The Day My Daughter Became a Mother
After reading that you are probably wondering how you missed
the part where my sweet baby, the one who just celebrated a birthday, grew up. Fortunately, dear readers, you
haven’t. She’s still a little bit, though she regularly grows in her sleep,
surprising me and Matt in the mornings with a little extra height, useful for
things like trying to turn the doorknob on her own or reaching for things from
the counter when she shouldn’t.
She has
always had a ton of baby dolls- some from when I was little, some from shower
gifts, some from Christmas and then one from our delightful neighbor, who is
seven and the official “babysitter”. This is by far the most important object she
has ever owned, besides Lambie and Bunny.
She calls her “Baby” and carries her high on her shoulder, gently
patting her back. She has adapted quite well to only using one arm to do many
things, such as build with Duplos, eat a snack, or push her various
carts/wagons/scooter things. Often we
place baby in the stroller to be taken for a walk, and she gets a bottle as
long as SL isn’t feeding it to the cats.
It is
pretty common for babies and toddlers to love baby dolls. Who doesn’t love
them? I played with mine until I was keeping it a secret from people because at
a certain age I no longer wanted to admit how comforting it was to rock a baby doll. Maybe more teenagers should get them. There
are a lot of health benefits. First of
all, they are comforting. Similar to
holding a stuffed animal, holding a doll is comforting. Having a bad day? Try
cuddling with something. See if you don’t feel better. One of the second most
important benefits is that it starts children on the path to empathy for humans
and other living beings. They learn how to carry them, how to soothe them (even
though dolls can’t cry, I see my daughter rocking hers on a regular basis), how
to feed them, change diapers etc. My husband did not play with dolls growing
up, and so for him, the first time he change a diaper was at the hospital after
our daughter was born. Hello, Learning Curve.
As I was
watching Sarah Leighton play with Baby I was picking up on what I consider the
most important benefit of children playing with dolls. Parenting. I was
literally watching my daughter model behavior that she has seen from my husband
and me. The same way we carry her, she carries her doll. Her favorite activity
to do with her doll? Walking her in the stroller- the same activity we did
literally every single day for the first year of her life, and still do now. I’ve seen her sit and rock her, read her
books, and “play” games with her. I’ve also seen her sigh and point at something
on the floor, babbling. I’ve heard her tell our cats “No, no no!” when they
aren’t cooperating as she plays her games. And it’s a reminder that everything
we do is shaping her. That she is
tucking away our walks, trips to the grocery stores, rolling around on the
floor, shaking our heads, pulling her hands away from electrical outlets (WHY
does she love them so much?), requiring her to hold our hands going up and down
the stairs. She is tucking all of that away. It’s a wonderful reminder that we
are doing is shaping everything they are
doing. That the choices we make in front of our children are the choices we
will watch them make. For me, it’s meant
making an effort not to hop on email “one last time” in the evening before she
goes to bed, and letting her drag me over to the rug to play even if I am in
the middle of doing dishes (although the girl loves to throw things into the
dishwasher). Lately she also “does the
dishes” and “cooks us dinner” in the play kitchen we put in our dining
room. And as soon as she figures out
wooden food does not a meal make, we are putting her to work in the real
kitchen. My hope is that what she is
doing now sticks, that even as she outgrows publicly playing with babydolls,
she will instinctively continue to love, to nurture, and to want to cook her parents’
dinner, at least every once in a while.
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