Tag: Parenting

While You Are Sleeping: A Poem to My Baby

Over the course of the last year, the first year of my child’s life, I have experienced many intense moments. Sometimes these happen over a discrete period of time – a moment, a day, or even a few weeks – and then they pass. Other times, like the one described in this poem, these intense moments happen repeatedly, in small bursts, and are related to a particular activity.

For me, one of these has been the emotions, sense of connection or disconnection, and shifts in identity that occur while I’m watching my baby sleep.

While You Are Sleeping

While you are sleeping, 
I watch.
I listen. 
Your fist clenches, opens, relaxes. 
Your breathing catches, slows, deepens. 
Your face winces, smooths, smiles. 
Peaceful.
Makes me feel peaceful.
Because of our connection.
Makes me aware of our connection.
You are the seed of my soul,
Life of my body. 

While you are sleeping, 
I watch.
I listen.
I can't help it. 
I am drawn to you. 
I feel obsessed.
Your peacefulness is a drug. 
It soothes me. 
Slows time. 
Pause. 
Quiet.

While you are sleeping,
I have given you all you need, 
For now, in this moment.
Satisfaction.
Pride.
Confidence.
No demands, frustration, concern,
To overshadow the good feelings.
The powerful feelings.
The awe.
The wonder.
The love.

While you are sleeping,
All your needs are met.
For now.
Relief.
Not being needed.
My body is my own. 
My time is my own. 
My space is my own. 
Freedom.

While you are sleeping,
All your needs are met.
For now. 
Relief. 
Not being needed.
Confusion.
I am not needed.
I am lost, untethered.
Who am I, when I’m not needed?
What do I do, when I’m not needed?
Lost.

I look at you again, 
While you are sleeping,
Peaceful.
I feel our connection.
You are the seed of my soul,
Life of my body.
I am here to protect you, 
Guide you.
I feel the enormity of the role I now live,
Feel myself filling that space and overflowing,
Expanding to be more than I am. 

While you are sleeping,
I have space, time, energy,
To care for myself. 
To care for our space. 
To rest and recharge, 
So I am ready 
For when you awake.

Over the course of the last year my identity as a human and as a parent has shifted a number of times. My relationship to myself and my child has changed, morphed, adapted. This is reflected in the different experiences that are brought out by the same activity of watching my baby sleep. The collection of experiences I describe in the poem happened over the span of our first year together. They aren’t necessarily presented in chronological order but are more of an overall impression of what I can and have experienced or thought about while watching my baby sleep. I hope some or all of it resonated with you.

If you would like to share your own experiences of what it feels like to watch your baby sleep, or another type of activity that gives you similar types of emotions and experiences, leave a comment below or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you!

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From Baby to Toddler: The End of Bottle Feeding

WHY BOTTLE FEEDING?

If you’ve been following along with our journey, you’ll know that we have been bottle feeding our baby since they were two weeks old. This is because of issues with lactation and dysphoria. As soon as we tried bottles, it was night and day. It just worked so much better for us.

Generally, bottle feeding is treated as a stand-in or substitute for the more preferred nursing/body-feeding. I don’t think this is fair. In our case, I was able to be much more present and engaged in the activity of feeding my baby when feeding from a bottle than feeding from my body. I actually enjoyed holding them close and snuggling as they ate. So as far as I’m concerned, whatever feeding method allows your baby to be fed the calories they need in a safe way and allows you to connect with them as much as possible is the best way to feed your baby.

So, because we’ve been bottle feeding since two weeks old, we’ve had a pretty solid routine of mixing formula, heating bottles, feeding and cuddling our baby 3-4 times per day, and steralizing/washing the bottles and nipples. Even after we started giving solid foods, they continued to drink the majority of their bottles. This started to change around ten months.

THE END IS NIGH

As our baby got better at eating solid foods, we started offering solids more often. We started with only at lunch time, then added dinner time, then added breakfast, and now have 3-5 times they will eat depending on what is happening. At about ten months, they started to drink less and less of the formula in the bottles. So we cut down from four bottles a day to three. We had to try this a few times before it actually worked without them getting too hungry.

Then, as we increased the number of solid food meals we were offering, we just ran out of time in the day to offer as many bottles. Our baby was also too interested in playing and cruising to want to sit still to drink from the bottle. So, for a little while, we offered formula in a sippy-cup style bottle with a straw. They drank way more from that than when they were forced to sit still and drink from a baby bottle. It worked great as a transition from three bottles to two.

Then the bottle at the end of the day, after dinner, was becoming more and more of a struggle. Our baby would either be too tired, too full from dinner, or too active to want to sit still and drink. So we did the same thing – put some formula in a sippy cup that they could drink from on the go if they wanted, or not, as they chose. And more often than not, was left mostly untouched. So, rather suddenly, we were down to only one bottle per day – first thing in the morning.

As they turn one year old, this is where we’re at. They are doing great getting calories from solid foods and cows milk during the day, and have one bottle of formula, and the cuddles that go with it, first thing in the morning. How long will this last? Who knows. But getting here from a solid four bottles a day was a pretty smooth and steady process.

FOLLOWING MY BABY’S LEAD

The biggest thing throughout this transition from bottle feeding to eating primarily solids was following my baby’s lead. Some of the signs we noticed along the way that told us they were ready for the next step were:

  • Eating less from each bottle
  • Getting antsy while drinking from a bottle and giving up on it in favour of playing
  • Preferring to drink from the bottle while on the go instead of while cuddling
  • Doing well drinking water independently from a straw cup with handles
  • Doing well consuming solid foods multiples times a day

Some of the signs that we were progressing too fast for them were:

  • Being too hungry to focus on the newer skill of eating solid foods
  • Getting cranky in the later afternoon before it was time for dinner despite having good sleep
  • Drinking everything from every bottle we offered when they had not been finishing bottles for a while before we made the latest change

Most of the signs they were ready to progress were around skill acquisition and independence. Most of the signs that we were going too fast were aroung hunger. We never really noticed signs related to needing more cuddle time to make up for the loss of cuddle time as they were having fewer bottles. Maybe this is because we were still spending the majority of the time with them (as I was still on parental leave). Perhaps if they had been starting daycare at the same time this would have been a factor.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Just because my baby didn’t seem to be concerned by the decrease in cuddle time as they had fewer bottles didn’t mean it didn’t matter to me. I noticed it. Each time I feed them a bottle in the morning and they snuggle in my lap and hold onto my finger or touch my face, it resonates with all the memories of the other times we have done this. The late night times, the right-before-nap times, the out-at-the-park times. These memories around feeding my baby are visceral and strong and one of the main threads through the first year of their life – our entire existence together so far.

What will it be like when we no longer have that first bottle in the morning to bring those memories and emotions to the surface? What will we find as a substitute? I don’t know yet because we’re not quite there but I can tell you that, as much as I try to stay in the moment and not grieve in advance, I am already grieving the end of those feeding time cuddles.

On the other side, seeing them independently use a toddler cup and be in control of when they want some, how much they have, and hand it back to us when they’re done is so rewarding. This type of independence is a big part of feeling like my baby is becoming a toddler.

So, we will keep giving our baby a bottle first thing in the morning for as long as they want to have it. When we finish the formula we have, we will offer warm cows milk instead. Because sometimes it’s not what you’re feeding your baby that’s important, but the time you spend with them while you feed them.

Maybe by the time they give up that last bottle, family meal times will feel just as special as those cuddles in the rocking chair.

Where are you at in your feeding journey? What was your transition from nursing/body/bottle feeding to solids like? What emotions did it bring up along the way? Share your experiences in the comments!

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From Baby to Toddler: Motor Milestones and Ableism

FROM BABY TO TODDLER: FIRST STEPS

Technically, a baby becomes a toddler on their first birthday. There is so much development in so many different areas around this time but the one that gets the most attention is walking. A baby’s first steps are often much celebrated and, emotionally, mark the shift into toddlerhood. The name ‘toddler’ even comes from the unsteady, wide based gait quintessential to new, young ambulators.

With walking comes more independence and the end of crawling, bum scooting, rolling, or other forms of baby locomotion. From then on into adulthood, they’ll be walking (or so we assume and hope – more on the ableism of this perspective below). Though they aren’t yet talking (for the most part), potty trained, or really all that independent, it feels like a sudden shift away from baby behaviours and into the next phase of their life.

Babies (or toddlers) learn many other motor skills before taking their first steps. There’s rolling, sitting, and crawling but even once they start working towards walking there are many skills still to learn. There’s pulling up to stand (and learning how to safely return to the ground), weight shifting, cruising, letting go in standing, taking a reaching step while cruising, and then, eventually, a free standing step. And even then, it’s a while longer before walking becomes their main mode of locomotion.

As with all types of development, babies practice each of the smaller steps constantly. They are trying new things, seeing what works, and getting excited when they figure out how to consistently replicate an action. Especially when it helps them gain access to new areas and perspectives. And we get excited right along with them. We encourage them, get excited with them, protect them, and console them.

But why focus on first steps? Why aren’t a baby’s first words or some other milestone the most celebrated aspect of becoming a toddler?

THE PROCCUPATION WITH MOTOR MILESTONES

Motor milestones and a baby’s growth are the two main indicators of whether a baby is developing as expected during their first year of life. There are standards of when babies are expected to start holding up their head, rolling, crawling, pulling up to stand, and walking. It is so easy to get hung up on these expectations, comparing your baby to others or to the ‘standard’.

This comparison can cause a ton of anxiety and pressure that we can inadvertantly pass on to our babies. We teach them that their actions and physical development will make us more excited than other areas and that is what they should focus on. We are encouraged to have our babies play on their tummies on the floor, even if they hate it (‘They’ll get used to it, you just have to keep trying!’) rather than trying alternative positions that encourage the same types of development.

Yes, motor development is an important part of a baby’s development because, as I understand it, it encourages, allows for, or results in development in many other areas such as spatial awareness, differentiation of self from others, depth perception, emotional development, etc. But what we’re not told is that there is a range of ways and timelines a baby can develop motor skills that still result in developing all these other areas, especially if the parent(s) are engaged and play with them in meaningful ways.

The most important part is that we are excited for whatever aspect of development our baby is focused on in the moment and is able to achieve. When we’re in community with others, I think it’s important to be excited and curious about all the different ways babies develop and try not to compare, shame, or judge based on differences.

MOTOR MILESTONES AND ABLEISM

The concept that there is a ‘right way’ for a baby to develop is extremely ableist. It is so easy to fall into this way of thinking when everything we are told is about when our baby ‘should’ be able to do certain things. This has become especially evident for me around the ‘first steps’ milestone.

Here are some of the thoughts that have been spinning around my head and how I’ve been trying to address them from an anti-ableism perspective:

Using ‘taking their first steps’ as the indicator for becoming a toddler

This is inherently abelist. Not all children take steps. If they do, they may take significantly longer than 12-16 months to get there. Just the idea that a human that isn’t walking is considered a baby makes me cringe. So no, a baby does not need to take their first steps to be considered a toddler. I think I’ll stick with the first birthday as the marker of that threshold.

Getting excited when my baby learns new motor skills

It’s always exciting when your child learns new things, no matter what type of skill it is. But motor skills seem easier to identify as an observer. We can see all the little progressions and attempts as they work up to being able to do something. And of course we get excited when they are able to do something new.

But does that mean we’re putting unnecessary emphasis on motor skills due to an ingrained ablist perspective? Not necessarily. If we’re excited because our baby is excited and because they learned something new, that seems fine to me. Just because we’re excited to see them roll for the first time, doesn’t mean we’d be any less excited if, at the same age, our baby had just learned how to open and close their fist. Being excited for any development at any age, whatever stage your child is at, is one of the joys of being a parent.

Using motor milestones as the main indicator of development

Again, I think this is ableist. Motor milestones should get no more weight than social development, language development, play engagement and activities, sleeping skills, eating skills, and overall growth. Sure, some of those others are harder to observe and measure and may have a wider range of ages when they appear and develop. But focusing on motor milestones simply because they are easiest to track puts undue focus on physical ability, stressing that that is somehow more important than all the other areas. This is not true and highly ableist.

Identifying motor ‘delays’ and accessing support services

As a rehab professional, this is where I get stuck. I don’t like the focus on motor skills to the exclusion of other types of development but I recognize that if there are motor delays, this can be the earliest and most easily identifiable indicator that there may be delays in other areas as well. I also know that the sooner a child, parents, and family has access to interdisciplinary support, the easier it is for the family to learn how to create a supportive environment for a child who’s needs might be different from the mainstream experience.

I think it becomes ableist when motor delays (or other delays) and accessing support services comes with negative judgement. Anything along the lines of ‘your child isn’t normal’, ‘you have failed as a parent’, ‘you did this to your child’, ‘you should be able to support your child on your own’, or ‘you are weak for needing help’ is pure ableism. Even the more subtle aspects of needing to prevent as much future disability as possible so they can have a good life is ableist. Preventing disability for the sake of enduring less pain, stigma, or struggle is one thing. Assuming that they won’t have a good life if they are born with or develop a disability or delay is a whole other and very ableist thing.

FINAL THOUGHTS

  • First steps are very exciting and are a culmination of many smaller skills and hours of practice.
  • First steps and the beginning of walking (or being fitted for and learning to use their first wheelchair) marks the end of ‘baby’ locomotion skills and can trigger a grieving process around the end of the ‘baby phase’.
  • Babies become toddlers on their first birthday, not when they take their first steps.
  • Focusing on motor milestones to the exclusion of other areas of development is ableist.
  • Stressing about and pressuring your child to perform motor skills they are not yet ready for is unnecessary and comes from internalized ableism.
  • Comparing to others or the ‘standardized norm’ can cause unnecessary stress and focus on motor development.
  • Following your child’s lead and being excited for whatever skill they are working on is one of the joys of parenting and not inherently ableist.
  • Accessing support for yourself and your child should you feel you need to help provide a positive and supportive environment for your child is important.
  • Negative judgement around motor delays (or any type of delay or disability), accessing supports, or perceived future quality of life is extremely ableist.

Have you had similar thoughts and experiences? Do you agree or disagree with what I said here? Leave a comment below with your thoughts or share your story!

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How to Find a Queer and Trans Inclusive Daycare

Parenting is hard at the best of times. When you have to trust your child’s care and guidance to a group of strangers at a daycare, you want to know that all the hard work you’ve put in will be supported, not contradicted.

As a queer and trans family, we believe in raising our child in a gender creative and expansive way. We believe in respecting and affirming their bodily autonomy and teaching and modeling consent. We believe that under no circumstances do body parts define a person’s gender and until a baby is old enough to vocalize their preferred gender, pronouns should be considered temporary. Gendered language should be used sparingly (using child instead of girl or boy) or expansively (using child, girl, and boy equally to refer to the child).

As a queer and trans family, we don’t feel constrained by traditional gender roles. We don’t necessarily use traditional, binary parental terms or binary pronouns. We don’t necessarily celebrate traditional binary parental days. Our families may include sperm donors and donor siblings, surrogate and bio parents, children of our close queer friends whom our kiddo thinks of as ‘cousins’, and many other varieties.

Having to interact with institutions that care for our child opens the door to discrimination, isolation, and othering. Finding an inclusive daycare, school, pediatrician, etc is a lot of work. Often, these don’t even exist or we choose to travel much further than we hoped in order to access them. When we do find one, we often still have to do significant work to explain our identities and family structure and recommend ways they can be even more inclusive.

This is because there is a difference between accepting, aware, inclusive, and affirming. For me, accepting is the bare minimum. This is the absence of overt discrimination. Awareness comes when they understand the unique needs and identities of the queer and trans families they may encounter but haven’t necessarily taken steps to make space or include these in their policies and programs. Once they create and act on these policies and programs and complete some LGBT diversity and inclusion training, I would consider them inclusive. If they actively include diverse gender identities and family structures in their representations, encourage the kids to engage in all kinds of play regardless of sex or gender, vocalize their pronouns and ask families and kids about their own (as age appropriate), and apply all kinds of adjectives to kids regardless of sex or gender, then I would consider them affirming. This, I have yet to find.

We are currently in the middle of searching for a daycare for our little one. I don’t yet have the experience of working with a daycare to understand and respect our family’s identities and our child’s gender presentation and personal boundaries. I’m sure I will share more on that when it comes. For now, here are a few ways I have used to search for a queer and trans inclusive daycare.

COMMUNITY RECOMMENDATIONS

This is the best option. Having a recommendation from another family with similar identities/structure to yours who already attends a daycare and has had a good experience not only gives you a first hand recommendation but also another family to back you up should you need to bring up issues around inclusivity.

However, this is also the hardest to find for most of us. I received one recommendation from a queer (but not trans) family for a daycare they attend and like and one recommendation from a queer and trans family for a daycare they attend and have had no problems with (but isn’t actively inclusive).

So I kept those daycares in mind and moved on to other options:

WEBSITES

I did a quick search for daycares within commutable range of our house and came up with about 13 options. I thought this was a pretty good number. I then looked at all their websites. Of the 13, only one mentioned gender in the types of diversity they were supportive of. A couple others mentioned being supportive of/welcoming all types of families, family structures, and cultures.

This was not super encouraging. Clearly, I would have to ask specific questions to see if any of the others were inclusive even though they didn’t mention anything on their websites.

CONTACT WITH QUESTIONS

So I sent out emails to my top eight choices in our area based on their policies and programs listed on their websites. The more emails I sent, the more brave I got and the more specific and direct my questions became. Because really, what is a daycare going to do to me if they’re transphobic and I’m asking about inclusivity? The worst that could happen is I get a negative response which would give me a very clear answer about whether to send my child there or not.

Here are some questions that I asked:

  • Do you have any policies regarding interactions with trans and queer families and children?
  • Has your staff done any LGBT specific diversity and inclusion training?
  • What is your knowledge of and perspective on gender development in children?
  • What is your approach to children’s toys, clothing, pronouns, and other language?
  • Do you have any LGBT inclusive children’s books?
  • Do you have any LGBT identifying staff?
  • Have you had/do you currently have any other LGBTQ families attending your daycare?

The majority of responses ignored all of my specific questions and used a blanket statement such as ‘we are supportive of all cultures and families’. What this says to me is ‘I don’t understand why these questions are necessary and have no idea how I would answer them in a way that would satisfy you so I will reassure you as best I can and hope that’s good enough’. This falls into the category of ‘accepting’ but not even ‘aware’.

The couple that responded with more specific answers to my questions had decent answers and freely admitted when my question was not something they had ever considered before. One even went so far as to say they would put that at the top of their list for training opportunities for their staff, resources to add to their library, and further learning for themselves. While I would consider that falling in the ‘aware’ to ‘inclusive’ categories, they show potential for being ‘affirming’ in the future and open to corrections and suggestions.

The ones that had good responses and the ones that were recommended by other LGBT people became the list of places we wanted to tour.

TOURING SITES

This is the stage we are currently in. Here is a list of things we are paying attention to when we go on site tours.

What to look for

  • Books with LGBT characters, families, and gender creative representations and stories
  • Gender neutral toys and play spaces (red flags for anything divided into boys/girls or pink/blue)
  • Pronouns included on staff ID badges/name tags or kids’ cubby areas

Interactions with staff

  • Do they respectfully ask about your family structure, identities, and pronouns?
  • Do they introduce themselves with their pronouns?
  • Do they gender your child before asking what pronouns you are using for your child?
  • How do they react if you correct their use of language for your child or family?
  • If you observe them interacting with other children, do they interact in a way you are comfortable with?

HOW TO BE A QUEER AND TRANS INCLUSIVE DAYCARE

If you are someone who works in childcare, here are some suggestions for ways you can be queer and trans affirming in your business structure and programming. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

  • Mandatory 2SLGBTQ inclusion and diversity training for current staff
    • Include this in new staff training or repeat after a period of staff turnover
  • Familiarity and competence using a variety of pronouns
  • Knowledge of how gender develops in children
  • Actively counteract your biases around gendered clothing, toys, behaviours, and types of play
  • Use a variety of adjectives and forms of encouragement for all children
  • Books that depict families of all structures, children and parents of various gender experiences and presentations, and a variety of pronouns.
  • Ask for and offer your pronouns when interacting with kids and adults

If you are a queer or trans parent and looking for childcare, I hope this helps give you ideas or makes you feel less alone in the struggle. If you have other questions you would ask, other things you would look for during tours, or other recommendations to childcare businesses, please leave them in a comment or send me an email! I’d love to hear your experiences with your hunt for inclusive and affirming childcare.

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Who’s Feeding the Baby and Other Influences on Parental Roles

Our parental roles have shifted a few times throughout our baby’s first ten months. In the first two weeks, I was exclusively feeding the baby from my body. As this was not a role that my husband could fulfill, he made considerable effort to take on as many of the other baby care and general household tasks as he could. That included diaper changes, baby baths, making meals, shopping, and getting the baby to sleep.

After two weeks, we had to switch to bottle feeding which meant that we now had equal ability to feed the baby. I still had the extra load of pumping multiple times a day so my husband would typically feed the baby while I was pumping. We would then share the rest of the baby care and household tasks more evenly.

Then my husband went back to work and I became the primary caregiver during the majority of the day. My husband always made (and continues to make) an effort to do as much of the morning and evening baby care as he can, allowing me to have some personal time, extra sleep, or complete household tasks.

To me, this sharing of baby care is normal and expected. In talking to friends who also have new babies, this isn’t the case for every family. I’m not sure why but I have noticed some patterns.

WHO’S FEEDING THE BABY?

The primary factor seems to be who is feeding the baby or whether the feeding duties can be shared.

The baby is exclusively fed by one parent

Historically, the birth parent was the sole nursing/feeding parent and also the primary caregiver for the rest of the baby’s needs. This view seems to still influence some people to lump all the baby care together and place it in the domain of the feeding parent. As it turns out, only the feeding is exclusive to the feeding parent. All the rest of the baby care can be done (and in my opinion should be done) by either/both parents.

In some families, like mine, we view each baby care activity separately – feeding, sleeping/bedtime, changing, bathing, playing, medical appointments, etc. In this scenario, if the feeding can only be done by one parent and is often a highly demanding and time consuming task, at least one if not more of the other tasks could be taken over by the other parent/another caregiver.

The baby can by fed by either parent/any caregiver

This seems to make it more likely that baby care duties will be shared. If the feeding duties can be shared, it makes it more obvious that the rest of the baby care can also be shared. The majority of the care may still fall to one person due to work or other responsibilities but even if this is the case, there is more room for negotiation.

The baby is partly fed exclusively by one parent and can partly be fed by either parent

Whether the exclusive feeding responsibilities are from nursing, body feeding, or pumping, in this scenario one parent takes some of the feeding duties and the rest can be shared with the other parent/caregivers.

Because some of the feeding can be shared, it follows that the other baby care can be shared, as with the previous scenario. I feel like this would make it more obvious to the non-lactating parent how much of the work falls exclusively to the lactating parent. Ideally, this would lead to the non-lactating parent helping out with shareable duties as much as possible.

CONDITIONING, COMMUNITY, AND GENDER ROLES

While the question of who is feeding the baby seems to be a strong factor, there are still the influences of conditioning, community, and gender roles.

Conditioning

How someone was raised and how much they feel a need to follow what feels like a traditional model of baby care can have a strong influence on whether the above feeding scenarios have any impact on their involvement. If someone grew up in a strongly feminist household with an expectation that everyone pitches in with cooking, cleaning, and general household chores, I feel like they would be more likely to prefer/expect to share baby care duties regardless of the feeding arrangement. If someone was raised in a strongly patriarchal, traditional household, they may have the opposite expectation. How rigid this conditioning was and how strongly they still adhere to it as an adult will determine if they are influenced by a shared feeding situation to share the rest of the baby care.

Community

Another influence is how their peers are raising their own kids. This will not only model what baby care is like but also be a guiding force to follow a similar path as they ask for guidance or compare situations.

Another aspect of community is what expectations their community members have expressed when it comes to parental involvement with the baby. There can be guilt and shame placed on someone who chooses to share feeding and baby care duties when they are expected by their community to be the parent exclusively responsible for feeding and caring for the baby. It seems like this negative judgement is less likely to be placed on a non-feeding parent who is choosing to have little involvement in baby care even when their community expects them to be more involved. However, community can be a strong influence, sometimes stronger than a partner’s voice. If a valued member of a community voices a concern, disappointment, or expectation that the non-feeding partner be more involved, it can have a supportive impact.

Gender Roles

How much someone feels the need to adhere to society’s gender roles or carve out a set of gender-based expectations for themself related to baby care would also impact how they share the work. For some people, regardless of gender, the sudden addition of parenting duties could feel threatening to their sense of who they are, how they present, and where they fit in society as related to gender. They may adapt and figure out how to integrate this new aspect of their life into their self concept. Or they may rebel and hold even tighter to the aspects of their familial role and lifestyle that previously contributed to their sense of their gender.

For others, the new role of being a parent and caring for a baby can serve as a replacement for a lost role while on parental leave. It can be a strong gender affirming role or be a substitute for the satisfaction and pride they get from their career or other endeavors that are put on hold. Sometimes it can be challenging if the new parenting role feels satisfying in terms of purpose but at odds with their gender role. This can occur for any parent/primary caregiver.

The person experiencing this sort of internal tension may not even know that gender plays a part in why they feel reluctant to engage in baby care or reluctant to allow their partner to assist with the baby care. If this is your experience or you suspect it may be your partner’s experience, I think it’s worth a conversation.

I hope some of this resonated with you and helped you understand yourself or your partner a bit better. Evidently, I advocate for sharing parental responsibilities as much as possible. This doesn’t necessarily mean 50/50. If one parent is off on parental leave while the other is working full time, it may be more like 80/20. But I don’t believe it should be 100/0. Even if you are a sole parent, I believe you need community support to help raise a child.

Let me know what your baby care situation is and what impact the feeding role, conditioning, community, or gender roles has had on you.

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Baby Clothes and Gender

Baby clothes are predominantly marketed as being for girls or boys. Even though the babies that wear them are too young to have any concept of gender. Even though clothing isn’t inherently gendered. The only reason for this is so that families that have a second child of a different sex than the first have to buy a whole new set of clothes.

Society has bought into this idea so strongly that a baby’s clothing is often used to indicate their ‘gender’.

This is not something I agree with. I don’t think clothing is inherently gendered. I don’t think we should restrict a child’s clothing based on their sex assigned at birth. And I don’t think clothing is an appropriate way to indicate gender. My goal as a parent is to provide my child with a wide range of clothes, toys, and experiences from all areas of the socially defined gender categories.

We got most of our clothing second hand in one big batch from one family. At the time, they were getting rid of 0-6 month old clothes that were predominantly pink and styled as ‘girl’s clothes’ and 6-12 month old clothes that were predominantly blue and styled as ‘boy’s clothes’. We were given a bunch of neutral and boy style newborn sized clothes so that expanded the range of clothing for the first little while. But since they outgrew the first sizes, we have been predominantly dressing them in ‘boys’ clothes (because that’s what we have).

This has gone against my gender-free/gender-full parenting wishes so I intentionally went shopping for clothes that would fit my baby that were pink and purple, or had flowers and butterflies, or were otherwise more on the ‘girl’ side of the clothing spectrum. I love seeing a variety of clothing in the drawer to choose from.

When I dress my baby to go out for a walk or visit with family, I am conscious of what clothing I put them in and what assumptions people will make or associations people will have as a result. Despite the fact that I don’t feel that clothing has a gender and I don’t think clothing should indicate gender, I’m also aware that the majority of people do hold these beliefs. This forces me to consider the ‘gender’ associated with the clothing I am choosing for my child. And then I find myself thinking of pink as girly and a blue football motif as boyish.

I’m constantly playing this tug of war with myself. I don’t want to think of clothing as gendered. I put my baby in whatever clothes I want the majority of the time. I mix and match and alternate but this gendered thinking still creeps in. I have to constantly remind myself to think of clothing as different styles, colours, and patterns, not different genders.

I also think about what clothes my baby was wearing the last time they visited with a particular person and try to pick something contrasting the next time. Again, I have to remind myself, not something of a different gender, something with a different colour, pattern, or style.

Because, ultimately, baby clothes are not only for the baby, but also for the adults they are interacting with. And by influencing the adults around my baby in subtle ways, I can hopefully maintain a more gender creative and inclusive environment with fewer overt and potentially confrontational conversations.

The internal struggle against gendered thinking is constant. But when I feel the binary veil lift and I can see my baby for who they are as a giggling, food-loving, good-sleeping, commando-crawling 8 month old, I feel more connected and at ease in my role as a parent.

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Baby Haircuts and Gender

My baby was born with lots of hair. That was always the first thing people commented on. It was dark and long and made them look a bit like a hobbit. At first I loved it. It was cute and made them look like a mini toddler. But when they started squirming and rolling, the hair at the back became matted on a daily basis. Combing it either took over an hour or led to a lot of screaming. So we decided it was time for our baby’s first haircut.

As it turned out, the hair underneath was a lot lighter. The before and after pictures look like completely different babies. It took some getting used to. But it wasn’t just that they looked different. My perception of their gender was also different.

They suddenly looked like a boy.

My general feeling on this is ‘Ugh. Why does my brain have to gender my baby based on their hair?’ But of course, just because I’m nonbinary does not mean I’m immune to the gendered programming I am surrounded by and grew up with.

For me, haircuts are one of the biggest sources of gender euphoria I can reliably get on a semi-regular basis. This is because having my hair short helps me express my masculinity and helps me see my masculine side when I look in the mirror. But just because short hair feels masculinizing for me does not mean that short hair indicates masculinity or male gender for everyone.

Especially babies! Most babies have no hair or very short hair. It was only because I was used to my baby’s longer hair that my brain registered the short hair as a gender indicator.

Then I began to wonder – does everyone automatically gender babies as male because of the short hair unless there is a female indicator such as pink clothes, frills, or a flower headband? Is this one of the reasons why baby clothes are so overly gendered?

In the two weeks since the haircut, with a steady stream of corrective self-talk, the gendering effect has worn off a bit. But regardless, I figure that if some people put flower headbands on their babies, I can too. Creating a genderful experience for my child means using clothing, accessories, toys, and language from all parts of the gender spectrum. It also means doing things to trick my brain out of gendering them based on their sex assigned at birth or their short hair.

What experiences have affected your perception of your baby’s gender? What things do you do to create a genderful experience for your child? Tell me in the comments below!

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Discovering My Identity as a Parent

Recently, I’ve been thinking about my identity as a parent. Yes, as someone who has a child I am responsible for, I am automatically deemed a parent. But what does that actually mean for me as a person? What does it mean to identify as a parent? How does this new part of my identity mesh or clash with other components of who I am?

As a queer person, I have an understanding that identity is fluid, multifaceted, and individual. I have had the experience of exploring new aspects of my identity as a gay person and as a nonbinary person. In drawing parallels with my new experience as a parent, I had a bit of an ‘aha’ moment that I wanted to share with you.

STAGES OF QUEER IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT

For me, discovering and exploring aspects of my queer identity followed a similar process: from unaware/baseline, to awareness, resistance, exploration, acceptance, immersion, and finally, integration. My process of moving through these stages was different when I was discovering my sexuality vs my gender.

Before figuring out I was gay I was assumed to be straight but really I didn’t have much sense of my own sexuality. Figuring out I was gay involved very little resistance for me because of the liberal environment I was raised in. I went from awareness to exploration to acceptance very quickly. I was still in early high school at that point with little autonomy for accessing the queer community. But as soon as I went to university away from home, I entered the immersion stage and became involved in the queer club, went to all the queer events, hung out with primarily queer friends, and went to queer bars. I always had something rainbow on, hung my rainbow flag on my door, and talked about queerness every chance I got. Over a couple years, this faded to being just one component of my identity (integration).

Figuring out I was nonbinary went through the same stages but at a very different rate. Despite having a gendery experience in high school, I remained unaware of my non-cis gender identity for years after and probably would have said I was a woman. During my husband’s transition I became aware of nonbinary identities and developed an awareness of my own but did not feel like I had the energy to explore it or deal with the consequences that exploration might bring. I remained in the resistance stage for at least two years. By the time I finally got the space and courage to explore my gender, I already knew that I was nonbinary and had accepted it, I just didn’t know what to do about it. So I immersed myself in this part of my identity for six months to a year, figuring out all the different facets of my gender, how to explain it to people, and connecting with a gender diverse group of friends. This has slowly faded to a more integrated level but remains a larger part of my overall identity than being gay did.

The ‘coming out’ process started at different points for these two identities. I came out as gay immediately after the acceptance stage, before immersion. I am still working on coming out as nonbinary despite being somewhere between the immersion and integration stages.

HOW THIS RELATES TO MY IDENTITY AS A PARENT

Because of the external and concrete nature of being a parent, the first couple stages don’t apply as much. I wasn’t a parent, and then, suddenly, I was. However, the process of resistance through to integration is more about the emotional and personal relationship with this new aspect of my identity, so I think it still applies.

So where am I at in the process? At this stage of things, four and a half months in, I’m still not really sure what it means to be a parent. I’ve been resisting my new parental identity because I didn’t want to lose the rest of who I am. If I lose who I am, all my emotions will be tied up in how well I feel like I’m doing as a parent. And since there are many aspects of this parenting thing that I have no control over, that seemed like a dangerous game.

Then I realized that ‘losing who I am’ was part of the process – the immersion stage. I had been too scared of what that would feel like to allow myself to move through the stages of exploring this new identity. Since making this connection, I have quickly moved from exploration to acceptance and, a bit nervously, into immersion.

It definitely feels different to allow myself to become immersed in an aspect of my identity and existence that is so strongly dependent on something external to myself. I feel like I have less control over my exploration process (and therefore, how it will integrate with the rest of my identity in the long run) than I did with the queer aspects of my identity. Add to that the fact that we are in the middle of a global pandemic and therefore have limited access to the social activities and groups that I might engage in as part of the immersion stage.

Needless to say, exploring my identity of being a parent will be different from exploring my queer identities. Regardless, I can’t jump straight from acceptance to integration. But maybe, since the identity of being a parent is a more external one, so too is the immersion process. Who I am internally, all those pieces I have fought to understand and accept, can stay where they are. I’m not going to ignore my experience as a nonbinary person while figuring out what it means to be a parent. I’m going to figure out what it means to be a nonbinary, queer parent.

What stages did you go through in exploring your queer identity? How did you feel in your role as a new parent? Leave me a comment to share your experiences. I’d love to know how you navigated these transformational experiences.

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Childhood Influences on Parenting Experiences

Note: This is the first guest post on the blog! If you listened to Season 1 of Let’s Talk Gender, you’ll have heard Jake talk about his transition. Now you get the first blog post from him. Enjoy!

As trans people, we know that a person’s sex doesn’t dictate their gender and upholding societal expectations of gender would be hurtful to our child’s existence. The gender of the child is especially irrelevant in the early stages of parenting because babies are mostly blobs. As they grow we will help them explore the vast world of gender. Regardless of how our child chooses to present and identify in the future, we will love and support them.

And yet, when we were trying to get pregnant, the question of “are we hoping for a boy or a girl?” still came up. I was hoping slightly more for a boy. I thought that raising a girl and trying to build up her confidence against a misogynistic world would be harder than teaching a boy about privilege.

I was beyond thrilled when our 10 week blood test came back with no abnormal chromosomal conditions and that we would be having a boy. I felt that I could vicariously live through his “male” childhood since I didn’t get to have one myself.

This is not fair to him. It is his childhood, not mine. Even by virtue of who his parents are, his childhood will be completely different from mine. However, this reaction, and the subsequent un-learning, has lead to a lot of reflection.

HOW MY PARENTS GENDERED ME

My mother had me at 19, and whether it was a function of her age, because it was the 80’s, or because of who she is as a person, she let us do what we wanted. My sister and I played with what we wanted, where we wanted, and wore what we wanted. My mom’s easy-going approach was a big reason why it took so long for me to realize I was trans (but more on that in a different post).

My father, however, was 8 years older and grew up in a military house. He always said that he wanted to make his love apparent to us since he didn’t feel it much from his parents when he was growing up, but he was much more strict about what was expected from us, including enforcing societal views on how we should be acting as girls.

RAISING ‘BOYS’

My parents divorced and remarried and my dad had another child who is now 7 years old. My dad has mellowed with age and perhaps a marriage that is more his style, and mentions frequently that he regrets how he raised us, that he was too strict, and wishes he let us express more of who we were.

In watching my dad interact with his young son, I am amazed at how lenient he is with him. Maybe my dad has become more easy-going, as he says, or maybe he is more willing to let his son do what he wants because “boys will be boys.” My dad has mentioned that his son is “all boy” in the way he interacts – he is rough and boisterous and doesn’t like to follow instructions. He has also said he wants to take good care of his health because “it is clear to him that my son will need a strong male role model” in his life. These are not phrases I would be comfortable using in reference to my own child.

My dad frequently sends me texts about his son and his bodily discoveries, saying “Just wait til your son gets older”, and “boys!! oi-vey!!”. I know he sends these in an attempt to commiserate and create a bond that is strangely based on our child’s genitals, but it leaves me feeling dysphoric and unsatisfied with my childhood. Of course I don’t know what it’s like to grow up with a penis and experience all those discoveries. Of course I don’t know what it’s like to experience the freedom that’s granted to boys and not girls, and seems to be perpetuated by my dad.

But will I let this dissatisfaction make me overcompensate with my own child? Will I let the influences my parents had on me dictate how I raise my own child? Not if I can help it.

MOVING FORWARD

While I initially fell victim to the same “do I want a boy or a girl” thinking that seems to predominantly afflict cis and heteronormative parents-to-be, what’s important is how to move forward. I vow to do better by my child. I challenge my assumptions when I think of my child as a grown up. I remind myself to not restrict myself (or my child) simply based on what genitals he was born with.

While we have chosen to use he/him pronouns for our child, we don’t believe that this dictates his gender. We avoid all other gendered language (son, little man, good boy, etc). We put him in clothes that we like and that fit him, regardless of design or colour. And we will be allowing him to play with any toys, where he wants, and to wear what he wants. We will be asking open questions about gender and presentation and be honest with him about our own identities.

While I initially wanted a boy, I now truly understand that it wouldn’t matter. My baby is my baby and will grow up into whatever human being they want to be.

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When Caring for your Child Triggers Dysphoria

When we picture having a child we think of sleepy cuddles, bonding while feeding, and being an expert at diaper changes. The reality is not always so rosy. Maybe our baby has health struggles, we struggle with mental health postpartum, or, in my case, dysphoria gets in the way.

There are multitude of ways dysphoria can be triggered when caring for your child, depending on how you experience the most dysphoria and what your child care roles are. Personally, I found nursing to cause the most dysphoria, then later, pumping was causing less but was still building up over time, as well as all the sensations in my chest associated with lactation.

I noticed it was getting in the way of being able to bond with my baby the way I wanted to and stopping me from being present in order to notice the small daily changes my baby was making. I couldn’t pay attention to my baby while nursing. I had a spike in dysphoria when holding my baby against my chest. And I was dreading the time I had to spend pumping which made me irritable and easily frustrated.

So I developed a number of strategies to use depending on the situation to decrease the interference of dysphoria. Even if the trigger for your dysphoria is different, I hope these strategies will help you navigate caring for your child in a way that minimizes your dysphoria and maximizes your ability to bond.

BE HONEST

Be honest with yourself, your social supports (partner, doulas, close family or friends), and your medical supports (midwife, doctors, mental health professionals, lactation consultants). As much as we are taught that it is, it is not shameful to feel dysphoria, even when it is triggered by something like caring for your baby or child. The only way to make the situation better for everyone is to be open and honest about it.

This will also help narrow down the trigger. Often, I would be feeling irritable, fatigued, or burnt out and not recognize it as dysphoria related. Then, once my husband and I realized it was likely dysphoria, it still took a bit of conscious awareness to figure out the trigger which for me was nursing. Upon further discussion, observation, and testing, we figured out what would need to be modified to decrease or eliminate the dysphoria. There is no way I would have been able to do all this on my own.

ASK FOR HELP

Sometimes you need someone to take over the dysphoria-triggering task, even if temporarily, to give you a break and build up some reserve. But this isn’t always an option. My husband couldn’t take over lactation for me. So instead of taking over that specific task, even having them offload other tasks can give you more energy to deal with the dysphoria and still have enough left over to bond with your child.

For example, my husband does as many feedings as he can each day as they typically coincide with pumping times. This allows me to pump without the stress of wondering when the baby will wake up and scream for food or delay pumping in order to feed the baby resulting in increased chest discomfort.

FIND OTHER BONDING TIME

If dysphoria gets in the way of bonding with your baby during typical bonding tasks, prioritize bonding at other times. Carve out some play time or snuggle time when it is less likely to trigger dysphoria. Find a snuggle strategy or style of play that is more comfortable for you. I look for the times when the baby is alert and playful and drop what I’m doing to play on the floor, read a book, sing and dance, or go for a walk. This takes time away from other things but getting extra housework or personal stuff done doesn’t make up for the lack of bonding time at the end of the day.

I also found I was missing little changes and new behaviours my baby was doing because I was too busy trying to ignore or deal with the dysphoria. So, on days when I felt particularly dysphoric and disconnected, I would use my journal to write down my own personal challenges and triumphs for that day (to disconnect it from the baby) and some of the new things the baby was doing or a fun moment we shared that day. Just taking the time to think back on the day in order to write it down helped bring those moments into focus through the haze of dysphoria.

ADJUST YOUR CHILD CARE STRATEGY

Sometimes, despite all your efforts to manage it, the dysphoria is too strong or is getting progressively worse. As much as you would like to care for your baby/child in the ‘optimal’ way, that is not always what’s best for you and therefore best for your child. Sometimes we have to compromise on our preferred style of care in order to take care of ourselves and minimize dysphoria.

This could mean using disposable diapers instead of cloth to make diaper changes faster. Or switching to bottle feeding instead of nursing. Or switching to formula and stopping lactation altogether. Or having the baby in the stroller for walks instead of the carrier. Or doing ‘skin-to-skin’ time with the baby lying on your lap instead of your chest. There are always other options.

For us, this meant switching from nursing to pumping and bottle feeding after two weeks. I had the goal of feeding my baby my milk for the first six months but once my supply increased to >75% of my baby’s intake, the amount of sensation from my chest started increasing my dysphoria much faster. So we decided to decrease lactation earlier and slowly switch to formula. This may increase my baby’s gas. This may not be my preferred method of feeding my baby, or what society tells me is best. But it’s what’s best for us.

What I’ve found is that, even though it’s not my preferred method of care, the next-best option that results in less dysphoria feels significantly better and allows me to engage in the care a lot more, resulting in a much better experience for my baby as well. There is no harm in trying different things. You should never rule out options based on preconceived ideas from society. If it’s the best option for you (and still meets your baby’s basic needs), it’s the best option for your baby as well.

What baby/child care tasks trigger your dysphoria? What strategies do you use to deal with it so it doesn’t interfere with bonding with your child? Leave me a comment below or send me an email! The more strategies we share with each other the better!

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