I traveled to Paris this spring to see my granddaughter, Willa, who for some lame reason — like her father’s new job at the Paris newswire — needed to move five thousand miles away.
The only perk is that I was forced to go to Paris to see her, which kind of shocked me, because I haven’t been in Paris (or Europe, or any other exotic place) for over 40 years.
A girl must be cognizant of fashion when living in Paris.
My friend Sally adopted Paris as a metaphor for death. It’s not that she doesn’t like Paris, she idealizes it. (She lived there a couple of years after WWII, acting as art director for the Marshall Plan). She loves to say, “I wish people would get over their fear about death. You don’t stop existing: you just go to a wonderful new place. Death is like getting a ticket to Paris!”
Fortunately I didn’t have to die. I traveled in the belly of a metal bird instead of the wings of an angel.
Once there, however, I got to hang out with a little angel. Willa.
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BABY STEPS FOR BOTH OF US
Okay, so it’s a cliché, but I just HAD to have a photo of me, Willa, and the Eiffel Tower. This happened to be the first boat ride of Willa’s life!
A couple of years before Willa’s birth, her mother, my daughter Katie, was learning about a revolutionary and respected method of infant care called RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers), founded in the U.S. in the 1970s by a woman called Magda Gerber. Katie was supporting herself as a nanny while in grad school, working for a couple in Los Angeles who were following the precepts of RIE with their two young daughters. Everything Katie told me about her experience of learning new ways to care for these little girls was intriguing. She was learning to shift many ingrained instincts.
Once Willa was born last March, I headed to L.A. and helped care for her for nine months before they left for Paris. Katie and I would read chapters in RIE books (like Magda’s RIE Manual, or Respecting Babies by Ruth Anne Hammond). Then we would discuss what we had learned and how to handle Willa’s care. Daddy Tom also learned about these methods and incorporated them in his time with Willa. I also joined Katie in attending several RIE sessions (when Tom couldn’t make it) with Ruth Anne Hammond in Pasadena, where parents bring their infants to a kind of play group. The adults quietly observe what the babies do, speaking as little as possible and not interfering with the babies, unless somebody’s going to get hurt or is crying.
Here are just a couple of the ideas that we incorporated in everyday life with Willa.
Tip from a pro: before walking, first you must master the art of one-legged sitting.
• You don’t put the baby into a position that she can’t get into herself. That means, you don’t prop her up against a cushion, strap her in a high chair, or even place her on the floor or crib on her tummy. The baby is placed on her back and allowed to move freely, on her own. When she herself is ready to sit up, then you can hold her in an upright position (like on your hip). When she can roll over, then she can be on her tummy. Car seats are necessary, but you try to minimize the time a baby must spend in them. Same with strollers, bouncy chairs, swings. You learn that putting a baby in a stroller may provide healthy exercise for the adult, but just be clear about that — it doesn’t provide much benefit to the baby.
• You move slowly around a baby, giving her/him time to see you and track your actions. And you tell her what you are about to do, before you do it, giving her a chance to participate. Even when Willa was just a few weeks old, we would say, “I see you’re awake, Willa. May I pick you up?” You’d be surprised at how responsive a tiny baby can be. She would make small movements toward us, letting us know she understood and was agreeing. “I need to fasten this side of the diaper, Willa. Can you straighten your leg?” It didn’t take long for her to understand what we meant and often to willingly comply. Crying after her nap, when she had rolled on her tummy, Katie would say, “I’m going to pick you up, but I need you to roll over.”
Le Cordon Bleu for Willa involves water, a saucepan, and lots of stirring. (Of course you have to taste it, too; hence the wetness in the front …)
(In this circumstance, RIE suggests rolling the baby onto her back, so that she is able to see who is about to pick her up.) In a very short time, Willa had learned the rather complicated procedure of tucking one arm flat against her body, so she could roll from her tummy to her back and that way get lifted out of the crib. I remember she was just four or five months old when she was able to do this. I was dazzled. Fast forward to Paris. Now Willa is learning to walk. Nobody has been propping her onto her feet, or holding her hands to “help” her walk. She’s in no rush to walk, because she’s become an expert at crawling … We all enjoyed what we called her running crawl, her hands making a flap-flap-flap sound on the hardwood floors as she rushes from one room to another. She’s also an agile, competent climber. She can climb onto the living room couch by basically doing the splits, bringing one leg up to shoulder height, simultaneously grabbing the couch fabric, and squirming up onto the seat. On her own, without prompting, she has learned to turn onto her stomach and lower her feet to get down safely.
But while I was there, I saw her become more and more motivated to walk. At first, it is slower than crawling, but it has one great advantage: you can hold stuff in your hands. In the two weeks I was there, she went from taking just a few tentative, wobbly steps every now and then, to toddling about half the time.
Did you know that Napoleon kept a modest apartment in the Louvre? Here’s one of his rooms.
And once I got back home, I realized I have been taking baby steps, too. Not only am I re-programming my mothering (I raised three!) and grandmothering instincts, but I am seeing that RIE concepts can be applied to adult life, too. I’ll give you an example, starting with the baby lesson.
RESPECT FOR THE BABY
Mitigating adult-driven agendas
One afternoon Katie and I went to the Rodin Museum with Willa. This wasn’t the funnest thing for Willa, but we had let her play in a nearby park before going inside. After a very quick tour of the exhibits (see “The Kiss”), we were collecting ourselves on the front steps of the museum, getting ready to go home. Well, Willa did not want to get back in the stroller. Katie tried to reason with her, but Willa was squirming to get away from the stroller and fussing. Katie really avoids forcing Willa to do something she doesn’t want to do. “I shouldn’t make her do something just because I’m bigger,” she said to me. (Macro application: World peace!) Practically speaking, with infant care, sometimes this can’t be helped — it’s nap time, or time to get in the car, but most often it’s just that the parent is impatient. In this instance, we weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere.
Katie affirmed to Willa what she thought the baby was communicating. “I see you’re frustrated. You don’t want to get in the stroller right now. You’d rather play on the steps. Well, we need to leave soon, but you can play on the steps for a little while.” The upshot was that we probably diddled about for ten minutes while Willa played on the steps. I was a little bored, tired and ready to get home, but I also loved that we hadn’t just forced Willa into the stroller, when she might have had a screaming meltdown or at the very least had her dignity violated. After this totally innocent respite — she spent the whole time climbing on two steps — she was satisfied. She happily climbed into the stroller and fell asleep as we headed home. The whole thing was beautiful! And so different from how we usually interact with our babies.
I thought Rodin’s “The Kiss” a perfect backdrop for Katie and Willa.
RESPECT FOR ADULTS
Letting go of unsolicited advice
The basis of RIE is to be aware that the baby is innately wise about her own development. She’ll do things when she’s ready to do them. The idea is to trust that each baby grows, learns and develops in just the right way.
I think we adults can benefit from these precepts in many ways, but one important one is in the convention of offering advice. Maybe people are different in your world, but in mine, the advice-giving mechanism is often spring-loaded. It explodes at the slightest touch. One person makes a mild complaint about something, or expresses a wish, and the other person belches out a suggested action. I do this myself reflexively.
For adults to understand a baby’s brain, researcher Dr. Alice Gopnik says to imagine yourself: in love; visiting Paris for the first time; after having had three lattes.
Recently I was having a conversation with a friend, who voiced a modest complaint about something. (She wishes to remain anonymous!) (And her “problem” needs to be anonymous, too!) I immediately trotted out a bit of unsolicited advice. “You should consider fluglxing!” Her expression blanked out at this, and we dropped the subject. Only later did she venture to tell me, “I didn’t feel like fluglxing. Did you think I’d never thought of fluglxing before?”
She pointed out that the subtext of offering advice is, “I’m noticing you’re not living your life exactly right,” or “I don’t really trust your judgment,” or “I’m wiser than you, and you can use my guidance.”
Upon reflection, I find I really agree with my friend. Maybe whenever we give advice, however well-meaning it is, we are being inherently disrespectful. And that realization means I want to change my own knee-jerk behavior. One way is to look at my own discomfort when I hear that someone else’s life is less than ideal. (And whose isn’t?) Instead of giving advice, I can try to soothe my own disquiet and remind myself that the other person is developing perfectly, just like a beautiful baby, in her own time and her own way. All growth has its frustrations. (In RIE you don’t rush to save the baby from her/his frustration; you facilitate them solving the problem themselves.) The next step after that, of course, is to give myself the message: I’m okay, just as I am.
Even in inclement weather, a person can manage to do a little gardening .
Two evil French toddlers, a boy and a girl, wouldn’t let Willa smash their little pile of sand (supposedly a “gateau”); they kept pushing her away, causing her to fall down. So Willa’s dad allowed her to wreak all kinds of destruction on HIS gateau.
Am I the only person who wonders how they get the stripes in the toothpaste? Those perfect little stripes — whether you squeeze, like a good person, from the bottom, or like a lowlife slob, from the middle or top of the tube — still those little red and blue soldiers slide out in perfect formation to battle the nasty plaque ravaging your teeth.
