Posts Tagged ‘babies’

Must. Resist. The. Urge. To. Blog…

Ahhhh, I can’t hold it in anymore.

Ever since an e-mail came in from a PR person offering me a “prenatal music belt [that] offers a more modern, comfortable way to help your baby’s development with your favorite music,” I have been trying very hard to be nice. After all, the PR person was just doing her job, and, having been in her job before, I know that she doesn’t need to be raked across the coals by a cranky mom blogger.

But c’mon folks:  “Any mom-to-be will tell you that stretching a headset across your belly is clumsy and hard to position.”  Really?

Nope. Never tried it. But I did accidentally flip on the seat heaters in my mother’s new car the summer I was pregnant with my second son, and immediately assumed I had gone into labor.

Now, if you’ve seen my book trailer for You’re a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren’t So Bad Either) you know my stance on playing music for your baby in utero:

Not that I expect a PR person with a million things on her plate to know everything I’ve ever written or produced. I can’t even remember everything I’ve written or produced. But I do think these sorts of baby-improving gadgets are not only silly, but they add unnecessary pressure to mothers-to-be who are busy enough trying to figure out how to switch off the seat heaters in their cars.

Moms-to-be have enough to worry about without having to strap on an iPod to their pregnant bellies so their babies can get a headstart on their Beethoven (or Devo or Lady GaGa) musical education. And though I know that quite a few prestigious parenting awards have been bestowed upon this particular device, I still wonder why it’s so darn important nowadays to make sure our not-even-born-yet babies listen to music in the womb, which the press release says, (unnamed) experts assert “encourages learning, language development and memory skills.”

But I assert that our babies spend the first 18-22 years of their lives learning, developing language and improving their memory skills.  Can’t they just have a few months of peace and quiet? And who says that listening to their mothers sing along with “Jungleland” on the car radio doesn’t produce the same results (albeit out-of-tune)? Because that’s what I’m banking on getting my kids into the ivy league institution of their choice.

Or not.

Rather, I think it’s our children’s life lessons, from school work to piano lessons to lazy afternoons catching fish at the community lake, that I believe will make my kids well-rounded enough to succeed in life. And I know I’m not in the minority here. Not anymore. Too many of us are parenting a little less intensely these days, letting kids be kids (and fetuses be fetuses), so that they develop in their own way, and not through my iPod’s playlist. Whether you’re raising Free Range Kids or you’re simply slow parenting, you know what I mean. And you probably don’t have any plans to strap anything to your pregnant belly anytime soon.

But if you are, well, at least now you’re not alone. The press release promises: “And it’s a great way for daddy to get involved, let him pick the tunes for the iPod!” Might I suggest “Video Killed the Radio Star”? Aha! That’s next: MTV for the baby-to-be, because, I as learned today, “Your baby’s education should begin in the womb.”

Darn. I’m 13 years too late.

Share, share, that’s fair: So, what’s it going to be? “You go, girl” or “You’ve ruined your kids”? Tell us what you think.

by Jen Singer

For the newish moms out there:

What I miss most is…
…using my tweezers on my eyebrows, instead of using them to retrieve Barbie’s shoes from the heating grate.

…dreaming long enough to find out whether George Clooney wears boxers or briefs.

…having an entire conversation that has nothing to do with poop. Aw, geez! There it is again.

…accessorizing with jewelry and scarves, rather than marker and what appears to be butternut squash & corn.

…dashing out with my car keys and some Chapstick, instead of packing up like the traveling circus just to go to the mall.

…showering without someone opening the door and handing me the phone while saying, “Some lady wants to talk to you.”

…to read a book anywhere but my car, because the baby naps only in her car seat.

…reaching the bottom of the laundry pile. For days.

…my purse, which I haven’t seen since I bought the diaper bag.

…non-animated television programs.

…sauntering through parking lots, supermarkets and Target without having to shout, “Stay by Mommy!”

…sex.

…uninterrupted telephone conversations. And, did I say sex?

Share, share, that’s fair: Tell us–What do you miss, Mom?

Need more giggles like that? There’s plenty of them in Jen Singer’s Stop Second-Guessing Yourself parenting series. Filled with helpful and funny quotes by MommaSaid.net’s fans and loads of advice and humor by MommaSaid’s founder, Jen Singer, you’ll get what you need — just as soon as you can hide in the bathroom long enough to read a few pages.

For more information on where to buy them, visit My Books.

Competitive parenting was struck a major blow today thanks to Baby Einstein. You know, the videos that were supposed to turn babies into a geniuses? Turns out, they didn’t, and now Disney is offering refunds to parents who bought the videos.

I have to admit, when I read the article in today’s New York Times, a broad smile spread across my face like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. (The original cartoon, not the Jim Carrey version.) It read: “The unusual refunds appear to be a tacit admission that they did not increase infant intellect.”

Finally! Here’s proof of what I’ve been saying for years: We do not need to create Super Babies who are ready for Harvard shortly after they potty train at 9 months-old and read the entire Harry Potter collection by age 4. We don’t need to make geniuses. We just need to get kids ready for adulthood, and showing babies videos of Native American musical instruments or exotic animals in their natural habitats apparently isn’t the way.

When these videos came out when my son was a baby in 1997, they were part of a broader movement that pressures affluent families to better their babies through Teachable Moments, blah, blah, blah. Thanks to the competitive parenting movement, I felt pressured to make every moment count and if I didn’t, my kids would — gasp! — fall behind.

But I realized soon enough that my kids could (and still do) learn through play, and that pressuring them to be perfect wouldn’t help them at all. It would only give them — and me — a nervous breakdown.

So I said no. I said no the videos promising to make my kids geniuses and to tutoring for A students and all the competitive parenting nonsense that has been pervasive over the last dozen years. I even wrote a book about it. You’re a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren’t So Bad Either) is for moms who get caught up the the trap of holding flash cards for the kids at stop lights, and for those who don’t dare to.

And now, this. The admission that videos can’t make your baby smarter is, I hope, the beginning of the crumbling of the Berlin Wall of parenting. It is an admission to what videos for babies are really for: A chance for Mom to shave both legs on the same day. That’s it. Anything more would be an empty promise, and, perhaps, a refund.