All of a sudden, the young people I know are having babies. Not Kate’s crew, but the slightly older ones, the ones in their 30s. I went to a baby shower in the spring, a more casual one this fall, and now there’s one on the calendar for this month. I want to give all the parents what they ask for on their registries, but also my gift of knowledge, and uppermost in mind is this:
You won’t need most of this stuff.
Not that I am stingy, but it’s hard not to be awed by the sheer quantity of stuff new mothers are told they have to buy, a truth when I was pregnant, and one that persists today. And so much of it – so, so much – will be used little, or not at all. You need burp cloths, yes, but any old cloth will do; I found a six-pack of cheap cloth diapers did just fine. You need clothing for the little shaver, but shoes are entirely optional until they start walking. And while it pains me to say this, say it I must: Give up the dream of being an eco-warrior and using cloth diapers for anything other than spit-up cleanups: There’s a reason this is Pampers’ world and we’re all just living in it. If it scratches too hard at your conscience, find a brand that isn’t an environmental disaster and stick with it.
One modern trend I approve of: The one where guests are asked to bring a book and sign it to the baby. I can never disapprove of books. But after they’ve gone through all those infant board books, again I whisper: The public library is an excellent resource. Not all parents have the outstanding Allen County Public Library just down the road, but “move to Fort Wayne” isn’t an option for most of them.
Anyway, I know a lucky baby who’s getting a Poppleton book. Advanced for reading on their own, but fine for reading to them, once they can sit up and appreciate Poppleton’s world. It was between that and the McDuff books. And everything by Rosemary Wells. And so, so many others. No one embraces reading to a child as enthusiastically as an older mother.
OK, just added “Good Dog Carl” to my Amazon cart. You can’t get a good start in life without a copy of “Good Dog Carl.”
There’s much going on in the world, but today my interest is drawn to something I wrote a couple of years ago. I only recently learned that a Michigan U.S. representative traveled to Uganda — fucking UGANDA — to do this:
U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Tipton) traveled to the African nation in October for that country’s National Prayer Breakfast, during which he encouraged Uganda to “stand firm” in its Anti-Homosexuality Act, which was signed into law in May by President Yoweri Museveni, and includes the death penalty for those who are determined to be “serial offenders.”
Walberg began his remarks by applauding Ugandan Member Parliament Cecilia Ogwal, who he said came second only to God, after earlier in the prayer breakfast she compared support for LGBTQ+ individuals as an attack on God.
It so happens I know a gay Ugandan. He’ll be an American eventually, but the last I checked on him, he still had permanent asylum status, and was waiting out the year before he could apply for a green card. That’s when I wrote about him, after having known him casually/socially for a few years.
As I pointed out in my column, Alistair enjoyed many advantages people coming in on the southern border don’t have, mainly education, language skills and a certain amount of money. But even so, I was struck by just how hard it is to drive to an airport with the clothes on your back and whatever you could fit in a suitcase, but a one-way ticket and say goodbye to everything you’ve known. Make no mistake, he grew up with the sort of advantages an upper-middle-class child enjoys in modern Africa, but he still had to flee his home and country. Meanwhile, this Moody Bible Institute grad strokes the people who drove him out. Disgusting.
OK, I’m going to try to navigate a shower with my seasonal crud (not Covid, yay) and then take Wendy for a mani-pedi.
LAMary said on January 4, 2024 at 12:58 pm
I made it through two kids with cloth diapers and DyDee diaper service. It was cheaper than Pampers. My kids also got toilet trained pretty easily because they didn’t like feeling wet. I don’t know if DyDee is still in business. I hope so.
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Jeff Borden said on January 4, 2024 at 1:28 pm
Hate makes for some strange bedfellows.
A significant number of right-wing American figures –including politicians and media knob polishers– love Putin, Orban and Erdogan because they hate the gays as much as our modern conservatives, but have the political muscle to make their prejudices reality. Putin, who is a bloodthirsty, murdering dictator, makes sure he’s often photographed with a christian cross around his neck, which is always a smart play when pandering to ‘Murica’s evangelicals. But poor Zelensky is Jewish, and despite the supposed evangelical love for Israel, it doesn’t translate to an iota of support for his embattled nation and its people. Maybe if he converted to christianity and then began a pogrom on Ukrainian gays, our fucked up Congress would allocate the money needed to fend off Russian suicide attacks. Or not.
One of my pals who is generally a misanthrope believes there’s nothing substantial the right can do to gays in the U.S. because the majority of ‘Muricans now know gay people even if through television programs and movies. I usually respond right-wingers NEVER give up (witness the ongoing efforts to gut Social Security/Medicaid), but I do hope he’s correct.
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Deborah said on January 4, 2024 at 1:46 pm
LB had cloth diapers except when we were out and about which was rare, and I laundered the diapers myself, I deserve a medal for that, but we were poor so I had no choice. She toilet trained very early and very easily, thank god.
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Icarus said on January 4, 2024 at 2:19 pm
We had a baby Brezza (think Keurig for formula) that was a godsend. It didn’t always function the way it should but it definitely helped for the 2am/4am feedings.
we did disposable diapers and my conscience is clear. Mostly hand-me-down and 2nd hand store clothes, with some nicer stuff thrown in here and there. Babies mostly spitup and poop for the first few months so except for pictures, what’s the point of expensive nice stuff?
The key is to find someone whose kid is about 6-12 months older and when they start to purge, be the bearer of that purge.
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Julie Robinson said on January 4, 2024 at 3:07 pm
Sanitary Diaper Service in Fort Wayne, although they’d gone out of business by kid #2. I always wondered which was worse, disposable or rinsing and rinsing, then washing twice to get all the way clean. You will use them as rags for the next 20 years!
There are new and different cloth diapers now, with snap-on washable covers that moms swear are waterproof.
It’s great when the person organizing the shower also organizes a big gift like a stroller or car seat; then you can make a contribution. Otherwise, I give diapers that are the next size up from newborns, wipes, and a book. If you’re local and a pal, a meal in those first weeks home is always appreciated. Or gift card for takeout.
Never heard of a baby Brezza and had to look it up, very interesting. And second hand is the only way to go, especially for dress clothes and coats. I did learn that little boy play clothes were almost never available and I understood why when I had one of my own. He destroyed everything. I started sewing pants with triple knees.
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Andrea said on January 4, 2024 at 3:07 pm
I did cloth diapers at home with my first kid but there is no daycare I am aware of that will deal with those, so into the disposables we went.
My standard baby shower book is a beautifully illustrated book of the lyrics of Louis Armstrong’s song Wonderful World. Many parents have told me later that it is their child’s favorite bedtime story. https://www.amazon.com/What-Wonderful-World-Jean-Books/dp/0689800878/ref=sr_1_6?crid=FKP1QKR9WGP3&keywords=Wonderful+World+book&qid=1704398773&sprefix=wonderful+world+book%2Caps%2C103&sr=8-6
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alex said on January 4, 2024 at 3:41 pm
Jeff, I’d like to take comfort in what your friend the misanthrope says, but having lived in American society for sixty-plus years, I know things can change in a very short time, just as they did relatively recently, regarding pro- or anti-gay sentiment. All it would take is an authoritarian president who needs to conjure up a new enemy of the people to distract them from his other shenanigans.
In hindsight, I never felt that most people were genuinely anti-gay so much as they were afraid to take up for gay people, just as there are so many even now who can listen to someone telling racist or bigoted jokes but don’t have the courage to publicly correct the offending party.
If a U.S. House member can go to a foreign country that executes gay people and praise its efforts, it’s a not a great leap to recognize that he could agitate for the same thing here, and in the current climate he might very well gain more political benefit than he stands to lose.
I was blown away today reading about this Rufo character bragging that he has cracked the code for how to bring down liberals. One prong is getting the press to repeat a lie — in the case of Claudine Gay, that she’s a plagiarist. He’s so proud of himself for this. And the press yawns.
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Suzanne said on January 4, 2024 at 4:08 pm
I am currently reading a book called The Pendulum by Julie Lindahl https://www.julielindahl.com/the-pendulum1.html that is a memoir of a woman seeking to uncover her grandparents’ Nazi ties. I am learning much that I did not know about Nazis in the post war era. What is so chilling about this story is the people the author encounters who knew her grandparents after they moved to South America and who completely sympathized with their plight. I guess I expected more remorse from people who had seen things unfold in real time, it no. Once the author is able to convince her grandmother to talk about her life pre and post war, she discovers a woman who sees little wrong with her actions during that time.
I see so little difference with the current crop of authoritarians in our country. Someone like the Michigan Rep sees no problem with what he is doing and never will.
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Ann said on January 4, 2024 at 4:33 pm
An article in the WaPo today talked about people who are “trapped” in their starter homes because they can’t afford to move up. Lead example was a couple expecting their first child and worried about how small their 1600 square foot 3 bedroom 2 bath home is. One thing they’ve done is move the cars out of the garage so they can use it as a “staging ground” for all the baby gear. A photo of the garage showed it full of crates. Nope. Much too much.
I’m a fan of the book gifts as well, though one particularly materialistic/hoarder mother I know thwarted that by suggesting a book instead of a card and mentioning the huge wish list available at Babies R Us for the gift.
But I loved my cloth diapers, even without a diaper service, and even in the days when pre-folds were just being invented and we had to use diaper pins with duck and rabbit heads on them. On the other hand, my first kid turned 48 yesterday, so it was a while back.
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David C said on January 4, 2024 at 5:03 pm
My parents raised my three sibs and me in a 1200 sq. ft. 3 bed, 1 bath and we managed. The how are we ever going to manage in this puny 1600 sq. ft. house in the suburbs is the other side of the we live paycheck to paycheck on $150,000 a year coin. It doesn’t conjure up much sympathy from me.
I had Mohs surgery yesterday for a squamous cell on my cheek and basal cell on my back. Tylenol almost takes care of the pain so it’s going pretty well. My dermatologist says he expects to see way fewer skin cancers in 20 years. He said most of the damage to my skin happened when I was young before anyone even thought of sun blocks. I’ve been using sun blocks any time I’m spending time in the sun for the past forty years or thereabouts so he may be right. He also said there’s going to be a melanoma vaccine released in a couple of years. Good news on the skin cancer front anyway.
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Julie Robinson said on January 4, 2024 at 5:39 pm
Good to know, David, and good that your recoery is going well. Sunscreen is part of my daily routine, but I’d gotten some brown spots. The dermatologist was happy to prescribe me some pricey compound lotion and it’s helped.
Suzanne, I just read a similar book, about the author’s Nazi grandfather, Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience and Family Secrets by Burkhard Bilger. I also read My Friend Anne Frank by Hannah Pick-Goslar. Hannah and Anne were schoolmates and she writes about being in concentration camps, and the abuses large and small. Then I read Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson, about the resistance. It was a lot, but especially right now, we need to know this history.
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Deborah said on January 4, 2024 at 5:47 pm
Yep, me too David C, I got my sun damage growing up in Miami when no one had a clue about sunscreen or possible damage. I regret all those years of sun worshipping with baby oil mixed with iodine to smear on while at the beach. Sigh. I’ve only had spots frozen off, no surgery yet. I did have some cream that I had to smear on my face every night a few years back that burned my skin off, the last week of that was excruciating, I’ll never do that again.
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David C said on January 4, 2024 at 6:00 pm
I don’t remember the name of the book or the author, but I read one by a German woman. Everyone if her little town said they were the center of the resistance to Hitler, but when she looked they were every bit as compliant as most other Germans. If I remember right, it drove her out of her town and she was living in Australia.
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Jeff Gill said on January 4, 2024 at 10:39 pm
We had a simple umbrella stroller for our son’s first two years, and never moved “up” or over or to any other stroller before he started insisting on walking. It wasn’t a plan or a protest, it was just what worked. My wife did a lecture at GWU in DC, and I had an interview in Bozeman we will always wonder about turning down, but from long drives to plane trips, in cities and our small town then (he’s 25 now), at historic sites we were doing exhibit design for and at county fairs or street festivals, it was all we ever needed.
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Sherri said on January 4, 2024 at 11:06 pm
We got more use out of a backpack child carrier than any of our strollers. Easier to manage in crowds, plus our daughter liked being up high. When she was about three, I could still handle the weight, but she was tall enough that her feet hit the back of my knees, and that was the end of that. I also used a sling to carry her when she was too little for the backpack, or to carry her on my hip when she was older.
My daughter was happy to take cold bottles straight from the fridge, no need to warm them up. But babies are individuals right from the beginning, and they’ll let you know what they’ll tolerate and what they won’t. Susan was fine with a cold bottle, but picky about her clothing; some things she just wouldn’t wear. I learned when Gymboree had their sales, because she liked the feel of their clothes and their clothes had elastic at the wrists and ankles, so you could buy big and let them grow into it.
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Mark P said on January 5, 2024 at 9:57 am
I don’t doubt that if the christofascists took control, they would follow Uganda’s lead. Can conservatives recover, whether Republicans or full-on Nazis? I suspect the fraction that can is about the same as the fraction of serious criminals that change in prison.
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Icarus said on January 5, 2024 at 10:31 am
We have twins and our first daycare required six bottles and six backup bottles for each. Their own Aquaphor, their own baby Tylenol, etc. Stuff that siblings would normally share at home. We could afford it but the barrier to entry can be steep for some people.
Also, the 2nd daycare, once we discovered Boris had a dairy allergy, we asked them to stop giving him milk. They wanted a note, preferably from a doctor. I get that it’s because of compliance but why would we make this up?
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Scout said on January 5, 2024 at 12:29 pm
With 6 great grandies and another on the way*, I’m always up for good book suggestions from this group. Keep them coming.
*Granddaughter #1 is baking baby #4. They texted the cutest announcement to the whole family on Christmas day, which was a lovely surprise. What Nancy said about the youngs in their 30’s starting families has never applied to my 5 generation family. We must have rabbit DNA.
alex, as soon as SCOTUS overturned Roe, I became very worried *they* were coming after my marriage next. The importance of each election grows exponentially now that the entire GOP has lost the plot and gone authoritarian/dictator curious. The thing I most grieve losing post 2016 is the notion that most people are, deep down, decent. The age of trump has taught us otherwise.
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David C said on January 5, 2024 at 2:32 pm
Icarus, When my wife ran a daycare, she was signed up for a USDA nutrition program and part of that is you had to offer the kids milk. Obviously, the dairy council’s check cleared. You did need to get a special dispensation to give a kid a substitute. We never had to do it but that’s how it worked. The check we got from the USDA was nothing to sneeze at. It covered probably half the cost of the food for the kids.
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brian stouder said on January 5, 2024 at 5:14 pm
Scout – couldn’t agree more. If there is some baked-in decency in humanity, there is also integral cruelty, and while one or the other will prevail from time to time, it’s always subject to change. These past several decades have been gob-smacking – between human beings walking on the moon, and the election of a president who wasn’t a white guy. It is genuinely amazing how good the good stuff can be…………..and we’ll dispense with imagining how awful (and awfully quickly) the bad stuff can engulf us (if we let our guard down)
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Scout said on January 5, 2024 at 5:19 pm
Apparently Uncle Joe gave a blistering speech today. He needs to do this every day between now and Nov 5 to remind America what’s at stake.
https://www.politicususa.com/2024/01/05/biden-shows-why-hes-still-the-trump-killer-in-1-6-speech.html
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Jeff Borden said on January 5, 2024 at 5:42 pm
I’m with Brian Stouder and have been since I started teaching public speaking and read up on Aristotle and Greek history. He was a proponent of each human being made up of opposing traits –hate and love, courage and cowardice, etc. To be an effective communicator, he argued, a speaker needed to know that and craft his arguments to engage mind, heart and character. We’re all capable of anything, it seems, but some people clearly hew to the worst side of humanity.
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Jeff Gill said on January 5, 2024 at 5:57 pm
Sat in my car to hear it all. “Who in God’s name does he think he is?” Joe was at his best, eviscerating his predecessor with clarity and grace.
I hope he and surrogates also start reminding people of what they’re doing right. Jobs and the stock market are great; gas is in the $2.40s around me, but that’s hazardous because a few more cruise missiles in the Red Sea or Persian Gulf and it’s right up to $4 again. Anyhow, they have plenty to brag on, so I hope they do.
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Dorothy said on January 5, 2024 at 7:49 pm
I missed Biden’s speech but I plan to search for it online. I love hearing him give a good speech.
Kids books. Don’t get me started! I spent $124 on books and stationary at Fireside Books in Chagrin Falls today. Money well spent! I still have a few of the books I read to my kids, who will be 41 and 39 in February and April this year. Rosemary Wells’ Noisy Nora will always be near the top of the list of favorites; another one of hers is Hazel’s Amazing Mother; Santa’s Crash Bang Christmas; There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon; Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow; Tikki Tikki Tembo; Each Peach Pear Plum (found a new copy of this recently and had to buy it for the grands – my copy was bought used in 1986 or so and it’s very beat up)l any of the Harold and the Purple Crayon books; Sloppy Kisses – that’s the bulk of the ones I held onto. My son told me today that Olivia is starting to use different voices for characters in books that she reads aloud to them. She’s in first grade – not even 7 yet! This thrilled me beyond belief.
Yesterday she and I had a drive to and from Dayton, an hour or so each way. Lots of time in the car. Somehow the subject of college came up and I said I hadn’t gone and she was loud when she exclaimed “Mimi! You didn’t go to college?! Why not?” And I hesitated, then said “Well, there were lot of reasons and I just decided to go to work instead. And in a year I was a really good secretary.” Then she hesitated, and said “Well could you pick one reason that isn’t too complicated and explain it to me?” I could not believe a six year old was asking me such a grown up question.
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David C said on January 5, 2024 at 8:04 pm
When my sister became a grandma a bought her “Dr. Goat” by Georgiana. It was our favorite book when we were little. I spent a piece of change to get one but it’s worth it.
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Sherri said on January 5, 2024 at 8:20 pm
Bill Ackman is a billionaire hedge fund manager who has been behind the attacks on university presidents (well, some university presidents, anyway – the ones lacking a Y chromosome). He is married to Neri Oxman, PhD. After Claudine Gay was forced to resign over attacks regarding plagiarism, Business Insider took a look at Ms. Oxman’s dissertation, and found whole passages copied and pasted from Wikipedia without attribution.
Ackman’s response? He’s going to check the dissertations of everyone in leadership at MIT, who awarded Ms. Oxman her doctorate, and show how normal this is.
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Mark P said on January 6, 2024 at 1:39 am
Copying Wikipedia for a dissertation takes plagiarism to an entirely new level. I’m not sure it rises even to the level of dishonesty. It’s like telling your reading committee that you have so little respect for them or your own work that you aren’t even willing to spend the effort to copy legitimate sources.
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candlepick said on January 6, 2024 at 2:02 am
Outstanding–dare I say indispensable?–board books they’re unlikely to get from anyone else at the shower: Where Is the Green Sheep? by the incomparable Mem Fox; Tickle My Ears by Jörg Mühle; My Friends by Taro Gomi; Hands Can by Cheryl Willis Hudson; You Nest Here With Me by the incomparable Jane Yolen.
This Is My Baby Born Today by Varsha Bajaj is gorgeous as a prenatal gift.
Please shop for them at your local independent bookstore or Bookshop.org (where purchases benefit indies).
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ROGirl said on January 6, 2024 at 8:58 am
When I took a business communication class at a community college and the instructor gave an assignment to write something that required documented references, she made it very clear that Wikipedia is not a legitimate research source and cannot be cited as a reference. I have a hard time believing that someone who is writing a doctoral dissertation doesn’t know this. It’s extremely dishonest.
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nancy said on January 6, 2024 at 9:07 am
Ackman is now claiming that because Wikipedia is being edited every minute, theoretically, whoever added those passages ACKtually stole from his wife. Because lord knows PhD dissertations just circulate like five-year-old issues of People in a doctor’s waiting room.
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Jeff Borden said on January 6, 2024 at 9:30 am
ROGirl,
When I taught at Loyola, I advised students that Wikipedia was a poor research choice because there were so many other superior sites to find historical information. Using Wikipedia as a source for a speech about the Constitutional Convention was just absurd. But. . .I made an exception for speeches about pop culture. Many wanted to speak about their favorite actors, musicians, etc. Most of them unknown to an old coot like me except through cultural osmosis. Wikipedia isn’t bad for that kind of thing.
Mr. Ackman is full of shit. I’ve never heard of Wikipedia being accepted as a legitimate research source at any level of academia.
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Mark P said on January 6, 2024 at 9:40 am
Unlike a dissertation, Wikipedia refuses to accept material from a researcher’s own work and knowledge. Everything has to come from essentially a secondary source. So, at best a researcher should use Wikipedia as a way to find other sources. A good plagiarizer should know that.
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Mark P said on January 6, 2024 at 10:08 am
Ackman’s threat to smear other academics is likely to succeed, unless he is more honest than he seems. If he uses an automated system to detect similarities to other texts, he will almost certainly find many similarities for someone whose work is often cited. Check Language Log ( https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=62059#more-62059 ) for more information on that.
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Jeff Borden said on January 6, 2024 at 10:25 am
Happy Insurrectionist Assholes Day!
May each and ever seditionist be punished to the full extent of the law including that orange lump of cancer. He belongs in prison.
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Icarus said on January 6, 2024 at 10:44 am
David C @ 19: oh I’m certain it had to do with compliance and also the lovely Latina teacher had to be extra careful with following rules than her non-Hispanic counterparts.
I’ve been slowly, gently sticking my toe in the I/P conflict. I found this and wonder how accurate it is. it seems fairly balanced but what do I know?
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/14/18093732/israel-palestine-misconceptions
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basset said on January 6, 2024 at 6:42 pm
I remember a place and time when mid-20s was late for a first baby. Apparently times have changed.
We found a good-sized box of Basset Jr’s early books in the storage locker weeks ago, “Pat the Bunny” and so forth, and took them to the women’s and children’s section of the local rescue mission. Sad to think of a homeless mom sitting on the floor reading one to her kids, but maybe it helps a little; we give em some money too.
Sitting in Nashville’s fanciest mall right now waiting for Mrs B to find some particular article of clothing. If I can get out of here without jumping off the balcony I’ll count it as a win.
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Dexter Friend said on January 8, 2024 at 8:15 am
Vaguely inspired by Jeff at #22 today, I thought of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who domestically was an all-time great President. “Guns and Butter” was possible under those economic boom times, and with all the great achievements he garnered, he just could not accept the advice he received that a land war bolstered by massive, endless bombing raids in an Asian nation like Viet Nam would end up with Americans bragging of winning more battles than they lost, but in the end being driven into the sea and air , defeated, on April 30, 1975. I believe most people realize this now, and as they have revered Harry Truman for “doing what he had to do”, LBJ is now recognized as a great President, caught up in a foreign engagement he was bewildered by as he pumped gas onto the brush fire until it blew up his very presidency. LBJ and Nixon signed death warrant draft notices to so many young people by sending them to horrible deaths in Viet Nam…my generation, my friends…me…but I got out alive…still, I respect LBJ for all he did for the nation here. Evil + compassionate leader, domestically.
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