U.S. Campus Life

The baby gift

By Masako Yamada

One of my male friends used to live in Germany and had a German girlfriend. She was the product of a private education system that doesn't allow children to play with plastic toys. All of their toys are made of wood. Watching TV is heavily discouraged. A vegetarian diet is encouraged from a young age, and the students don't take any graded exams. I suppose one never knows whether this kind of education is good or bad except in retrospect — another German friend who grew up under this philosophy later came to criticize it severely — but I find it interesting that such choices exist.

I was reminded of this recently, when I volunteered to collect money from my labmates to buy a gift for a colleague who had just had his second daughter. Since they already had an older daughter, I knew that they probably had all of the basic supplies necessary to raise a little girl, including plenty of hand-me-down clothing. I asked the family what they wanted, and they suggested that I get some educational videotapes with classical music in the background.

As I went around the lab collecting money, a German labmate told me that she couldn't contribute to the gift fund if it meant the baby would be sitting in front of a TV. She relented only after I told her that it was something that the parents had asked for.

I don't have any children, so I don't have very strong opinions on how to raise children, and any opinions that I do have are not very convincing. But little did I realize that my labmates, many of whom are my friends, have such varying educational philosophies, all of them correct (for them, of course).

I can't criticize my friends who wanted the so-called educational videotapes. I know they aren't nervous, pushy parents who want to force their kids to be little geniuses. Nor are they negligent parents who let the TV be their surrogate "babysitter." They simply preferred a slightly frivolous, hopefully useful, gift over, say, a blanket, car seat or crate of diapers. I completely understood their desire to get a "novelty" gift instead of a practical one.

Today, I went to their home to visit the new baby and deliver the gifts. They were delighted. They told me that their older daughter loved the "Baby Mozart" tape that they already had, and they popped it into the VCR. Famous Mozart pieces played while pictures of fruits flashed by. The child recited "apple," "banana" along with the tape. I don't know if the tape produces geniuses, but I was quite sure it doesn't produce hyperactive serial killers.

Many other people had come to visit this new baby, and since we are all of "childbearing age," there were a lot of other babies in the house, as well: 1-month-old, 3-month-old, 11-month-old, 14-month-old, 19-month-old ...I couldn't keep track of them all. I don't think I have ever seen so many babies at the same time.

One stay-at-home mother said her husband wanted her to "home-school" their children, since the public schools in their area are not very good and private schools are too expensive, but it was obvious she was eager to see her kids get out of the house. Another mother, who is currently the primary breadwinner in her family, said she was hoping her husband would get a higher-paying job so she could cut back on work and spend more time with her kids. Another mother, a Harvard Business School student, told me that she couldn't imagine being a stay-at-home mother, and she said being a student gives her an "outside life" that is actually very flexible.

I enjoyed listening to their stories, and I loved playing with the different babies, but after just a few hours, I was exhausted. I know I only saw the cutest side of these children, cuddling them and playing house, and I certainly didn't have any responsibilities over them. But even then, I developed a pounding headache after a while and I had to leave the house. For the rest of the day, I wandered around Boston by myself, reading the Sunday paper, drinking coffee and buying foods that I liked.

This experience of shopping for a new baby, playing with tons of kids and listening to their parents talk about them was educational, and even entertaining, but it reminded me that I really enjoy being single.

Shukan ST: March 8, 2002

(C) All rights reserved