May 30, 2025

Babies

When I joined Singing Mamas in January, the fact that it was a group where women could bring their children was not the draw for me. I signed up in spite of this arrangement, really, having had it confirmed that plenty of people in the group would not be coming with kids. And I’ve got nothing against kids, I have even given birth to a couple of my own, and have spent more than my fair share of time in places that could double for the set of Romper Room, but these aren’t the spaces I am drawn to anymore.

Which makes it even more of surprise then, just how much spending time in the presence of babies has meant to me these last five months. These last few months as I’ve been working through a lot of things, living against a tense and unstable political backdrop, trying to make positive shifts to my ideas of community and connection, trying to be softer, more understanding. And perhaps the babies have pushed me in this direction more than anything else, helping me, teaching me. Each of them such a complete and funny little human in their own way, huge headed, gummy smiles, rolling over as a primary form of transportation. They eat, they poop, they cry, they laugh, they stare at the ceiling in wonder, and their regard in any manner (yesterday one of them tried to eat my shoe) feels like a gift.

And the more time I spend in the babies’ company, I realize what my fellow humans fundamentally are, all of us vulnerable creatures with big soft heads. That it’s funny how we all wear pants. That we are good, and we are worthy of love and care. And we have these weird amazing bodies that we’re not really in charge of, and that it’s a big deal to stand, and that everyone falls down sometimes, and there are so many fluids that it’s impossible contain. That we get hungry, and giddy, and sometimes we just have to sleep. That even being very serious is hilarious, especially if you have no hair.

They remind me of how much we need each other, and how much love there is to go around.