by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz
According the Wikipedia, babywearing is the practice of carrying your child in a sling or other type of carrier. The actual term babywearing was coined by Dr. William Sears, father of the Attachment Parenting movement, that advocates the development of a strong secure emotional bond/relationship between parent and child in order to help create a strong emotionally secure adult. Babywearing does this by keeping the child physically close to a parent or caregiver when they are most vulnerable.
Before I go any further I should clearly state that I am a babywearer, although it’s a term I’m not all that comfortable with. Not because I don’t believe that babywearing benefits both the baby and the wearer, but maybe it’s because of how I came to the practice.
When I started wearing my now 10 year old baby (don’t worry I’m not carrying her anymore) I was a single 20 year old working mami tired of carrying a heavy ass stroller up and down subway stairs (people seriously need to help mamis with strollers. Don’t pretend you didn’t see. I know you saw me). My first carrier was a Snugli that cost 20 bucks and I used for like three months because it started to kill my back. After that it was back to hauling a stroller.
However, babywearing wasn’t invented by the hoards of hipster parents that practice it nowadays and while a better relationship with your baby may be a plus, it likely wasn’t the reason why people were tying their babies on.
Many, if not most indigenous and people of color communities around the globe wear their babies. From the continents of Asia, the Americas and Africa, indigenous women from ancient times wore their babies, mostly so that they could get back to the daily chores of life while taking care of their young. Babywearing was practical. So practical in fact, that on those continents, it is considered an act of the lower, poor classes. After all, wealthy women had people to do their chores for them, including carrying and taking care of their babies.
And it’s that fact that makes the whole babywearing movement in the U.S. so interesting. The babywearing community is mostly white and upper middle class to upper class and they better be. Wearing your baby doesn’t come cheap. Simple pouches can run 70 dollars and up. “Asian” style carriers are in the 80 dollar range and wraps, long pieces of cloth , are 100 dollars plus. On webboards and at meetings, mama’s show off their stashes of different kinds of babywearing gear, which includes special coats, vests, covers and leg-warmers for wearing your baby in the winter.
But back to the origins of babywearing. Many of these babywearing communities have the nasty little habit of fetishizing/exoticizing their practice. Without irony they post pictures of “traditional” babywearing across the globe and oooh and ahhh and say how cute. I even came across one post with a mama proudly and excitedly sharing how and Asian older man commented on her Asian style babywearing and according to her, he even said it in a “cute accent”. Others will ask on websites, “what kind of wraps to people use in ________(insert name of third world people of color country here) because they know someone from that country and want to gift them with a wrap.
And then there is the whole reference to what many attachment parents refer to sometimes as the bible of attachment parenting, a little book called the Continuum Concept. The book, by Jean Liedloff , should be called the bible of cultural appropriation and look how cool primitive people are. And yes the book actually refers to an indigenous tribe from South America as primitive and stone age. The book basically tells parents that they should be like this tribe. Included in this is babywearing.
I’m not saying that all babywearers are guilty of this this racial and economic use of privilege and cultural appropriation. But as a mama of color who wears her baby I feel like the odd lady out at babywearing meetings and websites. Not just because I can’t afford the have stashes like the other mamis, but because I am a mama of color, whose roots are in traditional baby wearing communities and working people of color communities.
Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz is a Queens, NYC born and bred radical Nuyorican mami writer, poeta, activista, blogger, and academic coach (trying) to work at home with her two chicas, La MapucheRican (10) and the Poroto ChileRican (7 months) and her very patient partner just known as “el Chileno”. She is an editor at VivirLatino and (poorly) maintains her personal blog Mamita Mala. She wants to write a book or two and is graciously accepting offers for babysitting.
Seeing all types of parents that wear their babies and breastfeed will hopefully show that it is not just for “poor” people. It is for parents that want the best for their babies. ”
from Previous Poster
Exactly, doing what’s best for your child isn’t a 3rd world, poor, or ‘brown’ person thing, nor is it a rich, educated, or white Westerner thing. It’s something every parent in the world wants to do. Why not help towards this end? A parent doing what is best or trying to do what is best for their child should not be attacked, especially just for borrowing an idea from someone else. A good, successful, child-friendly idea is a good thing, regardless of where we hear of it. A good parent is a good parent. Share and spread the good ideas toward that end. WWJD??
I got my baby carriers on the cheap too. One was a gift, another was purchased at a baby goods consignment shop for $10. It would have been $70 new. Keep your eyes open.
The strollers, buckets, swings, bouncy things, etc. that most modern Western parents of all skin colors use to avoid holding their children are much more than $10.
I might direct those commenting on the cost of slings and carriers here: http://www.sleepingbaby.net/jan/Baby/why.html
While it is true that all cultures had devised various ways to carry their babies it is not all cultures that are being represented.Any google search for baby carriers or slings shows a wide variety of people of color carrying their babies.This includes names such as new natives, Maya slings,khangas, mei tai, and others. Most of these products re marketed and own by white people who by their own accounts were “inspired” by people in Asia, Africa, and South America. While baby carrying may be in their own cultural traditions the renewal in interests has clearly been the cultures of different PoCs.
The question of entitlement and what you have the right to do lay at the heart of white privilege and cultural appropriation.
What’s wrong with spending $70 on a sling if that’s what you want to do? Criticizing people for not recognizing their own privilege is fine, but I don’t understand why someone with money to spend shouldn’t spend it how they choose.
Just got here from the Erase Racism carnival. Your commenters’ comments about Irish babywear made me decide that if I ever end up having a baby to carry, I’ll at least go with my own culture’s heritage for the visual appearance of my babywear. Oh, sure, I might as well take advantage of having been blessed with knowledge from more cultures than my own forebearers knew and structure any babywear I make in the sturdiest way I’ve been exposed to…but this post has made me decide that apart from perhaps taking a tip on how to wrap it that happens to have its origins in non-white culture, my babywear will tell the world, “This is preserved from my culture, not ganked on account of an exoticism fetish!” when the world sees it.
The best way to do that will be material & print/pattern. Which, I imagine, will probably mean, “whatever I can come up with the cheapest.” (After recalculating price tags to internalize all the costs that were externalized to keep it low.) That’ll probably be from the thrift store and sewn from curtains from the 90′s.
Honestly, it wasn’t until after I retired my “$3 from a yard sale” baby sling that I even knew there was a ‘babywearing community’ out there. I saw the sling and thought “Hmm, looks easier to figure out than a snuggli, and easier to fit on the commuter rail than a stroller. Looks good to me.” It just puzzles me why otherwise intelligent parents waste so much time on this little stuff. I just don’t have the energy to care if someone is wearing their baby for political/showoff/whatever reason. It’s a flippin sling. It keeps the baby off the floor. What is the big deal?
Pingback: Click
Wow. . . in my community, I see all types of people wearing babies. I was under the impression that this was just another repeat of history. I had no idea that it belonged to only the community of people of color. I have been enlightened (and, of course, shamed for stealing an idea) by this author. It’s too bad that in the comments for this blog we aren’t sharing in the positive experiences baby bonding via wearing provides. Wouldn’t that be truly anti-racist?
Okay, i’m confused. If we’re all about diversity and openness to other cultures then isn’t it a good thing to spot a ‘white’ family using a kente cloth..?? They’re showing openness to other methods of child care. I don’t feel the need to criticize. We need to start thinking on a world-wide scale and accepting the blending of influences..isn’t that what brings us all together?
Now, if that same family actively maintains ignorance / distance towards the cultures that bring such diverse gifts to their world then that would be hypocritical..
I am a white, middle class raised, mother of one and my husband and I are “attachment parents” on a very low income. I run a fan group for students interested in anime (Japanese cartoons) so I am no stranger to the idea of people finding other cultures’ traditions quaint, interesting or even cool. In my social circle I often see people shell out silly sums of money for things they don’t need or eating foods they don’t even enjoy “because it’s Japanese!”
In my defense, I spent NZ$155 on a long piece of woven fabric to tie my child to me, and as I don’t use a pram or stroller I feel it was money well spent. If I had known more about the ways to use fabric I already had for this purpose I would possibly have not spent this money. Still, people charge what they think they can get. I’m not made of money, and I don’t buy nappies or milk formula or pre-made baby food, and I wouldn’t even if I could afford it.
As far as The Continuum Concept is concerned, it is a product of its time (1975). The book makes some sensible claims, but in a wash of emotive dribble and rambling. I feel that the claim Liedloff makes – that humans live best when living in the same conditions as they evolved in – has its basis in pseudoscience at best, which is not surprising when you consider that the author was not an anthropologist or a scientist, but a fashion model and magazine columnist who took it upon herself to zip off to a South American jungle, on a whim, to hunt for diamonds, and found herself neck deep in culture shock and getting a reality check from the indigenous “Indians”.
I haven’t read all the comments, but I find this article quite attacking! Who are you to judge WHY I wear my baby at all? Why not just support the fact that babywearing (or whatever you choose to label it) has numerous benefits and help those who can’t afford carriers get them? Personally I have 3 carriers and have spent a grand total of $20. That’s not expensive. Come on.
Be very careful – in being too ANTI-racist, you can come across as RACIST to those you are trying to support.
The fact is: our white ancestors did indeed wear their kids. It was practical. But those traditions have been lost to bottles and strollers, in much the same way as the average black American has nothing but genetics in common with the average African. There is a difference between looking at a guatamalan lady with her babe and saying “wow, that looks convenient, and her baby is so happy, I should try that” or saying “ooo, this is so ethnic, Shirley and her imported silk Mei tai can eat their hearts out!”
It is really hard to determine who is who. My husband was very enthusiastic about babywearing and homebirth, because he lived in Kenya and many of his friends children were raised this way. He will never be “black”, nor does he try to be… but arguably he is more “African” than some folks in the States who are screaming about cultural appropriation.
Hmm. I don’t think there’s anything inherently racial about baby wearing. I’m sure people can and do cross the line with their marketing, but that’s a separate issue from people wearing it. I don’t know anyone who wears their baby because they want to emulate people of color or people in developing nations. Maybe a person would BUY a sling or carrier for that reason, but who is going to use it for that reason?
People wear their children because it’s convenient and allows them to be close to their child.
I’m a black woman and I wear my child sometimes … would love to see more black women doing it. But some days I take my stroller out and I don’t want to be judged as having “drunk the consumer Kool-aid” or being out of touch with my heritage (whatever that means). At the end of the day, it’s not that serious.
OK: Obviously this post got relinked to a baby-wearing forum or something. Nothing like a 2 year old post to bring up memories.
wow: read the comments, esp. on a 2 year old discussion. What the article is *ahem* addressing is beth’s point about there being a fine line between doing something for convenience and doing something to be hip/in/edgy/ethnic. Former is fine. Latter is appropriation, fetishization, and yes, racist. I applaud you for finding or making carriers for $20. But the truth is that these carriers, esp those claiming ot be “authentic” are going for $50 or MORE. EACH.
beth: in pictures and ads I’ve seen the baby slings on mostly south/southeast Asian mothers and South American mothers, usually in indigenous/underdeveloped condutions. I’m not saying they aren’t used in Africa, but that’s not how they’re marketed in the US. And they’re definitely not being shown in developed countries or regions on brown mothers, it’s definitely reinforcing a “Third World” stereotype.
hsofia: “Maybe a person would BUY a sling or carrier for that reason, but who is going to use it for that reason?”
And buying it for that reason IS a problem, isn’t it?
I get the point of the article but I really feel we need to move past this. Anyway, in Mali (West Africa) people are very happy to see “westerners” emulating them just the way that Malians like emulating “black American” culture. It seems to be mostly people (any color) with privilege who get so bothered about this stuff. Why is that?
Andi: N.B. we had moved past it – the OP is 2 years old – just for whatever reason it suddenly was rediscovered.
>It seems to be mostly people (any color) with privilege who get so bothered about this stuff. Why is that?
Maybe because with the power of privilege comes responsiblity, including for the crappy images people and coutries w/ privilege export to the world? Particularly when those countries have a history of financial/economic inequality and cultural appopriation?
Pingback: Babywearing: An Introduction « Crunchy Mommy Someday
Ha ha, I love this debate. I’m half-Mexican but pretty much look white. I debated buying an Ellaroo wrap I saw on eBay because I didn’t want to look like one of those hippie-dippie going-indigenous types. But you know, there’s a reason it looks Mayan: because it was MADE BY MAYAN PEOPLE. And it holds my baby well and makes me feel pretty, so I bought it. That’s capitalism right there.
My kids are now 7 and 9, but when they were small, I used slings to carry them while we were out where they might be in danger, and to help them settle if I had work to do and needed my hands. We all loved it so much, and I had so much experience making things that I started making and selling inexpensive slings on ebay. I was only making about $5/hr for making them, but I felt good about what I was doing, because I was making slinging and “babywearing” accessible to moms who maybe couldn’t afford to spend 3 or 4 times what I charged for the “name brand” slings, and I was bringing in some extra money for my family. About 6 months after I began my business, I started having my listings pulled because one of the big brands was reporting them. In the description I said that my slings were similar to that brand, but folded differently at the ring end, and the terms of the auction site specifically stated that comparisons with brand names were allowed. It began a huge email battle between me and the woman hired by the company to police the internet for moms like me who were undercutting their huge markups for a very similar product. The woman even began to threaten me – saying that she hoped no one ever dropped a baby from one of my slings and decided to sue me because my family would lose everything. That threat was enough to stop me from selling them anymore, but I still occasionally make them for family or friends who ask – but that big company took something that a woman who was living below the poverty line (at that time) was doing to help support her family, and to support the community of like-minded parents regardless of their income, and turned it into something discouraging, and I have had very little respect for the large manufacturers or distributors of “babywearing” supplies ever since. Now, as a teacher of young moms and their babies in music and movement classes, I still advocate for babywearing, but I suggest simpler alternatives whenever possible, and direct people to sites like slingrings.com where they can buy their own slingmaking supplies.
Pingback: Hey, Time Magazine: I Am a Black Attachment Parent | Political News and Opinion from a Multicultural Point of View