Working with Baby

Whereas it would have been a lot easier to play with Eddie inside the house where all his toys are, instead I took him along with me on all my "chores" this weekend. The weather was way too nice to be spent indoors...and I have a really hard time being idle. Dave and my dad were outside working and I wanted to be right out there with them (it is my garden after all so I should be helping prep it anyway).Since giving birth, I've thought a lot about how our modern, developed, Western society does not support working mothers. In many places in the world women continue working after they have a baby by simply taking the baby with them to work. All over Asia and Africa you see women going about their business with a baby or larger child strapped to their bodies (or tagging along behind them). If you are a vegetable seller or picker in Indonesia your working life is not drastically altered by having a baby (after the recover period, of course).

I wish it were that way here, too. Unfortunately for most of us, though, our jobs are to sit still behind a computer type-typing away for hours on end. And small kids do NOT like to be still, believe you me. If most of them are anything like Eddie--as I expect they are--they want to be able to see what you're doing and look at what's going on around them, preferably doing outside work in nice weather. Last weekend, the underside of Eddie's chin was rubbed raw from the backpack as he whipped and turned his head from side to side to see what I was doing every moment. He didn't want to miss a thing! All that movement and drool from his mouth turned his skin bright red.
If I worked as a farmer or did more field work for my graduate research I'd definitely take Eddie with me wherever I went. It would be so much easier than dealing with childcare, pumping milk, etc. And it would probably be better for him, too, since he'd get exposed to all sorts of stimulating things from a very young age.