I am a goddamn merry-go-round.
Audio Transcript:
We rarely leave the house these days, but we took Otto for a walk at the park. Micah pushed the stroller, and I rolled beside. A woman passing us looked at Otto and nodded toward me. “Does she ever give you a ride in that thing?” she said. It was a clumsy attempt to connect, I think. Instead, it felt like one of the only times I’ve been in public with my son, a stranger read me more as a baby merry-go-round than his mother.
Before Otto was born, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to soothe him. I’d seen so many fussy babies calmed by parents pacing and bouncing. I comforted myself by saying – he grew in my belly – he only knows the roll of my wheels – we’ll be fine.
We weren’t fine. Just as I’d worried, Otto would scream in my arms – red, sweaty, and inconsolable – until Micah picked him up and bounced and paced. I’d hear his cries calm to a whimper, and I’d shrink, devastated that I couldn’t rock him to peace like his dad.
It’s interesting to me that Micah doesn’t feel insufficient just because his body can’t breastfeed, even as I nourish Otto for hours everyday. Why would this feel different? I find it difficult to pinpoint. Does my distress sprout from a deeply rooted sexist belief that I – the MOM – should be able to fulfill my baby’s every need? Or is it tangled in an ableists myth that legitimate parents must look like bipeds bouncing?
Either way, I’m learning lessons early. Like our baby needs things I can’t give him – same for Micah – of course he does! I want to feel this in my bones now, because it’s important. We want to connect Otto to much more than us – more experiences, relationships, perspectives. Also – there are as many ways to parent as there are people. I am not the parent who bounces and paces. And even if a stranger at the park can’t see it all at a glance, I am the parent who is here for chats, who asks and listens, who can handle the feelings, big and small, who won’t pretend we aren’t all a tangle of limits and superpowers. And as it starts to shake itself out – what I am and am not as a parent – I’m settling into the fact that I AM – actually – a goddamn merry-go-round. Otto goes for rides every day.
Video: Description
Rebekah pushing her wheelchair around a room, her baby Otto sitting in her lap, a wall of books behind them. She moves slowly, the sunlight washing them out each time they turn toward the window. Otto can hold up his head, but she holds his tummy, keeping him upright in her lap. At the end of the video, she moves toward the camera to turn it off. When they see themselves on the screen she gasps and says, “Hi baby!”