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description: A photo of me, wearing my sleeping son in a leopard-print sling, handing out flyers at a recent nurse-in… actually the nurse-in so publically scorned by Bill Maher. Douchebag.
I am so utterly beyond thrilled to have found the forums at The Baby Wearer. Particularly because there’s a forum that focuses on wearing one’s baby when one has a chronic illness or debilitating condition (or when the baby does). Apparently, if people can be complete jackasses when they see a relatively young woman park a car with a handicapped placard, that’s nothing to their response when said woman slings a baby onto her back.
The cultural bias in favor of strollers ignores the fact that toting around one of those behemoths would be the end of many a sickie mom. Nevermind the positive aspects of babywearing, which I strongly believe in–it simply wouldn’t work for me to tote around a Bugaboo or MacLaren. My hands don’t grip well enough, I de-stabilize the thing by leaning on it, and mostly because I travel light. Don’t even get me started on one of those bucket seats. I couldn’t even fathom lugging around something like that before I got sick.
Now, my new favorite pains in the ass might be the people who feel that it isn’t “safe” for me to wear the baby. I’d be more inclined to listen to these types if their objection weren’t to the baby’s being safely nestled in the sling, because it’s true that sometimes I feel a little off about carrying the baby, due to arm weakness. Which is why the sling is such a joy. And seriously, if I’m not well enough to sling him, it generally means I’m not well enough to be up and about with him anyway. And supposing the gait problems were to flare up again, well, then I suppose I’d wear the baby in the wheelchair… it’s a pretty common solution to that particular problem, really.
Of course, I’m persona non grata among able-bodied moms who find babywearing “too hard,” because my very existence is a reproach. I have a debilitating, fatiguing illness, and find babywearing as easy as eating. Which basically means that these women didn’t really want to babywear, very much*. It’s like a woman I know, who has lupus and who also works out to a point of dieseled physical perfection that makes me question my sexuality. I don’t claim to know her whole constellation of reasons for working out, but I’m pretty sure that one of them is simply: because she still can. Lupus is a bitch. I’m sure when people moan about how they’d go to the gym if they weren’t feeling so crappy after their long day at work, they don’t have lupus in mind. And yet. Somehow she manages, and probably couldn’t do without it.
Baby care with MS is like that, in general. I couldn’t do otherwise, and the questioning about whether I don’t find nursing/babywearing/nighttime parenting stuff “too tiring” aren’t really relevant to my reality–if you want to help, help me do laundry or something, but please don’t lecture me about how I should be parenting in order to be easy on myself. I am. I just wore the baby through my most recent flare-up, and didn’t feel like a martyr. I do the best I can with what I still have, and I don’t feel I have to give that up.
* Should a close friend who reads my blog think that this is about her, it isn’t. You’ve never given me grief about babywearing, and you’re too hard on yourself in general. You taught me how to use a wrap. You’re lovely.
