Before I had a baby, I knew what kind of parent I wanted to be. My apartment – a semi-chaotic shrine to everything I care about: art, books and fragile ceramics – would remain distinctly a grown-up’s space. We would use our existing crockery and ignore the ads for tiny fake pots and pans for the kid. We’d take the baby outside to play in nature, rejoicing as she burrows in sand and soil. Who needs toys when Mother Nature supplies entertainment for free?
The things we do buy would be few and environmentally-minded. My daughter would wear gender neutral hand-me-downs. Like a tiny backpacker, there would be enough outfits to get her through a couple of days but not so many to bog us down. We would use only eco-friendly, reusable nappies, a one-time significant expense that would take us through to toddlerhood. There would be little, if any, structured play time, and we would always choose experiences over material things.
Then, I had the baby.
We’d take the baby outside to play in nature, rejoicing as she burrows in sand and soil. Who needs toys when Mother Nature supplies entertainment for free?
And most of these ‘simple’, theoretically plausible ambitions disappeared. To be fair, we did manage to stick to reusable nappies for the first four months of her life before realising that double washing and sterilising every nappy was not only impractical when outside the home, but also pretty gross.
Plus, we hadn’t anticipated just how hopeless babies are, and therefore the mess that accompanies their every move. In our (increasingly less grown-up friendly) home, our baby proceeded to act like a noisy backpacker – though she went through many more pairs of pants. We found out the hard way that small humans needed enough outfits to accommodate four to five changes a day. Who knew that even Weetbix would be so hard to dislodge?
While I never expected things to be easy, nothing and no one could’ve prepared us for the sheer exhaustion and relentlessness of parenting, especially in those first few months – when all we could manage was survival. The aspiration of ‘living with less’ became laughable when you are running low on the most important ingredient for sanity: sleep.
Soon, my problem-solving instincts kicked in: if there was a gadget out there that promised to help, well, I was buying it. That was how we ended up with many different types of dummies, bottles, spoons (who knew there were so many varieties?), a breast massager that promised to knead out all the lumps and the best quality ear plugs to tune out the sleep snorting and screaming.
While I never expected things to be easy, nothing and no one could’ve prepared us for the sheer exhaustion and relentlessness of parenting
And when that didn’t work, a set of noise cancelling headphones to deal with the heart-tugging cries of a baby that just doesn’t want to be soothed. As someone very triggered by the high-pitched wails, I found it more bearable to hold and comfort her while tuning out the worst of the sounds with some upbeat tunes.
I spent money on things I would never have considered before: including some help from a post-partum doula in absence of help from any family (none of the grandparents live in the state – or even country).
Then there are the purchases that weren’t technically our own: friends and relatives who expressed their love through gifts of toys and clothes. The idea of turning away the presents felt awkward, if not downright rude. And truth be told, we were grateful for the friend who, while I was in hospital, bought us pre-term baby clothes once we found out our baby was too little to fit into the smallest standard sizes; and of those who got us water mats and robot animal toys to help with ‘tummy time’ (very important for neck stability and crawling).
Now that our baby is older, things have settled down, but our anti-materialism aspiration hasn’t returned
Now that our baby is older, things have settled down, but our anti-materialism aspiration hasn’t returned. We swore we would share toys with friends and borrow from the library, but, as with most things, we have gradually accumulated more than we need. Right now, the baby is fascinated by spoons, pots and pans. Things that we have but need to be cleaned every time she plays with them – guess who’s getting tiny kitchen toys?
As it turns out, ‘the simple life’ with a baby in tow is no simple task at all. We soon realised the people who claim that all kids need is a big yard and some pots and pans to bang on are the same people who can afford a house (we cannot); and probably have time to sit around supervising instead of working to make ends meet.
The reality of a spartan life comes with privilege. It implies you have the mental space to think creatively about wholesome activities; that you have the time and energy to play with your little one during the day, when they’re most alert. It requires not being worried about money and the rising interest rates, and not having any burning desires of your own. It also means not being sick all the time from all the bugs brought home from childcare.
To live the kind of life that doesn’t need to depend on fast, material-driven solutions requires money, energy and free help from family. And what I came to let go of was a longing for that sort of luxury.
