Kids are persons, not hobbies

I want to share this excellent piece by Jim Dalrymple II about kids in public. He talks about why our society doesn’t like the idea of kids in public and how that changes our ideas on what kids are. Consider this excerpt:

Sometimes I’ve heard people complain that some folks today treat more like kids, but the reverse is also true: Kids are treated more like dogs. They’re an optional accessory that might bring fulfilment to an owner’s life, but who also aren’t presumed as having any larger social benefit, rights, or claim on the public sphere. And no one has an inherent right to bring their annoying accessory into a public space.

This tracks with my experience. There’s another piece of this as well: If kids are an optional accessory, then they change who you are; you become the kind of person that has this accessory. Or, hobby, maybe. And this ends up infantilizing the parents (adults), often especially the mother (who is an adult).

Here’s what I mean. Let’s say I took up fishing, and was clearly very into this hobby. When the next gift-giving occasion rolls around, you might buy me some fishing equipment or decor. Maybe you’d see a sticker that says “Let’s Go Fishing” with a cartoon bass and fishing pole, and you’d think of me, because I’m your friend who fishes. Or maybe I garden, or fence, or paint, or read Shakespeare. I am the kind of person who is enjoys these things, and you recognize that about me, and you buy me a tote bag with herbs embroidered on it, or whatever. This is all well and good.

And then I have kids, and now I become the person who likes elephant-and-balloons decor, and cartoon animals, and Baby Shark. I like pastels and plastic toys with very loud and definitely fake educational value, applesauce and fingerpaint and tumblers that say Mama Needs Coffee. If my kids are my accessories, my hobbies, then yes, this logic makes perfect sense.

shirt from etsy shop IvyCustomShirt

But I do not like these things. I’m not willing to carry guilt about “not really loving my kids” because I don’t enjoy patty-cake. I do not like these things because I am an adult, and there is nothing about being an adult that precludes loving children, especially one’s own children. I don’t love my kids because they’re into toy cars and I’m into toy cars and we have a common hobby. Rather, I love my kids because they’re my kids. I don’t play toy cars very much (my kids play with them a lot), and when I do, it’s not because I love toy cars. It’s because I love my kids.

The “I’m a mom because I love animal crackers” philosophy is wrong because it contains wrong ideas of children and childhood (and probably animal crackers), and because it dehumanizes women.

This is important because I suspect that many adults, especially women, don’t love the idea of having kids because they don’t love kid things. Most of us can imagine forming a connection with someone who has similar interests or a similar hobby, but if I just don’t like baby dolls, and my interests are things that children cannot understand or do, how can I form a connection with a child? This is a reasonable concern, and it’s furthered by companies trying to sell things to new parents/moms. “When you have a baby, you give up your whole (adult) life, so let’s celebrate with an entirely new, very expensive wardrobe that looks like it was designed by a preschooler!” So I want to share something from my own experience.

First, newborn babies are not really complicated. You need to attend to their digestive system (both ends), keep them safe (no blankets on their face!), and give them lots of cuddles. You’ll likely be seeing an OB or midwife and then a pediatrician, and you will probably deliver the baby in a hospital -- which means there will be lots of professionals involved and they will tell you things, and you can call your friends with kids and ask them things. There’s definitely a learning curve and a lot of the work is difficult, but what I mean is that you’re not helping your new baby navigate a teenage love life or a crisis of faith.

Pretty soon -- a few months? a year? something like that -- your kid will start doing things that are just very them. The way he smiles and seems to say “aw, shucks.” The way she pretends to rub lotion into her hands. It’s little things that don’t matter at all to anyone else but you’ve seen them a lot, and often it’s in obvious (clumsy) imitation of a particular thing that you do. These things might be a little bit cute when someone else’s kid does them, but they’re precious when it’s your kid because this is the kid you’ve fed and wiped and housed for some time now.

With other adults, especially close friends or family members, we can chuckle when they do a thing that’s very them -- when so-and-so makes a project more complicated than it needs to be but enjoys the process, when someone else preempts any misunderstanding by saying “Don’t get me wrong,” when someone reacts in a particular way, or wears a particular kind of clothing. You might find a hat that’s “just very Dad” and only people who know your actual Dad will know what you mean. When kids do cute things, they’re really only cute to the degree that you know them. And if you live with them -- if you have lived with them for a while -- you know them very well.

And then as they get older, it’s fun to watch them develop from the baby who startled really easily or the toddler who needed to conquer the coffee table into more mature expressions of those same things. You get a front-row seat to watching that process. You invest a lot in it. In many ways, you shape it.

We don’t love kids because we have a common hobby, but because we have a common nature. Kids are loveable because they’re persons, not because they have weird preferences for what they eat.

Circling back to gaudy cartoon animals: Kids are not born with an affection for gaudy cartoon animals. If you don’t like gaudy cartoon animals, don’t buy crib sheets with gaudy cartoon animals. Same goes for all other kid “equipment.” Your kids do need age-appropriate books, but around year 2 you’ll start noticing that there are some really good children’s books -- and some decent ones, and some useless ones. Stock your home library with the good ones. You’re an adult, and you can make rules like “We don’t have those kinds of things in our house.” (Your parents did, didn’t they?) It might take a bit more effort to find things you don’t hate, but only a bit. The internet is a vast, vast place and you can find crib sheets with, like, tasteful stripes, or something. Your local public library has children’s books, and you can borrow them and read them before deciding which are worth owning. I get most of my kids’ clothes at a children’s consignment shop, and there is a lot of atrociously gaudy apparel there -- and I don’t buy it. I buy the other things; it just takes a little longer to go through the racks.

I read children’s books to my kids, because I’m their mom and I love them. I choose what books we have in our house because I’m an adult and I can tell good books from useless books. I also read books that are at my reading level on topics that interest me.

Darmyple also says: “As for me, I’m in favor of giving kids a place in public life; they can’t grow into functional members of adult society if they’re never actually exposed to adult society.” This is important. How can kids grow into functional members of adult society if all the adults they experience are treated like -- and acting like -- children?

So anyway, I just want to affirm that you don’t have to hashtag everything #momlife if that’s not your jam. If you don’t like the things marketed for a particular type of mothering, all that says about you is that you don’t like things marketed for a particular type of mothering. It doesn’t mean you hate kids, that you’re a bad parent, that you would be a bad parent. Kids are not a hobby or accessory. They’re persons. Just like you.