I studied every book I could find on childbirth and parenting in my local library when I was pregnant for the third time with my first viable pregnancy nineteen years ago. I was a young Native/mixed woman and my partner a young Native man, but I had been adopted and raised by a white family. Knowing I was going to be a mother with so little connection to my culture made me anxious to learn about where I really came from.
The book options from my library were pretty limited, so it was probably a miracle that I found out anything about babywearing at all. It didn’t even occur to me that there are still Native women who use traditional cradle boards, so I bought a front-carrier of the sort that is no longer available. When my son was three days old, I wore him on the bus to his first appointment at the pediatrician. I found carrying him to be an empowering practice. It helped to keep him calm, and it kept my hands free to type long letters to his father, to handle the laundry, and otherwise be able to do the things I needed to do.
It wasn’t until about seven years later, when I had a Nicaraguan partner, that I had the opportunity to see Central American mothers wearing their babies on their backs in blankets. In the last 10 years, thanks to the internet, I have seen a resurgence in accessible information about babywearing. Unfortunately, most information and marketing is geared towards middle class white women, often with selling points about this great “new” phenomenon and requiring expensive contraptions, while disregarding the communities of color in which babywearing has been the norm since the beginning of time. This is evident in the lack of Black and Brown families present in most marketing campaigns and even social media. Four years ago I started a Tumblr dedicated to just showing people of color babywearing, and it was difficult to find pictures to post (this has since improved somewhat). It was also met with anger from white women who said that there was no need for a blog just for families of color and that it was “exclusionary.” They seemed to totally miss the irony of that term.
From the Quiche Maya of Guatemala to the Zulu of South Africa to the Hmong of the mountains of Asia, babywearing has always existed and been maintained by many women despite colonization and demands to assimilate to European/USian standards that subsume our traditional cultures. Like the history of babywearing, the tradition of belly-binding has also been maintained by many marginalized people and yet I knew nothing of it. Only just this summer I was taught as part of my doula training by International Center for Traditional Childbearing how to use the baby wrap during pregnancy for belly support and after pregnancy for belly binding. Suddenly, so many of the traditional clothing styles that incorporate elaborate scarves at the hips or wrapped around the waist in Nepal, Tibet, Egypt, my own tribe, and other cultures make new sense.
Imagine my surprise then to see this Mothering.com article being widely shared on social media by white lady birth workers who I thought should know better. The author, a white woman, says she “discovered” belly wrapping as a means of supporting her pelvis and belly during her second pregnancy. While babywearing has become more common, belly wrapping is still a total marvel to white women but like babywearing, white women have happily capitalized on the chance to “teach” these skills. For some reason, they feel compelled to market workshops with exotic-sounding names like “Mexican Rebozo Use” and “African Belly Binding” to get their fellow white ladies interested. I am not suggesting that white women should not practice belly support/binding and babywearing. The benefits of both are so great that they should be widely known and practiced.
What I am uncomfortable with is white women who write articles in which they say they “discovered” these techniques and speak as authorities without ever giving credit to the history and cultural truth of these techniques. Giving credit means much more than using a “foreign” word and pretty “ethnic” print on your website and flyers. It also means delving deeper than referencing the “quaint” practices of one or two cultures that you have no significant connection to. I have a problem with white women birth workers teaching workshops, and being paid to do so, in which they introduce other predominantly white women to these techniques without questioning why they feel they are the experts on the subject, why they are teaching predominantly white women, how appropriative they are being, and how to more thoroughly integrate credit where due and a proper understanding of the history and cultural significance of such practices in non-white communities. It is a problem for me that when I try to share knowledge from my own cultures with fellow marginalized women seeking that cultural connection, I am spoken over by white women who went to a training or read a book, but have never actually worked with someone from my cultures.
Parents of color often talk about how we are met with two common reactions when we do things that we have reclaimed as part of connecting with our own cultures. Either people tell us that we are “backwards” and that these things are “primitive,” they tell us that there is science (because what our ancestors did obviously was not based in any science) and new theory, etc. Or they exoticize us and our cultural practices wanting to hear all about it and, if we are open to sharing, they suddenly become “experts” on the subject and we shortly thereafter find them teaching or writing obnoxious articles such as the one linked here. Much like many other “natural parenting” methods that have become popular again in white cultures, there is little introspection of how colonization has tried desperately to break families of color from breastfeeding, babywearing, and other traditional healing methods. Midwives and doulas have become associated with a degree of privilege, often completely inaccessible to the most marginalized communities who would actually benefit the most from such access. Home birth is taken for granted as something that a white family can choose, but families of color for whom it was a family norm in the past are now forced to accept invasive medical procedures under threat of having their children removed from the home with charges of medical neglect.
It is worth noting that traditional forms of babywearing and belly-binding did not require owning multiple $50-200 wraps or strappy carriers. All one needs is a long scarf, piece of fabric, or blanket. One can argue that it was only a matter of time before wraps became commercialized, and that marketing of wraps is responding to a demand. On the other hand, I would suggest that such marketing is exactly what makes these options seem “not for you” to many poor parents of color for whom such an expense is simply not realistic. Instead of teaching that belly-binding and babywearing can be done with one item, and showing how any scarf of a certain size can be functional, marketing suggests that babywearing is complex and expensive. For poor and non-white women who are also at a higher risk of accusations of neglectful caregiving, the question of safety is also very real. Marketers are quick to imply that carriers and wraps are necessary for safety despite the fact that women all over the world continue to wear their babies with a thin cotton scarf and no problems. It isn’t about the type or cost of your wrap, it is about being knowledgeable about how to use it safely. Access to the traditional knowledge of our ancestors and support to acknowledge that wisdom and methodology is a key missing ingredient because it has been appropriated by white women who fail to do outreach to the communities from which they have stolen the traditions.
We all want what is best for our babies. As a doula, I tell families that the most important thing is for them to have all of the necessary information that allows them to make an educated and conscious decision about what is best for their own situation and needs. This is true regardless of one’s ethnic background or culture — knowing one’s options is invaluable. Unfortunately, there is real disparity in the access to that information, and lack of culturally competent support, for many families of color. When white women take credit for discovering our traditions, it dishonors our history and our cultures while withholding support for these traditions from those of us for whom it is a valuable part of accessing our own ancestral powers. Appropriation is not an innocent act. It hurts us economically, in health disparity, and micro-aggressive ways that I would argue are not micro at all but instead contribute directly to systems of continued marginalization.
Photo via Wikipedia
Tags: aaminah shakur, birth, cultural appropriation, family, race, traditions
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Ahhh, thank you for articulating why this Jezebel article (http://jezebel.com/could-this-dear-prudence-question-possibly-get-any-whit-1658887211/all) made me so ragey: it both insinuated that only white people want home births and that people who have home births are akin to anti-vaxx people.
I think this kind of racism also plays into the perception that natural childbirth, doulas, breastfeeding etc is ‘unscientific’– ie things that are traditional are considered antiquated and unscientific, and those things HAPPEN to align with POC traditions.
I hadn’t seen that article, and good lord, I wish I hadn’t. Home birth only seems like a “white person” thing to do because opting out of our problematic, expensive, and racist system of maternity care is something that is largely only possible for people who are higher on the socioeconomic spectrum. And that’s bullshit for an infinity number of reasons. AARGH.
RIght?? That same author wrote a lengthy defense of Lena Dunham that pretended the controversy about her book only consisted of the one story when she was very young and ignored the most disturbing aspects, then responded to people pointing that out with incoherent snark in the comments, so I can’t say I’m surprised, but still. This was new levels of wtf.
Yes. Yes. YES. I wish I could upvote this comment more. There are many doulas and midwives of color trying to preserve traditional birthing and parenting practices and provide better care to women in their communities. Making it a “white thing” reinforces the privilege that’s already making it difficult for WOC to get the care they need. And when we look at the statistics for complications and mistreatment in hospitals (especially for Black women in the US, good lord), the desperate need for community support is all the more apparent.
Access to the medical care you want, support you need, and your ancestral traditions should not be a “white thing”. The traditional birthing and parenting practices of POC are not woo to be dismissed by the privileged.
THAT FUCKING “ETHNIC” FONT.
grrrrrrr.
Thank you so much for this, it’s marvelous. I’ve noticed a lot of similar stuff about babywearing and also co-sleeping. I’ve been actively avoiding crunchy parent sites which is probably why I’ve missed any mention of belly binding.
This is a really excellent article. I have Native American heritage, but was raised white, so when I was pregnant with MiniWren, I was psyched to think about the possibilities of babywearing. It just made sense to me on so many levels, and I thought it was really cool that I would be able to continue a practice that has gone on probably since humans figured out how to tie a blanket around themselves. I do think it’s great that it’s becoming more of a common practice, but I 1000000% agree that we should be honoring and acknowledging the many, many cultures who started this practice and who continue it, regardless of whatever fad white moms think is cool.
This was incredibly well written. You did a great job condensing some of the frightening morass that is American mothering culture into a brief and to-the-point article. I know I’m occasionally guilty of leaning too much on “what science says,” but as you aptly point out, “what science says” is often unequally applied, being used to punish lower-income or non-white families while letting wealthy white mothers slide by.
I’m reminded of something a few years back, where there were billboard ads put up in areas clearly targeting lower income families comparing co-sleeping to putting your baby in bed with a knife, and other shock-tactic metaphors. Around the same time, there was a guest article on the lifestyle/mommy-blog Cup of Jo with a (wealthy, white) woman extolling the virtues of co-sleeping, in that holier-than-thou/criticisms-will-be-ignored manner. That was kind of a wake-up call to me.
Anyways, thank you for this. And (regarding your bio) thank you for your work trying to make the world a safer and more supportive place for mothers and families from all walks of life.
After I gave birth this summer in Baltimore, the hospital had a list of videos new parents were supposed to watch before checking out. The “safe sleep” one showed local mothers, mostly women if color, who had lost children to SIDS castigating themselves about allowing their children to sleep in the bed with them. It was rough to watch immediately post partum.
I am speechless with horror at these tactics. God, my kid hated the safe sleep recommendations to the point where I really thought we might all die of sleep deprivation, like really, not exaggerating, and I just recall sitting up with her, scrolling through SIDS info on my phone and crying. Parents who put their kids on their stomachs or in bed do so because they’re under major stress, and doctors and public health officials do not acknowledge how hard it is.
The shame methods, especially geared toward women who lack resources like I dunno, maternity/paternity leave?, are just unconscionable. SIDS is awful and horrifying but affects 56/100,000 babies that are born. So we are talking a 0.056% chance of your baby dying of SIDS. You don’t have to stop educating on how to lower the risk, but what is wrong with treating new parents like humans who want to protect their babies instead of idiots?
I, um, have some strong feelings about this.
Our hospital had the same videos to show, and it was made clear that the moms in particular “HAD” to watch them. I couldn’t deal with the SIDS video. I started sobbing, and refused to watch the rest of it (I literally had to roll over to avoid seeing the monitor, which was perched above my bed). UGH. I hated all the implications in that video so much.
Like thebellewitch, I too have a lot of feelings about this.
I seriously cannot thank my pediatrician enough for giving us a handout on safe sleeping that INCLUDED how to co-sleep safely (because that is actually possible, it just doesn’t fit on a billboard). I hate hate hate that those women are having all the guilt and sadness they feel at the death of an infant reinforced by being in that video.
Thank you for this.
Hi Aaminah! Thank you for such a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece! I’m a new doula and a white woman, and the issues that you touched are things that I’ve been thinking a lot about, but haven’t been able to elegantly articulate. I’m wondering if you have suggestions as to how to introduce my clients to wonderful things like baby wearing and belly binding in a respectful way that’s not appropriative and gives credit without exoticizing. Obviously, it’s not your job to make sure that I’m not acting like an asshole, but if you happen to have any ideas or recommended resources, I would really appreciate it!
had the same question. i would like to know more.
My suggestions are
1) Learn from women of color who CHOOSE to share this information and PAY THEM for the learning. The Zulu Birth Project is a phenomenal program that I participated in this past summer and highly recommend. It is taught by a Zulu woman who is choosing to open up her cultural practices to other birth workers and we had several white women in our local class. http://www.zulubirthproject.com
2) If you do decide, as a white woman, to go forward and teach your new skills, do so in a way that honors who you learned from. Continue to educate yourself in that culture/tradition, treat it with respect and not as something “exotic”, be prepared to acknowledge discomfort that WOC might express about you teaching and to clarify how you received your expertise. Also, be open to WOC correcting you or adding to your knowledge base.
3) One of the most important aspects, to me, is REACH OUT TO WOC. If you are going to teach, make sure that you are building ongoing relationships with WOC and that you are doing the outreach to bring WOC into your classes (and eventually, as teaching assistants – do not only hire white women but claim that you are outreaching to WOC). Provide at least one private scholarship each session that ensures that a WOC who would not have the financial means to participate in your class gets that opportunity – without ever treating her like a charity case or letting anyone else in class know that she is there on scholarship, and while making sure that she is made to feel welcome and comfortable participating (which really means, your scholarship person should never be the only WOC in the group.)
I suggest to my clients that they research the birthing traditions from their own heritage, wherever that may be…baby wearing, bundling, belly binding, cradle boards is a global practice..I’m a practitioner with 25 years and 25,000 people I have worked on.., also I am 1/2 Caddo and 1/2 Sicilian so I know both sides..the best thing to do is encourage them towards their own roots and culture, then there is no appropriation and no cultural confusion. Google saami baby for example..it is a fun and meaningful journey that they enjoy.
Thank you for this. Maybe it’s like this in other countries, too, but the U.S. seems to have such an inferiority complex about parenting. One the one hand there’s this superior strain of “modern medical science” that devalues cultural practices; on the other there is this huge insecurity that all the other cultures are doing it better, which leads to this “African babies don’t cry” appropriative garbage. And the yuppification of things like babywearing leads to other white people who think of themselves as less yuppie mocking those cultural traditions, which is just kind of gross on another level.
“When white women take credit for discovering our traditions, it dishonors our history and our cultures while withholding support for these traditions from those of us for whom it is a valuable part of accessing our own ancestral powers.”
Thank you for this. It captures so clearly the difference between learning from other traditions and appropriating them (claiming credit and exclusive access) in a way that I’ve never been able to articulate for myself.
Thanks for writing this. I am white and a new mother, and it has given me a lot to think about.
I am a white doula (who has written about doula-ing for this very site, in fact) and am sharing this widely in my birthworker circles. As you undoubtedly know, there is SO MUCH offensive cultural appropriation and racism (both advertent and inadvertent) that goes on in the birth community, so the more voices and ideas like yours are amplified, the better. Thank you for this piece.
I also find that when the origins of a practice ARE acknowledged, it is often to celebrate a certain perceived “primitivism.” The logic goes: certain native cultures around the world do this, so our ancestors must have done this. Therefore, it is something we should RETURN to. As if other cultures are just our former selves (speaking as a white woman) preserved in amber.
Honestly, I think our total lack of institutionalized support for new mothers lends itself to this sort of inferiority complex – which doesn’t make the appropriation any less gross – but damn, if it doesn’t suck to be alone, with a newborn, knowing you have to go back to work in a few weeks, and you certainly can’t take the baby with you, and your mom can’t teach you how to breastfeed, and you know that if you can’t sleep, you can’t work, and how the hell do you do this, and…thus the parenting advice industry is born. Sigh.
I just wanted to comment that this is a big issue in the babywearing community and was talked about extensively at the Babywearing International Conference 2014, in both Sherri Payne’s Keynote speech, break out sessions, and casual get togethers. You may be interested in checking out Uzazi Village http://www.uzazivillage.com/, an amazing pre- and peri-natal center in MO as an example of a center run for women of color, by women of color, who do an excellent job of working with their community, on the community’s own terms. Of course there is a bigger issue of product manufacturers (looking to sell products), and parenting magazines (marketed to sell products to (generally) middle to upper class white women who buy such magazines. Half they time they aren’t even showing safe babywearing http://babywearingitout.blogspot.com/2014/04/Amer… but those of us working on the ground are struggling with many of the issues you bring up and working to make changes in how we teach, outreach, and represent ourselves.
While I agree too much of these things are marketed towards middle/upper class white women, it’s also important to note that baby wearing is traditional in Europe too. It’s not just traditional in communities of color. Granted, particular techniques should not be used or taught without giving credit where credit is due. Personally, I’ve never encountered a rebozo teacher that didn’t give credit and discuss the origins of the techniques. Not to say disrespectful, marginalizing people don’t exist, of course.
The class divide between those privileged enough to have access to “natural” birth and parenting techniques is also disparaging, and does heavily effect communities of color. Absolutely. We all need to work on making these things more accessible to everyone.
But no one particular group owns techniques like these, not the suburban white mom who things she “discovered” baby wearing, and not communities of color. It belongs to all of us and we can all share.
I found this really lovely blog post that has a multicultural photo montage of baby wearing: http://9davids.blogspot.com/2011/02/babywearing-t…
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I feel like there is a great degree of defensiveness in your initial thoughts, however, and that you must have missed a pretty important part of what I said so I’m going to quote for you to think about this.
“I am not suggesting that white women should not practice belly support/binding and babywearing. The benefits of both are so great that they should be widely known and practiced.
What I am uncomfortable with is white women who write articles in which they say they “discovered” these techniques and speak as authorities without ever giving credit to the history and cultural truth of these techniques. Giving credit means much more than using a “foreign” word and pretty “ethnic” print on your website and flyers. It also means delving deeper than referencing the “quaint” practices of one or two cultures that you have no significant connection to.”
I know rebozo teachers too, and yes, they always say it comes from Mexican tradition. But they also make it sound so primitive and mystical and like they are giving white women – which is almost exclusively who they are and teach – some “in” to this great Indigenous mystery that is free for the taking. That is part of the problem. If you want to make an argument that European women also practiced baby wearing (which they did), then I would challenge you to ask why aren’t white women teaching Celtic baby wearing, or Nordic baby wearing, or Eastern European baby wearing techniques? It is precisely because they are not concerned with connecting to their own traditions but exotifying OUR traditions and then taking them and making money off them. The rebozo, as an excellent example, is a deeply meaningful piece of cloth that tells others what village the wearer is from, among other things. So for it to be appropriated by white women is to ignore a significant amount of its spiritual and cultural meaning. Just some food for thought…
You both sound a little defensive to me.
I grew up around Nordic/Germanic “baby wearing”, and mothers didn’t call it anything. They just did it. It’s a ubiquitous sight to see mothers sitting on the subway or outdoors with their winter coats zipped up 3/4 of the way and a little baby’s head in a knit hat peeping out of the top of the coat right under the mother’s chin. It’s just practical.
I have no idea why mothers in the US don’t do this more, or why it doesn’t seem like common sense here (people also don’t walk a lot to the grocery store/to work/to the corner shop? aren’t used to getting exercise? were brainwashed into giving up their mothers’ traditions of baby care due to Dr. Spock? I don’t know) but it really isn’t a “white people” versus “people of color” thing. Talking about how you’ve “discovered” “baby wearing” without talking about who taught you is gross — but making this about color lines is an American thing, not an international/universal thing. Tying your baby to your body is part of the human heritage.
Or perhaps you need a little cultural appropriation 101. Life *is* about “color lines” and this is an issue outside the U.S. as well, as I have many friends that can tell me. It is about colonization, which is not exclusive to the U.S.
Maybe I wasn’t clear. I’m just saying that “baby wearing” is something women have learned from their mothers on more than one continent, and that includes white people in parts of Europe too. It just doesn’t include white Americans. Tying a baby to your body during the day with a piece of cloth is something I’ve seen women do all my life, white women, probably using different techniques from rebozo and so on and so forth. It’s not that I’m trying to take away some special piece of culture from anyone else, or I want some prize for this different experience, just that I think it’s destructive to shout down the idea that things are complex.
My mother “wore” me nearly 40 years ago, though she would have phrased it differently — in our region, it’s just a thing women did and do.
Race is organized in really particular ways in the US, and it’s not organized along the same lines elsewhere — because it’s a cultural thing, not an objective thing. I’m not saying that outside the US they do it “better” or “worse,” but they definitely use different conceptual categories to think race. So yes, that’s why I use a phrase like “color lines” — to highlight the artificiality of how it’s constructed here in the US. Yes, certainly, colonization has existed all over the world — and it has worked differently in different places.
I really don’t think the article implied that white women have no historical practices of baby wearing, or that white women shouldn’t do it. What I got from it was that there are certain practices that are being appropriated for capitalist gain in a way that distances people of colour from their ancestors and makes some white people very rich. I think your comment actually draws us away from a worthwhile discussion about complexity because it’s polarising.
As a German woman, I can explain why we don’t use our own traditions anymore – because they’re really impractical. Until the late 19th century, people used a “Hockmantel”, a cape that was draped around the baby. But there were really no ways to carry the baby without this cape, and you still had to hold it.
Here are some pictures: http://www.museum-digital.de/san/singleimage.php?… http://www.altersbach.net/hockmantel_komp.jpg http://www.hoerselberggemeinde.de/report/blatt24/…
I found some newer pictures (one from Moravia in the Czech Republic) where women use shawls etc. very much like rebozos and kangas, and I’m 100% certain there was nobody telling them that this is how the “natives” did it. It’s just the most logical way.
But yes, I agree with you. Marketing yourself as the expert on rebozo etc. without properly acknowledging its’ roots isn’t good.
Very interessting to get to know about the “Hockmantel”. Never heard of it. (as a German. :-))
I mean, they HAD to carry their babies somehow, before strollers were invented. Although it was usual for wealthy women to let nannies raise their children.
I agree with your article and most of your points in this comment, but I think that if anyone were to be advertising “European” or “Nordic” traditional babywearing, they would be thought of as white supremacists. I have been trying to research my own heritage and traditions (which are Celtic and Nordic, primarily) and it is very hard to find anything that doesn’t have creepy ties with white supremacists.
In Wales it was just called a shawl. If you didn’t have your shawl to hand you could use your cyrthan (blanket). These practises didn’t diminish until the 1980s, I have a picture of me in a cyrthan at my mum’s waist. https://www.google.com/search?es_sm=91&biw=10…
Congratulations, you’ve ended cultural appropriation.
Aaminah, I really, really liked this article!! I live in NYC, where babywearing is HUGE (and, thankfully seems to be common regardless of race?), I think because using a stroller to navigate the city is such a giant PITA. That said, there is MOST DEFINITELY a white-privilege thing going on for women who want to use fabric wraps (as opposed to a carrier). Some of the WOC in the FB group about babywearing were talking about their experiences recently – they get a LOT of comments about how wearing their babies is so “African,” and are they super-radical, etc. I get…nada.
In any event, definitely posting this over to the group, because I think people would really be interested in it.
As a white woman and a doula, I have come across a range if different attitudes in these topics. Baby wearing is one that I shamefully haven’t given much thought. It always felt weird to me to set my babies in a stroller or a swing for a long time when I could just strap them on and go about my business while giving my kids what they need: touch. I don’t understand the American attitude of wanting to be free from your baby all of the time. I always co-sleep, too. Not because someone told me it was cool, but because it feels highly unnatural to leave a baby in a crib in it’s own room. But as for the cultural implications? Hasn’t thought about it. It just feels instinctual to me. Not black or white. But human. Cultural and socioeconomic issues that are on the forefront of my mind usually surround birth culture in America. It is the wealthy white women who hire me to be their doula. The wealthy white women have home birth and birth center births. The wealthy white women are more respected in their birth choices. In my community, the black women and the Latino women are routinely disrespected by doctors and nurses. Don’t even get me started on women who don’t speak English. It is a true racial nightmare. Rich white doctors often treat these women and their families as less intelligent beings, which perpetuates the statistics that minorities are more likely to have interventions at birth. These women are “educated” out if their cultural knowledge and told to blindly trust the white doctor with their bodies and babies. They are not given a voice because of the color of their skin.
I appreciate your thoughtful comment, but I wish you hadn’t felt the need to disparage parenting that doesn’t involve baby-wearing or co-sleeping, i.e. “wanting to be free from your baby all of the time” or calling it “unnatural” to “leave a baby in a crib in its own room.”
These are valid choices that some parents make, and your judgment of them is both unnecessary and uncalled for. Make your own “instinctual” and “natural” choices, and recognize that others will make different ones, generally with excellent results all around.
It IS unnatural to leave a baby in a crib in its own room!
I have been trying to figure out how to phrase my question, and probably the answer is that I should just ask someone in person. But in many of my travels in Central and South America, I noticed lots and lots of people carrying their babies in blankets, but not wearing them, actually carrying them in their arms, so their arms wouldn’t be free for movement. At the time I figured it was because strollers are expensive and a pain in the ass in places where sidewalks are never evenly paved. But now I’m wondering why those parents (it was both moms and dads!) just didn’t wrap the blankets around themselves to wear the babies?
I agree, that would best be asked in person. It is not something I have personally ever seen. My city has a large Quiche population and the men and women wear the babies on their backs in the blanket. Of course, you will want to be thoughtful about who and how you ask, and why you feel that you need an answer. After all, certainly plenty of white North Americans carry their babies in their arms, without wearing them and without strollers (or even with a stroller) quite frequently. 🙂
I lived Ecuador and the majority of people carried their babies in arms and blankets. I saw a few people babywearing who were working on the markets, but not as many as i thought there would be. They used a scarf – just generic scarves.
I babywear and am white, it just feels normal to wear my children. To me, it’s just how I parent, and I am definitely not a “rich white woman”
thank you for this answer! rich tapestry, i think 🙂
“What I am uncomfortable with is white women who write articles in which they say they “discovered” these techniques and speak as authorities without ever giving credit to the history and cultural truth of these techniques. Giving credit means much more than using a “foreign” word and pretty “ethnic” print on your website and flyers.”
I appreciate your passion for babywearing, education, history, and celebrating the women who have gone before us: passions that I also have. Like you, I am saddened that litigiousness in our society has led to the high-level of commercialization and regulation happening with baby carriers and that these things strip this tradition of its beautiful accessibility. My heart breaks and my spirit fights for women whose voices are shut down or ignored based on their heritage or economic standing. I think that your voice here rings with passion and clarity on some heavy issues with no easy answers.
That said, as the author of the Mothering piece you linked to, I felt like I was reduced to a caricature based on a 180-word article solely about the mechanics of using a carrier in a particular way. Understanding the history and culture behind baby carriers is of tremendous value, and is something that I dialogue about in personal and educational settings, but was outside of the scope of a very short piece. For what it is worth, I am not a birth worker. I volunteer as a babywearing educator and have not received a penny for years I have spent with the non-profit organization I volunteer teach with, nor am I paid to blog for Mothering. As for “discovering” belly wrapping: I intended that word as a synonym for learned. My word choice was not intended to be trivializing, and I am happy to make the edit.
You hit the nail on the head with the paragraph about how poor women are perceived as taking more of a “risk” with their babies when they do things like cosleep or babywear, god forbid they do that using a non “approved” carrier (they’re rated on the Consumer Reports website!). Poor women and WOC are scrutinized and judged more than white women. They are more likely to have CPS called on them. It is racism, pure and simple. Thank you for this.
I see this too in Ecuador… Unfortunately, for many people, doing things the “indigenous” way is not a positive thing. One friend confided to me that she wanted to use a baby wrap but her husband forbid her because he didn’t want her to look like a low-class person. The thing is, lighter skinned, upper middle class women here can get away with babywearing because of their privilege (those who want to, b/c many still look down on anything indigenous) but for darker skinned women, regardless of class, who face discrimination already, there is more at stake in being linked with indigenous customs. Of course, there is a large indigenous population that practices babywearing, breastfeeds in public and births at home which leads to comments such as, “oh, you want to give birth like a campesina”, “don’t breastfeed in public like those indias,” etc. Anyway, we are one small country in a huge region, but perhaps similar dynamics affect the choices of some women not to practice indigenous customs in other countries where there are visible and marginalized indigenous communities. There is a long and brutal history of oppressing indigenous people and, as the author of the piece pointed out, specifically trying to break the mother-child bond as a tool of colonialist oppression.
When I first decided to become a doula, my Dominican partner of the time, someone who is proud to be Indigenous and African diaspora, flipped out because of things you share, Spanglish Mom. The ideas of home birth, having an advocate with you whether you are at home, in a birthing center, or a hospital, and anything related to baby wearing, belly binding, public nursing, etc was something that they said was “campesina” to do. Their main argument was “BUT WE HAVE HOSPITALS AND DOCTORS AND SCIENCE NOW!!!” and they were genuinely horrified that I would suggest hospitals and doctors aren’t right for everyone and that it shouldn’t be a class marker, either as “low caste” or as “only the rich can afford” for people to select the option that works best for their family’s needs and be supported in that choice. So what I see in many Latin American immigrant groups here is one of two things, either the tendency to go back to tradition because they feel safer here that they can do so with paramilitary violence, or the idea that now they are in a “civilized” culture and must assimilate and have access to “the best” that the U.S. has to offer. It’s a very complicated spot to be in.
I’m a White male and I’ve lived in Mexico for a year and a half now. My partner is a darker-skinned Mexican woman and we have a four month old baby girl together. I just want to say that I definitely see the types of attitudes you are describing here in Central Mexico. And while I see many people “babywear” here, it’s either entirely poor, indigenous women (who just wrap with scarves or blankets) or wealthier tourists (American or Mexican who wear in carriers, typically).
It’s funny, I wonder what people think of my partner/us now that you’ve pointed out these issues so succinctly. Everyone seems floored by the fact that my partner gave birth naturally (i.e. no C-section). It seems, anecdotally, that probably upwards of 90% of all deliveries here are by C-section. We are happy that my partner is able to breastfeed our baby 100%, and obviously she does it in public often due to logistical reasons (we’re out, baby needs to eat, so she feeds – it’s not really any sort of conscious statement, it’s just what happens). Yet now that I think of it, almost any other woman I can think of seen breastfeeding in public is also likely to be poor and indigenous.
We also “wear” the baby when we go out (if we’re together, I’m usually the one to carry her unless she’s feeding). We bought a hand-made carrier at a local natural birthing/pregnancy store, it’s made by indigenous women in Oaxaca and part of the money it costs goes to help them. It wasn’t super expensive, about 50USD, and it’s not a simple scarf/wrap – it was a shoulder strap and two plastic rings through which the scarf portion is threaded, it can be adjusted in various ways. (As a side note, where we live is a town with a lot of wealthy tourism and many American ex-pats – the whole issue of the privileged aspects of natural or traditional ways of doing things gets wayy complicated because on the one hand you have truly indigenous people who are usually poor doing things the way they’ve always done them, you also have a newer class of typically educated, middle-class Mexicans who are taking part in this “move back” to traditionalism, and then you have your straight-up appropriators and tourists who are generally rich and ignorantly colonialist in their actions. However, as with the “green”/organic food movements and many other things, that middle group, the slightly-more-well-off, educated Mexicans are sort of trapped in between traditions that are actually theirs and capitalist, White American-driven appropriation and popularization of said traditions. It’s weird and hard to explain).
Anyway, just rambling at this point. Thanks Aaminah and Spanglish Mom for your thoughts and analyses!
Super appreciate this article, sharing it widely.
I just read a couple of 19th c British novels with babies carried around in their mothers’ shawl, I think one in front and one on the mothers’ back (novels are rarely as specific about material culture as I want them to be). Which makes the cultural appropriation seem like even more of `the point’, if there are Euro and/or Anglo recent precedents. The only place I’ve found what seems to be an unbroken tradition is in Wales, with a fulled wool shawl six feet square — suitable for a cold wet country! No pictures of fancy wraps so far, but several pictures of men with shawl-wrapped babies, and a possible tradition that grandpas would take the babies out on Sunday mornings to give the young couple a chance to sleep in:
http://celticbabycarrying.blogspot.com/
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=welsh+shawl&…
(Actually a lot of the pictures here are cyrthans, used for the same purpose.)
in my view, this article is way off. there is nothing in what Pamm Fontana wrote that claims ownership or discovery or invention of the knowedge of baby wearing or belly binding. she wrote a brief informative article that might help other people in a similar situation. the internet is great for that right? she also says she’s a volunteer baby wearing instructor. nothing wrong with that surely?!! as for being an “advanced level” instructor, it is entirely appropriate that there are qualifications that people can attain, in the absence of generations of imparted knowledge that such ‘white’ people are not culturally privileged enough to have grown up with. i have a photo of my mother with me in a baby sling, with a posture that does not look great, so i am very glad to have access to information about how to baby wear safely and happily now with my own baby. i don’t know Pamm Fontana from eve, but it seems very unfair for the author to exemplify her in this article of all that is wrong in the world and its cultural injustices.
as a young (white) dad living in ireland, i “discovered” baby wearing through the internet and have found a great bond with my baby girl through the closeness of baby wearing. my first thought about being in this new role was to realise how lacking my culture is in respect of baby wearing, to wonder how people survive and function without it, and to experience a deep appreciation for the baby wearing cultures of the world with their long established experise, and how great it is to see a resurgence of this knowledge being spread around, with the help of the internet, facebook etc.
no doubt there are a few deluded arrogant “white ladies” somewhere on the planet who ponce around as if they invented baby wearing, but by and large i think the author will find that nobody “stole” anything, and the vast majority of people have a deep innate appreciation for its origins. baby wearing is on the rise in western culture because it has spilled over from other rich cultures and it has such wonderful benefits to both parent and child. there is a demand for it, and business will always fill it, and market it. the pressures of being a parent and living in a capitalist society is a separate debate, and nothing to do with race or cultural theft. western parents are the biggest marketing suckers to new-fangled products and parenting gadgetry (such as buggies), but it is their choice – and their loss, for example if their child spends most of their early childhood in a buggy. i am the owner of one cheap sling and am quite able to leave aside the materialistic envy that the author suggests is inflicted upon parents by greedy-culture-thieving baby-wearing corporations.
as Pamm Fontana said in her article – “happy baby wearing to all”
Exactly!!! 🙂
“baby wearing is on the rise in western culture because it has spilled over from other rich cultures.” As if anything could be that simple. You have to ask yourself, “why now?” If babywearing has had a long history in certain cultures, why is it that at this particular time western culture suddenly deems it a practice to be valued?
Why suddenly? Because the Internet has allowed access to more information, to more and more families looking for something outside of our very current cultural practices like cribs, strollers, “spoiling children” by holding them too much, “too posh to push movements” and more. What is a family to do when they instinctually reject what their parents passed onto them?
When I had my son 9 years ago, I spent countless hours trying to sort out how to strap him to my body as he wouldn’t be put down. I also spend many hours in museums, and had seen the many baby carriers on display from different regions and was excited about a possible solution to my current predicament. So yes, I self taught using another cultures information. This was normal to me, and I didn’t give it another thought. Living in Toronto, I grew up surrounded by multiple cultures.. Dinner at black friends houses, play dates in Indian families homes. I had many Native Canadian neighbours who we exchanged babysitting with and was part of the family often. I grew up eating, singing and experiencing many cultural practices and this was my “normal”. So when I discovered the array of ways to meet our babies needs as used in Asian, African, South American and Nordic (our museums selection) cultures I was excited to know that my instinct to want to hold my babies wasn’t wrong or misguided, as those around me made me think it was. I was happy to know that maybe others felt this way too. I am white, and understand my privilege… But with a wee baby and nonsupport around me for wanting to parent instinctually I had to reach out to what I could find in museums for support. And after spending hours standing over my bed, with my baby, I did indeed teach myself how to secure him onto me so he could snuggle up and feel safe.
What I learned over three children was invaluable, and as I needed more information I created a local group to brainstorm with… There were very few carriers outside of the Bjorn and it took a lot of looking and traveling to find something that worked for us.
Reading this article has really opened my eyes to the way my journey might be labeled. I now teach what I had originally taught myself (how to tie, etc), run free Babywearing groups, work with anyone who wants to learn more, to follow their own instinct to want to be close to baby. I start every group with “bring me a bedsheet and I’ll help you safely wrap your baby”, discuss the practice of tying our kids in vs the commercializations of it, and in each class discuss traditional Babywearing.
In the last 9 years, though, access via the Internet has changed the way families gather information and make decisions. Where I’m from, Varied cultures and traditions are intertwined and visible, without segregation or attraction.
My kids just learned about race and South African apartheid, and just couldn’t get their minds to understand that someone might be treated differently because of skin colour. It had absolutely no validity to them. We then discussed our provledge, and what that may mean, and my daughter just cried and cried at how unfair that would be – and at 7, vowed to make sure she sees this and changes it. They generally just don’t even understand the concept… But have memories of being “worn” for many many years, nursed into kindergarten, and now Bf and wear their dolls. My 9 year old even wears his baby cousin to help out. It has become our family tradition, and like anything we do in our family we research and learn about it, where it came from, and how it was used.
This article did make me feel defensive, And maybe it’s because I don’t feel like I identify with it. But it has made me think about some educators I’ve come across, who likely have no clue about babywearing before their own child… Some caught up in the trend without much open appreciation for its traditions. Until today, I also saw the excitement and willingness of many WOC who come to our groups to share among the class their cultural variations of “babywearing”. I don’t think Ill start to offer to pay for their sharing, as suggested, as none of us are paid to share… but we do certainly appreciate and respect the knowledge that any of our members bring to the group.
‘baby wearing is on the rise in western culture because it has spilled over from other rich cultures’ LOL this line made me spit out my tea
does “rich” only refer to material wealth? you surely understand that i am reffering to being culturally “rich” in the traditions of baby-wearing instead of a financially rich culture. you could argue that western countries are culturally bankrupt in terms of their ‘modern’ attitude to child rearing / family / community.
this current generation of parents is the first to grow up with the internet available to them, so it makes sense to me that those parents would draw on the wealth of knowledge from all cultures without the same barriers our parents had. the author seems to think that “white ladies” (she keeps going on about white ladies for some reason) are stealing this knowledge in their efforts to help their own communities adopt these wonderful traditions, which let’s face it, nobody “owns”, they have been practiced the world over for millenia. even our friends in the animal kingdom carry their young, it is the most natural thing in the world.
you want to use a scarf? Great. you want to buy a designer sling in a shop? Great. You want to use a buggy? Great, whatever works for you. in my view the author has only further marginalised “poor women of color” by suggesting that they are unable to make up their own minds about how best to raise their children, being at the mercy of white “marketing”. that seems quite insulting to me, admittedly as an outsider to america.
I’m interessted the same things, like you. Babywearing, natural birth with traditional support, natural parenting and all this. “Although” I’m German and white.
I understand your conflicts, but I see it from another perspective. As white people are the majority in Germany, there are no other aboriginal people, than us, there are of course mostly white woman teaching about babywearing, white midewifes (with a also very old knowledge!!), who teach about natural birth and breastfeading. White psychologists, who understood, how important is skin contact and bonding is for babies.
Babywearing has existed in Europe also, it was just erased long time ago. Unfortunately.
When a mother carries her child, you should firstly think, she does it, becuase she understands its importance and reacts to her (colour-free) instincts, and not, because it’s “cool, as a white person”.
There should always be the awareness and honouring (I think it is- at least here), that all cariers of today were recently copied by traditional babywearing methods of African, South Amerian and Asian population and other aboriginal people.
Different kind of cariers are being used, slings and wraps, Mei Tai etc. and some more funktional carriers were recently developed, like Manduca, Ergo, Emei (hopefully Baby Björn will die soon), what I like, as it fits more to the life of several people. I don’t see the problem.
BTW is it easly possible to get a good carrier second hand. Where I live, most educated parents own one kind of good carrier/wrap (wealthy or not). Very uneducated people unfortunatelly use mostly cheap strolers (which they buy new, not 2nd hand).
Breastfeading is just human: Not “white people” tried to break other culture’s breastfead behaviour. Formula industry wanted to make ALL women stop breastfeading and use formular. (Nestle is totally criminal at all- boykott, instead of blaiming “whilte people” for Nestle) ALL women are victims by this ruthless proceeding.
I can add something more: China has a big tradition with “Elimination Communication”, instead of diapers. Now Pampers is very aggressive to establish a plastic-diaper culture and to make chineese believe, the use would be more convenient, healthy etc. Sad.
Birthing methods are human aswell: Homebirths were common everywhere (!), also in white Europe, until pharma industry and medical lobby started to establish a hospital birth culture, interventions, birth-medication and all this. So Homebirth is not a “stolen idea” either.
I’m just very glad, that babywearing, breastfeading, co-sleeping, cloth diapers and “Elimination Communication” comes back- in alle cultures, where it has been lost. I’m glad, that woman all over the world start to question “common things”. I’d prefere not to “steal” ideas and to raise claims of things, which have been natural for centuries everywhere around the globe. We (women and supporters) should stand together, apart from skin colour and ethnicity, and distance ourselfs from this men-dominated capitalistic infantilizing.
I’m super glad that indigenous ladies in Germany had the opportunity to hold onto their cultural practices whilst Germany invaded and colonised Namibia. So interesting that the German Development Service is discouraging that HIV positive Namibian women from breastfeeding their babies based on false positive results. But anyway, there are no other aboriginal people apart from you guys so I guess race has nothing to do with it.
That was unfair, and had nothing to do with this article or her comment. She can’t control those two things – she is sharing her own cultural perspective of this piece. An angle that this article sorely missed.
Very interesting article and commentary, thank you. A question about the photo of a mother babywearing that is used in this article (it’s visible when the post is shared on Facebook, but not on this page.) Where can I find the caption and photo credit?
You can find it right here! https://blogging4baby.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/fr…
Thank for for this incredible piece!! Well said!
Is it okay to say I learned about baby wearing instead of I discovered? I have never said I discovered, but i Have said I learned about baby wearing. I am actually one who is very interested in the origins of things we do so I tend to try and find where they originate from. So I don’t discover I learn.
yeah
Actually, there is a history of elites (often white) forcing poor (often racialized ) women to abandon breastfeeding their own babies to be wetnurses to white babies. Also, there is a long history of poor women having to leave their babies to be bottledfed so that they, the mothers, could go clean the homes and care for the children of more privileged moms. There is a long history of white women, including German imperialist women in Africa, denigrating the knowledge of native women and midwives and promoting Western medical practices, including medicalized childbirth and scientific mothering.
Thank you for writing this article. As a black doula, based in UK, I agree with many of the points you make here.
Gracias – Thank You for such a great article that addresses the value of our traditions in childrearing. I’m from Mexico and used the rebozo to carry my three children. ♡
I find it especially sad/ironic that the ad accompanying this article for me is for some sort of high chair and features the phrase “African Babies Don’t Cry”, with a picture of a happy white (of course) baby.
I think that’s an image chosen by the authors/editors meant to accompany the article! But it certainly IS disgusting.
So I just googled “African babies don’t cry” ….what the hell is going on here??
I really wanted to thank you for this. I am super-conscious of this as a woman who babywears, etc., and is white and appears, if not always white to other people (I get passed as Latina, etc.), then at least middle-class-ish and American-born. And this is meaningful when I pass an East African guy giving me the thumbs up for having my toddler on my back because “that is how we do it in my country”… while he pushes a baby in an umbrella stroller. Because when I do it, no white person thinks of me as backwards and weird and unwilling to assimilate. No, it’s new and innovative and clever… or at least quirkily hippie-ish. But when POC, and especially native or immigrant POC do it… Yeah. I am acutely aware of my privilege in this. This also seems relevant: http://hoodfeminism.com/2013/11/05/using-woc-in-t…
I maybe have misunderstand this article or the culture where it is written because I am not from US. I live in Eastern Europe in a place where actually everyone is white (in the big citys we have a little diverse, but unfortunately not where I live), and here babywearing for us is not new or foreign or exotic, it is how everyone does with their children. It is tradition for everyone. My brother lives now in France and with his children his French wife did the same with babywearing like her mother taught her. So I am surprised that in your article you say the for Europe babywearing is new or for fashion. I think it is for everyone so that with the baby you can have special bond. But I think it is good that mothers have access to all education about being moms because for mothers who are poor or of different race they do not maybe have so much supports.
But also I learn that more natural ways to parents and homebirths are in US for rich people? Where I live to have my baby in hospital was for me not option because I lack money, and I myself am not really poor. We do things at home with natural tradition because the choice is not a choice but the rich ladies are in hospital because they can pay. I wish I had hospital because to me it is safer. It is interesting that the issues everywhere can be so different though I did have thought childbirth and being mother is a experience that is universale for women.
Thank you for the article, I learn a lot.
I think it’s wonderful that mothers are adopting more ‘natural’ ways to honor pregnancy and birth and motherhood because that is severely lacking in white culture, I hate that it’s marketed to us as if we invented it. It’s the consumer aspect of it that makes me shake my head.
We need to be careful how we regard other peoples cultures. I come from an English, Scottish, Irish and native background and I have pride in that, It’s a part of my identity. I would hate to see anyone taking those cultures and regarding them as “cute” while thinking theirs is better. So I endeavor to behave respectfully towards others while I’m doing things like baby wearing, and henna tattoos.
Excellent and tremendous array of resources shared. Thanks
Thank you. I’m a white woman (and childless) and found this very enlightening.
I am a white woman who was married to a black South African man for 18 years and I wore my babies like my sisters-in-laws and my child’s caregiver taught me to do. I grew up watching television programmes and movies showing Native Americans wearing babies and wondered why my mother and aunts didn’t do the same. It is good for both mom and baby and convenient for transporting baby and doing household tasks. As I get older I realize that many things white people once considered primitive are now proven to be far superior to so-called modern methods. “Othering” has hurt other people, disadvantaged us and kept us the primitive ones – the world is paying the price for that misplaced hubris. Poetic justice, I guess, but the cause of so much unnecessary conflict.
I am a white woman who was married to a black South African man for 18 years and I wore my babies like my sisters-in-laws and my child's caregiver taught me to do. I grew up watching television programmes and movies showing Native Americans wearing babies and wondered why my mother and aunts didn't do the same. It is good for both mom and baby and convenient for transporting baby and doing household tasks. As I get older I realize that many things white people once considered primitive are now proven to be far superior to so-called modern methods. "Othering" has hurt other people, disadvantaged us and kept us the primitive ones – the world is paying the price for that misplaced hubris. Poetic justice, I guess, but the cause of so much unnecessary conflict.