by Hallie Palladino
As my friends and family can attest, I’m a dedicated babywearing mama. For the first year of my son’s life I never left the house without my beloved, mystic purple Ergo. At first I started this practice out of a simple desire for closeness, but it didn’t take me long to learn the innumerable advantages of parenting stroller-free in the city. For instance, there is no elevator for strollers at our train station, but with babywearing public transit is a snap. At airports we sail through security while other families are trying to heave their heavy strollers into the x-ray machine. And when my son and I go out exploring, we never have to worry about encountering stairs, navigating the narrow aisles at our neighborhood produce shop or squeezing between tables at crowded restaurant. Even better is all the spontaneous interaction that we share. We get to chat and laugh together on our outings. And having the hands-free ability to nurse any time, any place, anywhere, that just doesn’t happen with a stroller.And yet we do have a stroller, and I have to admit, it’s a super nice one. Back when I was pregnant and before I had ever heard the term “babywearing” I asked around about the most practical stroller for Chicago and was universally recommended the Bob, a state-of-the-art jogging stroller. My father bought it for us as a gift (along with a beautiful crib we never assembled, see my previous post—happily this crib will convert to a double bed when our son is older so don’t worry, Dad, your gift won't go to waste).Then I became interested in Attachment Parenting. I read about the benefits of babywearing in Dr. Sears. Enthusiastic and wanting to learn more, I made the mistake of getting sucked into the babywearing board on BabyCenter.com. I had always intended to wear my baby in a carrier but I had never seen that as incompatible with occasionally using a stroller until I read all that paranoid, ahem, adamant, anti-stroller rhetoric that made me downright embarrassed about even having ever coveted one of these baby-distancing devices in the first place. Add that to the fact that jogging was the last thing on my mind as an exhausted new mother (and while pushing another person, yeah, that was never gonna happen) and the stroller was shoved to the back of the closet where it remained for over a year, occasionally making a cameo as an extra emergency “high chair” when other children came to visit.Then it was spring again, the snow melted, and we were putting away the winter coats, and there it was. “How about a family outing?” My husband suggested. Something about the fact that I finally fit back into my favorite spring dress made me groan at the thought of strapping on the Ergo. A snap decision, we clunked that crazy old thing down our front steps and clicked it open. Soon we were rolling down the street, my son giggling at the novelty of this strange mode of transport. There was a spring in my step. Wow, I hadn’t been out of the house without a twenty-pound person strapped to my chest in quite a while. I felt so light, so carefree, it was almost like a mini-vacation from mothering. Yes, my son was right there in front of us, but walking together on the sidewalk sans baby I felt like my husband and I were practically on a date. “Hmm,” I thought, “this really isn’t so bad.” And my son didn’t seem to be experiencing any symptoms of abandonment or neglect; on the contrary he was thrilled to get a closer view of his favorite neighborhood dogs as they passed by. But what really sold me on the stroller? Starbucks. Picking up grande soy mocha on the way to the playground with no fear of it accidentally spilling on baby fast became the highlight of my post-naptime afternoons.I used to be mystified when I saw parents struggling with strollers in public places. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to just pop that kiddo in a carrier? But for all the advantages of babywearing, my son and I have both come to enjoy our little stroller outings. He likes looking around and having a bit of personal space (especially in hot weather). I like wearing my nice clothes again and having a place to stow my diaper bag. Another big bonus, now that we use the stroller we tend to drive less, we have started doing more activities within a mile or two of our house—the stroller has actually made us greener, who would have thought?The first year of motherhood, I was way too caught up in trying to live up to some impossible ideals I set for myself. I think this is why black and white ideas, like no stroller ever, had such a hold on me. With so much uncertainty on what to do and how much it was tempting to turn things into yes or no questions. But being so stringent can also have its drawbacks by limiting options that might actually be useful, as I discovered in this case. Baby gear, or lack of it, has no power to create or destroy the bond between parent and child—that bond, once forged, is eternal, it can certainly survive a five-minute stroller-ride to the playground. And so, I’ve made my peace with the stroller and learned my lesson about believing what I read on internet message boards. As I am constantly learning of late I don’t have to measure my parenting against some impersonal external standards. There are lots of ideas about parenting floating around out there, we all need to pick and choose what works best for us, and when something stops working, it’s okay to make a change. As my husband is constantly reminding me, “Never say never.” Case in point, you can find us every Sunday taking a family jog with our stroller.
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