My daughter is 10 months old today. She’s a precocious travel-sized person with a mind of her own. Her vocabulary is vast but I understand only two words: “caw”, which she uses to talk to birds, and “bye” which she uses when people tell her bye-bye.
Since her birth, she’d had the privilege of having people tell her she’s so cute. They coo at her and carry her, hug her and try to kiss her. They touch her face and try to hold her hand. They crawl on the floor after her and pick up toys she’s dropped. They bring her gifts and sing her songs. They do so much for her and I am grateful for the respite it offers me.
However, the experience has led me to think about many issues this kindness inevitably presents:
- Her person, her will, her mind, her body, her consent
I believe Kappy is her own person, and my husband and I try not to force our affections on her. She isn’t the cuddly kind of child that likes receiving hugs at the moment. She loves to walk free-range and be independent, and when tired, wants to be nursed to sleep.
When friends want to carry her, I agree. When strangers do, I sometimes agree. I avoid her being kissed but there have been lapses as guardian of her consent where people have kissed her faster than I could stop them.
In a future where I pray that she will find a partner who respects her being and her spirit, I hope to begin showing her now how I protect her while she is learning control over her body and has but a small voice. If I want her to know that she should not be hugged and kissed if she doesn’t want to be, that she does have a private space that is hers and hers alone, it begins now. It begins with me.
It is sometimes difficult to raise a little one whom everyone considers adorable and showers adoration on. I have no solution for this except to try again and again to keep people from forcing themselves on her, not because of diseases, but for her dignity.
- Biased from birth
The large number of people coming up to us to tell us how adorable Kappy is has forced me to consider how naive I am to believe that humans can be fair and without prejudice. We love beauty and mystery and Kappy is both – she is cute, and yet as unpredictable as babies get.
Elderly women have picked her up while we left her to play alone in a bench outside our family bike shop, not knowing that we keep watch over her. Elderly men have done little jigs and sung little rhymes to get her to smile. But what if she were less cute?
I can only imagine that some other infants receive less attention and therefore have more room to grow and to experiment, fail and learn without an audience.
I would both like for Kappy to grow up without being watched like a marionette, and for other children and their parents to be reminded that their families, too are beautiful.
So, the next time you pass by a mother struggling with a child, please remind her that her family is beautiful and perhaps keep a gift card in your pocket for a cup of tea/coffee to hand to her. And the next time you see my baby trying something new, let her be. Let her fall, fail and learn to stand, run, fly.
motherwarriors 