollers required to survive the rough and tumble streets of the Upper West Side.
On to the essay…
Last weekend, Elizabeth and I were at our friends Annie and Jon’s wedding in Los Angeles. I’ve been to two weddings in LA this year. At the first, for our friend’s Ashrit and Kerry, I was solo. Elizabeth and Remy stayed home, so I broke the record for number of pinot grigio pours gulped in a single night. Remy came to LA for this more recent wedding, so I was the first person under the age of 40 to exit the after party and spent most of my time talking about being a parent. There were other parents there too, so we talked shop on starting solids and compared daycare prices.
Remy came along to one of the wedding weekend events, and after she showed up, nobody paid any more mind to the poor bride and groom. Remy similarly crashed a tea ceremony earlier in the year and stole the attention then, too. The only difference then was that she wasn’t stealing the limelight from the bride and groom. Ben and Lin came in third place after Remy and Ben’s parent’s Pomeranian Teddy, who had a seat of honor at both the tea ceremony and proper wedding.
We’re lucky that both couples asked us to bring her to these non-main events (otherwise she would not have come). We’re also very lucky that everyone else at these events seems enamored with her. Elizabeth captured a photo (one of a series that we could put together) of a crowd gathered to stare at Remy. She’s particularly fun to hoist onto expecting parents as training, though the most enthusiastic are the Aunties. They glide across the room, their gaze never breaking until they attempt to snatch the child from your hands. The only time words are exchanged is when two Aunties want to hold Remy at the same time. We’ve come close to a 1 Kings 3:251 scenario.
Even though Remy gets passed around to everyone (and is usually very happy to be held), there is an obvious deference to Elizabeth and I as her parents, even from my or Elizabeth’s parents. If I say she has to go down for a nap and take her away, there is no protest. She is our baby. This feels obvious but I did expect (and did not want) more unwanted advice on how to parent or what to do with my child. Part of this is that the guidelines change and it’s hard to remember at what month a child can do what, especially given that developmental stages have such wide age ranges. The other part of it, which I appreciate, is that we are given a wide berth in terms of how we want to raise our child.2
Which brings me to one of the more interesting conversations that I had at the wedding. One of the other guests mentioned that some of the things that make him the most nervous about raising children in the future are all the outside forces of influence to compete with. I like to joke about how the earliest parenting tips we received varied from lots of fish soup to a splash of Crown Royal on the gums, and that both of these attempted influences came from Remy’s grandparents. The influence that the outside world can have early on feels immense. One of the things that Elizabeth and I noticed at a few baby music and gymnastics classes is that the nannies we interacted with at these events (there are as many au pairs and nannies in attendance as parents) have a lot of say in how the child is raised. Many of the nannies we met were from the Caribbean, where it is more common for babies to sleep on their stomachs than on their backs. American pediatric guides all push the ABC’s of safe sleep (Alone, on their Back, in a Crib) because back-sleeping supposedly reduces the chance of SIDS. A direct quote from one of those nannies is “Yes, some babies die, but it’s not because they sleep on their belly.” The children raised by those nannies seemed to be much stronger in seated positions than their back-sleeping counterparts, but I still wouldn’t want to yield to the opinion held by any nanny we could have hired for Remy. They are the experts at childcare, but again, she is Elizabeth’s and my baby.
This was one of my reasons for preferring daycare over the au pair or nanny-share route, in that I think daycare workers might have less influence on Remy than a full-time one-on-one or one-on-two caretaker would.3 However, this week, our daycare sent us a photo of Remy and the other girl in her “Caterpillar” daycare classroom. It was just her and her new friend sitting cross legged on the floor wrapped in Boppy pillows, but it struck me as odd because Elizabeth and I weren’t there. I went from a weekend where so many people talked to me about my baby, or asked to hold my baby, with even the Aunties respecting the authority I held over my child. But, here she was in that daycare photo doing her own thing. Yes, she is still mine and Elizabeth’s, but she is her own person. It’s obvious but still feels profound. Later in the week, they sent more photos of Remy both finger painting and watching some other jabroni play the guitar, and Elizabeth cried. I wouldn’t admit it if I did. It’s strange to realize that Remy’s world is not wholly contained within ours, but it’s true. She will meet people and experience things that we will not know of, but I can only hope that she never stops wanting to share her world with us.
Thanks for reading.
He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
On the nuance of the word child vs children, Elizabeth now has a habit of buying outfits that “all our children will wear,” which makes me feel like I’m being hypnotized. On the other hand, the realization that our second child might be a boy has stopped our exclusively buying frilly and pink outfits.
The other factors being cost, wanting a contract (most nannies work under the table), and the aversion I would have to admitting we hired a nanny or au pair. Elizabeth already said I can’t complain about inequality after joining the Equinox and this would just be on another level.