It recently dawned on me, as M was wearing her "Dora the Explorer" nightgown while reading her Dora book and playing with her Dora dolls, that much of her play revolved around commercialized characters. While I don't think that there is anything inherently "bad" about commercialized play, I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable that so many of her toys and play-things were designed as corporate product-lines to orchestrate her play, rather than allowing her to use her own imagination to develop characters and scenarios.
My unsettled feelings about commercialization and its potential effects on kids have been clarified in the book I am currently reading, Taking Back Childhood: Helping Your Kids Thrive in a Fast-Paced, Media-Saturated, Violence-Filled World, by Lesley University professor, Nancy Carlsson-Paige. (Waiting in my reading queue is a similar book, Born to Buy, by Boston College sociologist, Juliet Schor.)
In Taking Back Childhood, Carlsson-Paige outlines the ubiquitousness and impact of commercialization on childhood play and development, shedding light on my recent realization about just how much of my kids' childhood has been dictated by scripted characters even though they don't watch much television.
So we are now in the process of gently replacing our overly-commercialized toys and apparel with more generic things, like brand-less fairies and gnomes in place of Disney princesses, and we'll try to be more cognizant of the origins and potential implications of childhood images.
As for where I am looking for our toys these days? In addition to my city's local, independent toy stores, I am also very much in love with Bella Luna Toys and Nova Natural, two wonderful online stores that focus on natural, non-commercialized, open-ended toys for children. (And, no, I am not getting any kick-backs for these endorsements; I just like these shops and thought you might too!)
Learning Corners: Coffee Table Books
It is such a perfectly simple idea and has me thinking about other ways to casually create little learning corners throughout my home.
I am finding the kids thumbing through the books, glancing at the photos, asking random questions here and there-- or chewing the pages if you're a six-month-old.
I borrowed some large picture books from the library and rummaged through stacks of old books in our home for this first round of curiosity-sparking coffee table books, but I now get more excited when I see weekend signs for city sidewalk sales hoping there will be more big, colorful, interesting books to gather for the coffee table.
What are your ideas? What have you done to create little learning corners in your home to spark your children's curiosity?
Breastfeeding: Discovering Our Maternal Superpowers
Labels:
homebirth,
mothering,
natural parenting
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When I became a mom, I knew very little about the art of motherhood, except that I was passionate about breastfeeding. Growing up, I never knew of nor saw anyone breastfeeding, and yet I always knew that I wanted to breastfeed my babies.
As I think back to the first days of my first daughter's birth, I remember how breastfeeding overwhelmed me. After a highly-medicalized birth in a big Boston hospital, followed by hospital nurse instruction that babies should only need to nurse every two hours, I became deflated, thinking that I wasn't producing enough milk for my newborn. A few days later when the pediatrician said that M's weight was sluggish, I wondered whether I could continue breastfeeding.
And then I got my groove. I found an amazingly supportive lactation consultant who helped me to discover the power of my body and who assured me that it was not only ok, but natural and healthy, for babies to nurse on-demand continuously during their early days.
It wasn't until A's homebirth in January that I fully discovered the power of a woman's body to carry, birth, and nourish a baby without waiting for medical instructions. That life-changing process made me realize how much our culture tends to rely on "experts" for basic health and wellness issues. I shook my head in disbelief at how I allowed my first two pregnancies, deliveries, and early breastfeeding days to take place under the watchful eye of interventional medical professionals.
I am extremely fortunate to live in a city where it is not only common but expected that moms will breastfeed their babies and do so for longer than one year. I hope that by raising awareness of the countless benefits of breastfeeding to both moms and their babies, World Breastfeeding Week and other WHO initiatives will continue to help women discover their maternal superpowers.
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I’m celebrating World Breastfeeding Week with Natural Parents Network!
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