Sounds absolutely ridiculous right? Stay with me on this for a moment. Let's make it make sense...
Women are born with the innate ability to nurture our young. During pregnancy our primal instincts begin to flicker and during labour and delivery (hint hint transitioning phase) our primal instincts burst wide open preparing us for the next phase- the postpartum 4th trimester where nature and nurture reunite and when you are reborn, where you transition into motherhood. This is such a sacred time in the development of both mother and baby, a sacred time many women are being robbed of because of societal or better yet; patriarchal pressures of “fixed” infant rearing.
“Are they a good baby?”
Sound familiar? What exactly does that mean?” Is the baby robbing banks? Or a major player in the current car theft ring? No! Of course not…so I feel extremely confident in saying all babies are good babies.
Good babies aren't just the babies that sleep through the night by 8 weeks old. Good babies aren't just the ones who don’t suffer from colic or reflux, or who don’t drop diaper bombs and sully their nice clothes.
Good babies are simply all babies doing baby thangs, cos that’s life. Real life.
Here's a little real life—
So baby Amaru was born with some health issues and in his 9 weeks earthside we've frequented the hospital and the pediatrician several times. I quite like his new pediatrician, she's old school, been around for a long time, could very well retire but she loves what she does so she keeps doing it. Ain't nothing wrong with that! Her Nurse Practitioner (NP), yeah she's pretty nice too, she knows her stuff and she's been pleasant each time we've visited. Last week though, oh last week...she said something to me that made me have to shove my inner jaguar down. Like when I tell you I'x was roaring behind my somewhat polite smile and glazed over eyes... girl! 😒
He's manipulating you
Ms. NP asked me how and where Amaru was sleeping. Side note— baby no.1 I was caught up feeding these medical pros whatever they wanted to hear. I simply don't do that anymore. So I tell her that at night he co-sleeps with us in an elevated little bed we've created and during the day he does a combination of contact naps and naps in his Moses bassinet. And you know what she said next? She asked if we comboed every nap. I said "no, not every nap. Sometimes he has a full nap in his cot, sometimes he has a full nap in our arms. Sometimes he wakes up in his cot, we pick him up and he falls back asleep. It varies." And then it happened, she lost me and I went dead in the eyes. She said, "You know... you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't give in to him. He's manipulating you into holding him. He's full of bad habits, all babies are. You have to show him how to break out of them."
Now I don't know about you...but those are fighting words to me.
So my baby's bad habit is being a baby?
Our western society, our modern day medicines have lost its way in balancing feminine and masculine or perhaps we never had it. For colonialism in itself is driven by masculinity’s need to dominate. Did you know the root meaning of the words fear and dominion are correlated? And where there is dominion or fear, there is a lord or master, someone in charge, making the decisions, a need for solutions.
Is our maternal healthcare system not rooted in this same exact fear? Are we ready to have that conversation?
The need to “fix” is a purely masculine mindset. But not everything is broken and not everything needs to be led with the inner masculine.
The unfortunate movement away from traditional midwifery by women for women to perinatal general practice to obstetrics occupied originally by men only, created a maternal system based on “fixing” what was not broken in the first place.
I'm really not trying to dog on men. That's not the point of this post. I'm merely openly discussing some things we either never really think about or just don't want to discuss, but I'm here to take back the ownership of defining my femininity, my right to mother the children I created and grew within my body and the one I took under my wing and chose to love as my own, on my terms because at the end of the day, only I know best for me and mine.
So back to what I was saying—when births moved into hospitals and men took over the most sacred and divinely feminine rite of passage, they excused their brethren from the "shame and embarrassment of birthing spaces. Their brethren left their wive's side because of their own discomfort, maybe even flooded with feelings of guilt for not being able to do something more because at the time simply being there wasn't enough.
The masculine is tactical
So…how does one “fix” it? Well— you find ways to shorten labour, you find ways to ease discomfort. You find ways to get more rest once baby is born, find ways to continue enjoying life as it once was. You fault the source of all these changes- the baby.
Jump forward a hundred years and what does that look like? Unnecessary intervention, a million and one products we're told we need to be better parents and help babies be "good babies" and we move away from what we were given naturally.
I'm a FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH!
But like I said, I'm reclaiming what's mine, my life, my kids, my marriage, my family, my home, my soul-purpose life work. I'm a FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH! And just by making it to the end of this posty and hearing me out, maybe letting my words sink in a bit, feeling that little fire burning in your gut (psst- that's your jaguar, she's growing) well that makes you a force too! Imagine the winds of change that would blow if all us womban ignited that force 🌬️
Wouldn't that be something!
Meet me in the Sinchi Warmi Sister Circle, let's make things windy, together.