1. First of all: Baby Bjorns! Back in my day, if you didn't carry your baby in a Bjorn, you were an asshole, and people told you so. I once admitted to a strange mom in a Bristol Farms that I stopped using the Bjorn when my baby was six months because she wouldn't stop jumping up and down in it like it was her own personal trampoline...a trampoline designed to break her mother's back. The woman threw a jar of organic tofu and tapenade baby food at me and ran.
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| Me. Not being an asshole. |
If a smug, Bjorn-sporting parent from 2006 were to step into a time-warp and end up at a Park Slope playground in 2013, they would immediately be pelted with lead-free Tupperware bowls filled with seaweed snacks and shouts of "Hip Displacement!" and "baby hater!". The parent would try to explain that the warning on the box specifically told us to take the baby out of the Bjorn every 30 minutes to avoid just such a problem. "Box?" The parents of today would say, and then just just stare blankly at the parent of six years ago because parents today only buy second-hand. ...And then they would throw more seaweed.
2. Oh...and that's another thing. Back in my day, if you didn't feed your baby tofu, you were a jerk! Now, if you feed your baby soy products of any kind you might as well be feeding them a birth control pill because tofu and soy products contain MASSIVE just MASSIVE amounts of estrogen. I guess that's why none of our toddlers got pregnant, though. Just saying.
3. BPA! BPA! BPA! In 2006, we had no idea what those things were, but we used them like crazy in all our baby products. Today, BPAs are completely banned from use in all baby products and no one has any idea what they are. See the difference?
4. In my day you kept the baby in the backseat until they were about twelve. And if the baby was caught facing the wrong way, we'd take a picture of it and splash it across every tabloid cover in the free world.
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Nowadays, they are in the backseat until they are sixteen...or reach the height of 5'7". If the baby is facing the wrong way, you go to jail. Oh...how wrong we were.
5. Oh and look at this, parents of today. This is what passed for a shocking and controversial breastfeeding photo in August of ought six.
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| SHAME! |
And this is what it takes to shock you new-fangled baby wranglers:
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| By 2017, the mom will be replaced by an middle-aged man and the kid will be a spider monkey. |
6. iPads. Believe it or not, whippersnappers, we did not have iPads. It we wanted our baby to STFU, we just had to ask them nicely...or drug them...or let them play with our phone. And if we got a call? We had to just suck it up because we could not have a quiet baby and make a phone call at the same time.
BONUS! Nowadays, parents are all complaining that they can't buy tickets to Burning Man anymore.
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| You guys have it so damned easy. |
BONUS! Nowadays, parents are all complaining that they can't buy tickets to Burning Man anymore.
In my day...uh...what the hell is Burning Man again? I forgot.
4 comments:
Six years? Try 26 years on for size. Baby Bjorns? Non existent. The big new thing back then was leashes for children. Adam was always pulling on his lead. Backseat? Why? We didn't have airbags in our used 70's shitbox. I remember taking a drive with my infant son with him strapped in next to me in the front seat of my 1978 Mercury Cougar, cruising down I-35 at 100 miles an hour. BPA? Bitches, we were swimming in the stuff. Tofu? Yeah, right. Try Chicken McNuggets. Playdates? For pussies. We just let our little hellions loose in public on unsuspecting strangers. My son at six met a new friend in the bathroom of a McDonald's, and they proceeded to flood the place. That kind of thing was a regular occurence. My daughter painted the walls of her bedroom with the help of her best friend with their poop using a sit n spin as a centrifuge. Really, parents these days are overthinking things. If you can manage to keep ER visits to a bare minimum, and your children make it to adulthood without becoming an insufferable little asshole then guess what? You win! That's it. Simple.
Nowadays, I am told I'm supposed to "babywear" instead of BabyBjorn with some slingshot ace bandage wrap thing that looks like no kind of comfortable for mom or baby (additionally, the things are about as unflattering as wearing a blouse made of water ballons.
Did anyone give your baby a bath after it popped out, covered in fluid and poop crust? Because post-birth baths are a no-no now, too. I am going to lick mine clean, like happens in nature.
Did they cut the cord in a timely fashion? Also a no-no. Supposed to wait at least until it stops pulsing or perhaps until the placenta, wrapped in its own sack and "cured" in sea salt and lavender, detatches itself a week or so later. You may or may not have to keep the placenta in its own bowl raised above the baby's heart level to reap the full benefits of this clusterfuck. You may be surprised to hear that definitive proof one way or the other is lacking.
Did you get Push Presents? I'm all for presents, this one sounds like a great idea!
Did you have your placenta encapsulated and consume it, one stinking brown tablet at a time? I thought not! Whatever stone-ager!
The only word I recognize in Smurf's comment was "push present". I'm still waiting for mine. I hope it's not placenta.
This. -- > "By 2017, the mom will be replaced by an middle-aged man and the kid will be a spider monkey."
Haaaaaaaaaaaaa!
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