WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OUR MOTHERS
What are we doing to our mothers? The mothers we told that it takes a village. The mothers we told to speak up, reach out, accept help. The mothers we told how important it is to take time for yourself, to let someone watch your baby while you take a long shower. The mothers we told how good it is to get out of the house and back into the world, with your baby. Hole up in our houses, not socialize ourselves or our babies? No play dates, no tot time, no Mommy & Me swimming lessons? These are all the things you told us not to do.
This isn’t an argument against masks or a conversation that this is all a conspiracy created by the government, I’d have to be ignorant to think either one of those things. But somehow, our solutions, attitudes, and our methods for entering back into the world, have fallen short for mothers. I’m sure in many ways they’ve fallen short for more than that, but I can only speak for the mothers today.
The automatic door is on the “entrance” side of the mall, so you have to gracefully struggle to get yourself and your stroller through the “exit” side while trying your best not to touch anything. The contactless delivery of your groceries will almost always arrive just as you’re putting your baby down for nap. If your partner is a frontline worker, you probably try to be responsible and do most errands on the weekends to avoid unnecessarily exposing your baby. Spoiler alert: garden centres (and everywhere else) have massive lines on the weekends, so you just might not get that garden (or anything else) you were hoping for. Playdates are secrets, no talking about them and definitely no posting about them. Small, superficial things, but boy do they take a toll on a new mother. These are the things we used to preach to our new mothers to do for themselves, and now I’m sure some people are reading this and judging me for mentioning a shopping mall.
I left the house today to mail a package, and to get diapers and formula. It’s humid as hell, the package was bulky and awkward, I had to unload the stroller for my five second errand because I can’t risk putting Lou in a shopping cart handled by god knows who… oh and I’m wearing a mask. There’s a line at the post office, and I’m trying to interact with Lou as much as I can using the visible half of my face. Then something happens, Lou catches the eye of the person six feet behind me in line. She starts to smile, stick out her tongue, and play coy behind the side of her stroller. She’s never done this before, it was one of those natural milestones that came to her like magic. I turned to look and saw the emotionless face of a woman, not interacting with my baby but staring back at me with judgement. Judgement for taking a baby in public during a pandemic. My heart broke a little, my eyes welled up, and I turned back to Lou to tickle her feet.
Next stop was much of the same. Still humid, diaper boxes are bulky and awkward, etc. I get waved to an aisle for a cashier like I’m an airplane being taxied in, and then it happened again. My sweet baby, let her sweet disposition show. She smiled, stuck her tongue out, and hid her bashful face. But this time I turned to see the cashier, smiling with her whole face right through her mask, waving and laughing at my playful baby. My eyes welled up again, and then she said to me “You see, that’s great! She wants to interact !” The flood gates opened and I broke down in full tears. We mothers have so many fears in this new reality about what that means and how it will affect our babies, and her reassuring words spilled over me like a warm hug. It was obvious my emotions caught her off guard, and she began to apologize and handed me a tissue. All I could do was tell her “No, it’s okay, really. Thank you, I needed that.”
I’m not a medical professional, so I can’t even speak to what we should be doing. But I’m a mother, and a human being, and with that I ask you to be kind to the mothers you see. The ones who snuck out for a few minutes, the ones running errands for essentials while their partners are on the frontlines, the ones picking up diapers, the ones who are in public with their unmasked babies for the first time. Smile through your masks, wave at their babies, play peek-a-boo with your eyes, tell them that they’re doing great. Do it from six feet away, but please do it. All we want is to have our baby’s instinctual kindness be met with sweet and simple praises. We need to feel like the world we’ve brought our babies into is still warm and beautiful, safe and kind. Also, bonus points if you have some tissue handy just incase.
Dedicated to Kristin on aisle 8. From the bottom of my heart, I needed that.
