The cost of being a "good" parent
Being told the sensory experience of everyday life is not enough
Sonny must have only been around 3 months old when I enrolled him in Baby Sensory class for a term. Most of the women from my mother’s group signed up for it and I went along to have a social outlet each week. The facilitator was lovely and the laughter abundant as we struggled to get the actions to the circle time songs right. But still, a part of me found the whole thing rather bizarre. A section of an old community hall was set up with padded mats and brightly coloured toys and obstacles for these babies to worm their way around; all with the idea of giving them sensory experiences to help their development. Each week I became more and more overwhelmed with the feeling that we as a society seem to have become estranged from real life. The notion that for a baby to properly develop it needs to attend and “graduate” from indoor classes starting at only a few months old felt, well, quite incongruous.
When I became a mother, from the moment of conception I was bombarded with images and messages that told me that whatever I was doing was not enough. Taking my pregnancy vitamins? Not enough, I should have started taking them 3 years before conception. Giving my child tummy time every day? Not enough, they need special cushions and mirrors and games to assist them, oh, and an organic linen padded playmat to lay on.
For a while, in the back of my mind lived this guilt, that I was not actively doing enough for my child's development. The belief that I wasn’t engaging enough or the right way and that what my child was playing with was not the right toy. These feelings didn’t come from anything intuitive within me, they came instead from what I was being marketed. I used social media therefore I was open to the constant advertising that kept showing me what I lacked. From baby to toddler and beyond there was always something I wasn’t doing or didn’t have. But If I just purchased the course or bought the insanely expensive toy the promise was that my little one would develop the right way and the right time.
Luckily for me, I did not have the time, energy or most importantly, money to press the buy now button. And the more I observed my children the less tempting it became as I saw how they wanted to interact with me and the world around them. And it wasn’t with what I was being sold.
If I laid out a small leafy branch next to a $40 organic cotton baby rattle my child would choose the former. They wanted to pull things out of the kitchen cupboard, not a specially designed box. So I went with it. I started to make sure the breakable things were out of reach and let them go to town.
What I noticed was that so much of the time my children wanted to be a part of the world around them. They wanted to explore their surroundings and they wanted to play with the things they saw me “play” with keys, remotes, phones, and kitchen utensils. They wanted to pull the laundry out of the basket while I was hanging it up.
Most of the toys we owned were hand-me-downs or gifts and to be honest, we had more than enough, But still, after every social media scroll I found myself feeling like it wasn’t enough. When Sonny was going through his cooking phase I saw the beautifully set up kid’s kitchens complete with mini everything and longed for one. Instead, I settled on making an oven and stove from a cardboard box and gave him some unused pots and pans. He adored it and when he moved onto a new phase the box became recycling.
While sitting at the park with the same woman who paid for indoor “sensory” classes for their babies, I observed as the babies were put into the middle of the circle on picnic blankets. The mothers sat around the outside and I watched as every little one who managed to wiggle out of the circle was promptly picked up off the grass and put back onto the blanket and whatever stick or leaf they had managed to take hold of, was confiscated. It was as if the natural world was a place to be feared. A small stick lying on the ground was dangerous, but a “natural” wooden toy selling for $50 was safe.
This is the lie we are being sold. Somewhere along the way, and not so long ago, we as a society stopped trusting children to develop. We stopped trusting that their being out in the garden was enough. We got scared and we trusted indoor climbing frames more than trees. We became terrified of them being bored and we were told we needed to fill every corner of their lives with activities and the right kind of activities. We became fearful that if we didn’t buy the $30 wooden pinchers our children would not develop their fine motor skills. And instead of letting them be a part of the world, we were told we had to create a separate world for them. One where everything was custom-built to size.
The reason I felt like I needed these things was that that was exactly what I was being told by every company, every influencer and “expert” who had something to sell. Because that’s all it really is, clever marketing that is dictating what our children “need”. Convincing us by playing on our biggest fears as mothers, that if we don’t own/use these things we will somehow be failing our children. But somehow, miraculously, without a $250 baby play gym both of my children managed to roll and crawl and walk.
This is not a war on toys or child development tools, there are some beautiful and great toys and games out there. And for some parents especially those with children who have different needs, they can be invaluable. This is more of a stand against being sold the belief that our children need these things more than they need to participate in real life. To be honest, I’m sure if money was no object my home would have been filled with a lot of aesthetically pleasing and ultimately useless things for the kids. And while their lives may not look like a photo straight out of Pinterest, my children are developing absolutely fine despite not graduating from a full year of Baby Sensory.
I would love you to join the conversation. Comment below, or reply to this email.
Have you felt the pressure to buy things you have not really needed for your children? What are your favourite free sensory activities?
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This is so good. I feel the pressure so much to buy things for my kid, especially now that he has friends who’s houses he goes to that are riddled with toys. But my kid plays outside a lot, loves a stick and since he was wiggling around prefers household items to toys. He has a small play kitchen with a few toys in it and he throws those on the ground and grabs our pots and pans instead. Like you said, he wants to be involved in the world around him.
This one is a great reminder and I agree with so much of it. Making me think that maybe there have been some positives to being so tight on money during this time because otherwise I too would have a house full of pretty unused kids furniture/toys that would then need rehoming !!
A lot of the advertising and marketing has me forgetting that my actual favourite childhood memories were ones that involved long days spent outside building forts and fairy gardens until I was probably too old to be building forts and fairy gardens haha 🤷♀️ (but also, we’re never too old to build forts and fairy gardens).
We are high in the sky In an apartment right now and, myself aside, I really feel for the kids not having access to being able to play outside all day. And the balcony is a no go zone unfortunately.
I wish for Barefoot in the backyard at least, although we always dreamed of more land for our little family.
The beach close by helps
I look forward to when they can have endless hours outside again though. ☺️