The 1950s Do's and Don't's of Parenting Babies Is Remarkably Sane

My cousin Amy just had a baby - her first - this weekend. Welcome to the world, Ethan Brady, and congrats to his lovely mom and dad! I hope these first few days and weeks and months are as calm and sweet as can be!

I imagine new parents are inundated with advice - some welcome, some not. I tend to not be the disher of said advice, given my status as a happy-to-be-childfree type, but I have no problem giving advice to the advice givers, if that makes any sense. And my advice to them is this: Chill the fuck out. You need only take a twirl on Google to see why I say this. If you go online, the top, most-frequently mentioned advice sounds like this:

• ALWAYS BREASTFEED. BREAST IS BEST. FORMULA IS POISON. DON'T QUIT - IT'S ABOUT BABY'S HEALTH - NOT YOUR COMFORT LEVEL! BABY COMES FIRST.
• SIDS! SIDS! Your baby is likely to die at any given moment unless you do everything perfectly. And even then, he might still die. SIDDDDDSS!
• Run to your baby if he is crying. Every. Time. RUNNNN!
• Don't shake your baby - even if you really want to.
• Get medicated!

It all sounds exceptionally stressful. Yes, postpartum depression is real and should be taken seriously, but perhaps we can do a better job supporting mothers and fathers (both in our actions and in the advice we give) to reduce factors that heighten anxiety. With this in mind, I naturally turned to my 1950s materials to see how the advice compared. Was it also riddled with stressful thoughts?

I found a "Do's and Dont's" when it came to baby from the same 1959 Best Wishes magazine that I recently mentioned on the blog. And the advice? Strikingly low-key. Calm. Reasonable. So incredibly opposite to the manic-fest that is 1950s cooking suggestions and 1950s homemaking schedules (open the picture in a new tab to see it expanded):

There are, of course, a couple funny things in there. The magazine is Canadian, so naturally there is a mention not to give your newborn beer and gravy. But those are our staples, eh? I imagine the French Canadian version has been further customized to remind new moms to avoid treating the baby to Quebec family favourites, specifically ketchup, Pepsi, and cigarettes, tabernac.

There's also a shift in advice when it comes to crying; while one modern website states, "DO respond to your baby's cries. You are not spoiling your baby by immediately responding to their cries at this age, so feed, change, hold, or soothe your baby when she is crying", the 1950s advice says something quite different: "Though he cries, don't pick you baby up if he is well. A good lusty cry is excellent exercise." I have no idea if cry-it-out or attachment parenting are right or wrong - frankly, I don't think anyone knows - I just love how enthusiastic the advice is: "a good lusty cry!" "Excellent exercise!" "Go watch some telly, mom!"

And there's one big piece of advice that I just love and wish it was in all the baby books and websites today:

Yes, the generation of women who were often viewed as being the "perfect mothers" and the "perfect housewives" were, in fact, not slaves to the other members of the household. Yes, a baby needs a great deal of care and attention, but you're a person who has needs too. Like rest. And personal time. And a break. Maybe that advice alone - to not be a martyr to your baby - curtailed the need for advice like "don't shake your newborn when you're frustrated" - which is strangely and sadly in all of the "Do's and Don't's" that we see today.

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35 Facts About My Parents That I'm Going To Share With The Internet Whether They Like It Or Not (Because They're Not The Boss Of Me Anymore)

35. It's my parents' 35th wedding anniversary today!
34. My mom's name is Marie-Paule, but she just goes by Marie to appease the anglophones of Alberta.
33. My father's name is Joe, he has always gone by Joe, even though in his high school yearbook he's referred to as "Joey". He claims he has no idea why someone would have written that.
32. In my mom's high school yearbook, she was given the nickname "Lips". She claims it's because she has big lips, but we all know that isn't true.
31. I mean, this is what she looked like back then. You just know she was beating the boys off:

30. With a stick. WITH A STICK, you sickos.
29. But surely my dad was quite the catch, too:

28. Uh ... anyway ... they got married in a tiny ceremony at city hall. They had a party at their home afterwards.
27. The bride was 19. She wore a white dress and gigantic glasses.
26. The groom was 26. He wore a velvet clip-on bow tie.
25: See for yourself:

24. It was the 70s.
23. Evidence:

22. They lived in a town that looks like what every American thinks of when they think of Canada:

21. Back then, they did weird things for fun:

20. And wore a lot of short shorts with sandals with other people who wore short shorts and sandals:

19. But then after a couple of years, they ruined it all:

18. Parenting did not always come naturally:

17. But despite that, they decided to have another kid and this weirdo showed up:

16. And because no one used sunscreen back then, their older child turned into a little Mexican. The couch stayed the same:

15. See - no sunscreen!

14. It got to the point that the little Mexican eventually turned into a small Indian woman. And the couch still stayed the same:

13. They celebrated many Christmases together and styled their children's hair into festive mullets during the winter months to make up for their lack of ethnically-confusing suntans:

12. Now that the family had conquered style, Marie decided to finally get a new couch. Actually, she just reupholstered the old ugly one. This was right around the time the eldest child's looks peaked and she started to look Italian, while the younger one had turned into a boy:

11. But Marie and Joe kept up the glamour; Marie with a can of hairspray a day and Joe with his promise to not let his beard get all "I-am-the-leader-of-a-cult" again ...

10.  ... like it had been in the '80s:

9. And Joe and Marie kept on living it up with things like curling at MacDonald Island, hanging out with their friends, and working at companies that make Al Gore cry.
8. Eventually their children grew up and moved away and Marie and Joe had nothing left to live for celebrated this by moving into a whole bunch of houses - first to Edmonton, then to Saskatoon, and finally settling in Okotoks.
7. They've retired and now do lots of travelling, especially to areas of the world that allow them to let it all hang out:

6. But when they're home they like to do the very opposite of what I like to do, and that's go outside and not eat. They especially like it if this outdoorsy-ness involves hiking up the side of a mountain:

5. But they also do things that I can relate to:

4. And during all this time and despite all the challenges - like cancer, stresses of raising a family, 80s fashion experiments, and jerk children who spill family stories on the Internet like the time Marie went nuts and threw out ALL of the children's toys - they actually still seem to like each other.
3. You can even see it in other people's wedding pictures:

2. They are such a nice couple and such nice people that even when their silly children talk to each other on Skype they say things like, "how cute are Mom and Dad?" and "I love how they're still in love" and "they really showed us what good marriage was" and "I can't believe how lucky we were to have them as parents". It gets even more mushier and smooshier than that if one or both of the children has been drinking.
1. Everybody who knows them, and even some of the people who don't (right, Internet?), wish them a very happy 35 years of marriage and many, many more happy years together.

We love you.

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Twins Are Like Dolphins

... in that they clearly have their own language that remains a mystery to us "normie" humans:





Even though I think both of these babies are boys, I'm pretty convinced that one of them said, "You go, girl!" in that second video.

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Awesome. Totally. Totally. Awesome.

Nerdly Childhood Confession: I was always scared to touch my Jabba the Hut action figure (er, rather inaction figure - you really couldn't do much with him) because I kept psyching myself out into thinking he was actually a blob of diarrhea. I'd even put my hand in my sleeve and use my shirt to pick him up, fearful of getting Jabba poop on my skin. I did the same thing with those dung-like plastic Glo Worms, too. Oh, nerdly, crazy, baby Jen.

I was reminded of this memory by an amazingly fun video by Patrick Boivin. Even though I am a Star Trek girl at heart and will forever pray to the temple of Spock, I have to bow down to his "AT-AT Day Afternoon":

AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.

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This Is A Happy Moment

OMG OMG OMG.

I don't know when it happened or how long it will stay, but the best thing ever has just occurred:

I just found out we get Game TV.

We never used to. I used to try, now and again, just to see - and every time I'd flip to the channel I'd get the Rogers Digital Bitchslap Screen, informing me to pay up or get the hell out.

But ... oh .... no .... not this week! I pray it's not a demo week and that it's now just included in our package on a permanent basis.

But why has Game TV excited me in a way my husband cannot? It's because Game TV airs the show that would get me so, so psyched as a kid and now disturbingly giddy as an adult - JUST LIKE MOM.

This darling of a Canadian game show aired in the early and mid-eighties and teamed children (ages 7 to 11 or so) and their moms in a Newlywed style match-up. While that part was sort of boring and in some ways embarrassing to watch, the BEST PART EVER was the bake-off. Children were sent to a kitchen to 'cook' a specific recipe. The Moms had to sample each goodie and guess which was made by her child. But it wasn't that simple. No way, Jose. The show would give the kids access to WACKY ingredients. Like, you're told to make a brownie, but there's also ketchup and Gatorade and jellybeans on the table. Now, if you were nine, what would you add?

The crazy shit! DAMN STRAIGHT! And MOM HAS TO EAT IT.

BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAAAA.

Here's a sample:



And just when you thought it couldn't get better, one of the prizes you could win was a trip to a camp where you could zipline into a lake. ZIPLINE INTO A LAKE!!!!

Just Like Mom was Just Like Crack to me.

I watch the show now and still find myself excited (although totally, totally disturbed by host Fergie Olver's begging of kisses from the young girls while their moms are still backstage. What the eff was up with that?).

If GameTV goes away from my package, I need to find out where I can petition to get this series on DVD. For serious.

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Back To The Playground I Go

I've mentioned before on this blog how I loathe Sex and the City. While its syndicated re-runs haunt me now and again, I've been happily free of what I hate most about Sex and the City: its drooling, impressionable, estrogen-fueled following.

Alas, my peace is broken. Last week, Sex and the City hit the big screen. Cue the gaggle of worshippers stampeding to be blessed by the horse-faced one. Cue the non-stop chatter and gushing and spewing of Sex-isms.

Recently, a group of women from work were chatting about the movie as they waited for the elevator. They stopped when they saw me. "Oh! Have you seen Sex and the City yet? We don't want to ruin it for you!" When I explained that no, I hadn't seen it and that there would be no 'yet' in my future, I received that old familiar Look.

It's a Look that I first vividly remember being exposed to in 1989 when I was in elementary school. 1989 hosted some substantial historical moments: The Exxon Valdez Spill, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the fall of the Berlin Wall ... but according to my female schoolmates at the time, 1989 only meant one thing:

The New Kids on the Block.

Oblivious to teeny-bopper pop culture (thanks to not being allowed to watch Much Music ... that's its own blog post ... a lack of resources for 'teen' magazines, and feeling satisfied with my parent-lead diet of The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and Paul Simon), I was completely unprepared for The New Kid invasion. All of a sudden, every girl in my class showed up to school with a scrapbook dedicated to her favourite New Kid. Just as these girls would one day identify themselves as a Samantha, Carrie or Miranda - as children, they were known by whether they claimed Joey, Jordan or Donnie as their future husband.

I was very quickly educated in the Ways of the New Kid: Joey was the cute one, Jordan was the hot one, Donnie was the tough one, Jon was the sweet one and Danny was the guy that looked like a monkey that nobody really liked. And then one day, I learned that they sang.

Holding one end of an earphone from a girl’s Sony Walkman over morning recess, I heard my first New Kid song.

“Is that a girl?” I asked.

“NO! THAT’S JORDAN!” she spazzed. (Jordan was hers, you see – and not only did I just suggest he was a girl, I had just talked during his solo.)

“Oh. Right,” I said.

I sat there and listened. And listened some more. And slowly, my nose scrunched and my brow furrowed and I had officially had enough.

“Okay – thanks – you can have this back,” I said as I handed her my half of the (very stretched) headphone.

“DON’T YOU LIKE IT?” she spat, as if I had just turned away a bowl filled with money and chocolate.

“Mmm … nah. They’re no Beatles, that’s for darn sure.” (Again, thanks to my sheltered but quality upbringing, I had nothing by Paul and John to compare things to … that and I also had a habit of talking like an old man.)

I then noticed the herd. The Girl Herd. It was there all along, each member waiting for her own turn to listen to the New Kids on the Walkman. And now, they were all ready to turn on Little Miss Black Sheep. I received The Look.

“The Beatles?!” a girl, who I considered one of my better friends, exclaimed. “They’re so stupid. And so are you.” The Look is essentially this statement, but as told by a facial expression.

And as my face started to burn up with hatred and embarrassment, the recess bell rang and back to class we went. Within an hour, I had already received a note from the girl who had accused me of being stupid asking for a truce (“Circle YES or NO if we can be friends again.”) and like a wimp I had agreed to let it slide.

At lunch, after the sandwiches and Fruit Roll-Ups were eaten, the girls started to pool together with their scrapbooks, Bop Magazines and New Kids tapes to begin their new ritual – The New Kid Obsession Hour.

“Want to pick your favourite picture of Donnie?” the friend-foe asked – clearly extending the olive branch my way.

I looked over the scene of idiot girls – fawning (and some pretending to fawn - those were the ones who were relegated to liking Danny) over sub-par music, embarrassing dance moves and boys that didn’t even compare to Ringo. I was silently mad at myself for having even agreed to be friendly with the girl who called me stupid and did not want to spend the rest of my lunch drinking New Kid Kool-Aid.

“Uh – actually – I said I’d play Buns Up,” I lied.

Buns Up was a game that was played exclusively by boys. It involved throwing a small hard ball or tennis ball at a wall while everyone runs around. It’s more complicated than that, but the main point of the game was the punishment. Basically, if you didn’t touch the wall in time or if someone caught the ball you threw before it hit the pavement, you had to line up against the wall as someone threw the ball at your backside as hard as possible.

I never told the boys I’d join them for Buns Up, but when I showed up alone and in need of friends, I was quickly accepted into the game (fresh meat, you see). In the end (har?), I opted to have a small, hard object hurled at me for several months rather than having to join into the New Kid dribble.

And some things don't really change. I can't pretend to like SATC. I can't pretend to be excited over the film. And I can't pretend that I care if you think its sad or stupid or unfemale of me to not get excited over a bunch of hags moaning about their sex life for eight-millionth time. And no, I especially don't care that Big and Carrie get married (oh, right - spoiler alert, everyone.). So ... If anyone has a tennis ball handy, I'll happily hang out with you until Carrie and her ragged gang have gone to DVD.

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Give Peas a Chance

Growing up, one of my signature issues was my utter disgust of peas. At the sight or smell of them, I would retch and howl and curse their existence. "They taste like sweaty socks!" I would scream and pout. It was true disbelief and shock when my parents would opt to serve them with dinner - knowing that a) I, Queen of the Family, disliked them and b) WHO could POSSIBLY LIKE PEAS?!?!

A few months ago, I was out having lunch at a pub when my dish was surprisingly served with the Green Pods of Satan. I ate everything around them, but by the time I finished the sorroundings, I was still hungry. Despite having already decided I would definitely not like them, my instinct to nibble all that was borderline-edible in front of my face kicked in, and I found myself popping a few in my mouth. And to my surprise, I didn't want to throw up. The opposite of that happened, actually. I gobbled my lifelong sworn enemy spoon by spoon.

Recently, I saw on Nigella Bites a tasty-looking recipe for pea soup. Very simple, economical, and oddly sensuous, as is all good Nigella makes. For the first time in 28 years, I bought peas - on purpose.

The soup is damn good - and my war with peas is officially over.

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