I learned a lot at the baby care class.  For example: do you realize that newborns need to be “calmed” by their mothers an average of 12 times a day?  I find that number staggering, and it really makes me reflect on the difference between being an adult and being a child.  As a grown man, I only have to be calmed about 8 times a day.

The class was led by a typical left-leaning, highly-educated-yet-granola San Francisco woman who either charms you or annoys you depending on your perspective.  I personally liked her and thought she was the kind of person who can totally get away with using the word “holistic” in casual conversation.  My sister-in-law, on the other hand, was heard to mutter at one point: “These cloth-diaper advocating nazi girls are all the same.”

I was annoyed at one of the sheets handed out in the class, a piece of badly written propaganda that attempted to encourage all the new mothers to not let babies cry in order to bolster their “independence” but rather attend to their needs immediately.  I have no problem with the thesis, but rather the way it was defended.  Written by some Harvard Ph.D. schmuck, the paper argues--and I am not making this up--that promoting baby independence is wrong because of the reactions it had on members of the Gusii tribe in Africa.  I quote:

“Gusii mothers sleep with their babies and respond rapidly when the baby cries.  Gusii mothers watching videotapes of U.S. mothers were upset by how long it took these mothers to respond to infant crying” (Michael Commons and Patrice Miller, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard).

Two points:

1. Of course the Gusii mothers were upset.  They’d probably never seen a television before, much less American childrearing practices.  I’m betting that they were agitated because they thought the TV ate the mother and the child, and the screen was a window into its mechanical stomach where whole families were being slowly digested.

2. Following Gusii childrearing practices is all well and good...if you want your babies to grow up to be hunters and gatherers.

A word about baby garments: my brother followed a commenter’s suggestion to visit Dookiwear.com, a site that offers offbeat infant garments.  He has already bought two T-shirts for his impending daughter:

QUIT TALKING TO ME LIKE I’M A MORON

ALREADY A FEMINIST

And he is currently unsure of whether to buy a third one (but it made me laugh, so he should):

THEY SHAKE ME