Liberate Your Babies, All They Have to Lose Are Their Buckets

Pervasive consumerism in motherhood means moms view products as extension of themselves and that is BAD.

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There was a popcorn crunching amount of drama in our crunchy neck of Internet this week! The motherhood focused podcast Under the Sun put out a great episode featuring a pediatric movement specialist describing all the ways ‘baby buckets’ — jumpers, bumbos, swings, bouncers, etc— can prevent babies from developing normally. While these products temporarily benefit busy moms because they partially immobilize babies, the problem is that too much time in a baby container means a baby’s muscles can under develop and their movements can become delayed. This immobilization can also slow down some neurological development since what spurs a baby’s brain activity is spontaneous movement.

Here is the short clip that caused the controversy:

Similarly to the Ms. Rachel fracas from a few months ago, people lost their damn minds. THOUSANDS of women breathlessly banged out comments that ranged from disbelief, to disdain, to anguished defenses of their entire identity as mothers.

There were some moments of self-reflection:

It’s all heartbreaking to read.

Ms. Rachel is Distracting Kids, Not Teaching Them (And She's Making Millions Doing It)

As dues paying members know, here at Radical Moms Union headquarters: we do not criticize women, we criticize systems. And the system at play here is two fold:

1. The absolute lack of a material and cultural support system for mothers.

2. An unyielding and rapacious consumer culture that pretends to fill the gaps in your missing village but is just trying to make a buck off of you.

There is nothing about a bumbo or a bouncer that helps your baby develop. Fisher Price is bullshitting you about ‘independent play’ or ‘practicing' sitting. Extended use of these products quite literally retards your baby’s physical and neurological development.

But listen to me, LISTEN:

You are reading the words of a woman who LOVES BUYING BABY GEAR!!!! I PUT EVERY FUCKING THING IMAGINABLE ON MY BABY REGISTRY!!!

I love premium gear: I own an ultra-light camping tent, a *Norwegian* sleeping bag, I have MANY fancy water bottles, the AMOUNT OF GEAR I USE TO TAKE MY COFFEE IS OBSCENE!!!

Why?

Because it gives me a soothing/illusionary sense of power and control! It makes me FEEL like I can buy my way into comfort, leisure, and safety. Part of this may come from being a particular kind of outdoorsy person who believes that the right type of clothes and gear will allow you to do practically anything outside (I hiked the grand canyon in a snowstorm!). But also because in a melting planet ruled by corrupt forces inside a chaotic universe I can have my stupid little ethically sourced coffee beans and my baby on a $129 piece of rubber called a “peanut”.

I remember being 8 months pregnant and beached inside my tub, watching my baby’s feet flutter against my belly. The same thoughts would swirl in my brain: would I spend 52 hours in labor? Would I have an emergency c-section? Would I be ‘able to breastfeed’? Would she be born with some genetic abnormality that went undetected? Would I suffer postpartum depression? There were no answers but there was stuff. Stuff that I could own that would help me in all scenarios.

While some women describe feeling overwhelmed by all the choices and the reviews, I felt this gave me something to do. I could read, research, and fantasize about the early days of postpartum would be like. They would be filled with STUFF!! I know stuff, I like stuff, I’m a friend of the stuff community. I never had a baby before, so stuff would be there to help.

Of course, most of the stuff turned out to be useless. What I really needed was my mom, smaller nipple flanges for my pump, a good baby carrier, and a freezer full of meals.

And all my baby needed was me.

But I tell you all this so you know how EASSSSSY it is to buy the wrong sort of stuff for your baby. When you buy this shit, it’s always with the best of intentions, and if you’re feeling overwhelmed and harried, some of these products can feel like a lifeline.

The only reason why I didn’t buy baby containers was mostly because of luck:

1. I have a dear friend who is unreasonably obsessed with online baby content. Even before I was pregnant she would share reels and Tik Toks that were all Montessori themed. Watching all those two year-olds slice their own avocados and clamber up tall ladders piqued my interest and I bought a few books on the philosophy. Here’s the few sentences that made perfect sense to me:

“Instead of putting [babies] into a sitting or standing position before they are ready— babies are telling us to follow their unique development and let then master these things for themselves... We want to allow the baby (from birth) free movement and unobstructed vision. So we prefer not to use baby boxes, playpens or cribs in our homes— these contain the baby’s movement, and the bars to not give a clear view whole space.”

2. There was a viral video I saw that of a young mom who put her baby in bumbo while she was wrangling her other kids, making meals, cleaning up around the house. Eventually the kiddo was not walking and needed months of physical therapy rehab to gain the core strength to hit his milestones (I can’t find it anywhere, if you’ve seen it send it to me). That shit scared me.

If I did not have that friend, had the algorithm in all it’s infinite wisdom not served up that piece of content, I’m fairly certain I would have made this mistake. Indeed, I spent a good amount of time as a toddler in this contraption:

these tubes were likely filled with asbestos, tbh

So it’s no surprise that the comments on Under the Sun’s post are filled with mothers groaning about having to ditch their baby containers. But we learn, we do better.

Progress Report: One Year in Momland

What I continue to be surprised and sad about is the level of defensiveness and outrage that pulsates through the comment threads. One of woman even writes: “so should I just put the baby on the floor?”

Yes!! Plop down a mat, a mirror, a wooden spoon and watch your baby go wild with curiosity and delight. Or do what women have been doing with babies since we crawled out of the muck: wear your baby!!! I understand that baby wearing isn’t the easiest thing to do after significant birth trauma, but what’s so spooky how is in just two to three generations we have lost so much knowledge about the dyad. Babies are happy just being close to you. The sound of your voice, your movements, the towering view offered by a baby carrier is plenty to delight a baby.

Where did this knowledge go? Who took it?

It’s been smothered under the market of consumerism capitalism. By companies who know, WHO ABSOLUTELY KNOW, that their products are at BEST, superfluous and at worst, harmful.

I know that women rely on these products not because they are ‘lazy’ but because nothing in our culture tells us to to baby wear, to buy nothing special and just put your baby on the floor. Under such excessive consumer capitalism, it comes as no surprise that we’d feel our stuff is an extension of ourselves and interpret criticism of our stuff as an attack on our very person. But in the words of millennial icon, Tyler Durden, you are not your khakis!

"The things you own, end up owning you.”

Liberate, mamas. Liberate from the baby bucket of consumerism and join on us on the floor.