Last week I was totally stumped regarding what to write about. Thus, you all had a break from my weekly rants, the first pause in a little over a year. You’re welcome.
What I experienced, unusual for me, wasn’t quite writer’s block. Rather, it was the combination of too many things going wrong in the world: 18 dead in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine; the horrifying slaughter at a rock concert in Israel; civilian deaths in both Israel and Gaza; and right-wing insanity in our House of Representatives. It was about horrific images on the news and my own reactions of bottled rage, a general feeling of helplessness and the resulting inarticulate sputtering.
You will be shocked to learn that none of these reactions contribute to decent writing. I spun my wheels as if I were driving on bald tires during a snowstorm.
Then I realized what I needed, and didn’t have last week for the first time in a while: optimism in the form of Baby Riley.
I was traveling and I didn’t babysit for my daughter Anna’s baby girl on Friday as usual.
It’s only been several months, but I have come to see those hours as my still point in a turning world. Anna hands me her baby and disappears into her basement office for Zoom calls and meetings. Rob, her husband, does the same elsewhere in the house. Both work remotely.
And I get to spend time with 6-month-old Riley, who is like a fat, smiling Buddha until she is hungry, at which point she gets “hangry,” (I love that word) and briefly assumes the disposition of a panther. Her annoyance surges until the moment she gets a bottle. Or bananas. Or a little oatmeal.
Then she becomes sunny again, my smiley Riley, reverting to her role as the house goddess, the benevolent ruler of all she surveys.
She owns me.
When I had my son Tim, 29 years ago, I wrote a column headlined, “Lawmakers should vote with babies on their laps.” I still believe that.
In that long-ago opinion piece, I proposed that no voting should take place on war, cutting social programs, slashing spending on the environment or the general welfare, unless those casting ballots held a baby while they voted.
One way to counter most short-sighted policies would be to give each member of Congress a baby and say, “Here. Vote. And change that diaper while you are at it.” Just try and not think of the future when a baby is looking into your eyes, or demanding a bottle, or, better yet, spitting up on your suit.
Because all of our futures depend upon how well we care for our children, the most helpless among us. What a shame that our country is so carelessly cruel about their welfare, and considers children and families to be of such minor priorities that we have one of the highest child poverty rates among developed nations with market economies. We are the only rich country in the world not to provide women with paid maternity leave. Other developed nations pay an average of $14,000 to help families with toddlers manage the high cost of child care. The U.S. contributes about $500.
This is wrong for any number of reasons, but also overlooks what babies give us: hope. And that’s what Riley and her 4-year-old sister, Ellie, give me no matter how godawful the news is.
I needed my Riley fix last week, but I took a late flight from a business trip that got me home at 1:30 a.m. Friday. Too little sleep, I knew, to be helpful. So Anna made other arrangements.
But I missed Riley, watching her progress in beginning to crawl, getting down on the floor with her and playing with toys. I didn’t have that glorious sense of hope that nuzzling her, holding her and rocking her to sleep gives me. I missed the reminder that, as Thoreau once wrote, “Every child begins the world anew.”
Yet I am haunted by the pervasive sense that all children should be so cherished and are not, and that all babies should have Riley’s glorious rolls of fat, no matter where they live. They should not be awakened by terror and bombs in the night.
It is a tough world for too many. It shouldn’t be, but it is. That’s why we need babies so much, to remind us that our responsibilities extend far beyond our own lives. And that the world owes them for the joy and the hope and reminders that we all need: that it isn’t about us. It’s about them. Always, about them.
I will be renewed once again this week.
I’m coming, Riley. And thank you, little one.
Dear Maura, you reminded me that I haven't seen my grandson in more than a month, and am in need of a "Theo fix"! They are always growing, changing and surprising us. Thanks! I suspect we would be both awed and appalled by the world they will inhabit, as my almost 101-year-old mother-in-law is awed and appalled by the world she observes.
Lovely, Maura, and what a great idea! A child on every lap. I've never understood how lawmakers could make decisions negatively affecting peoples' lives without having a clear sense of what those decisions might do to them. Maybe humanizing their victims is the answer.
Nothing like adorable grandbabies to make us want to set the world straight. Most of us, anyway. ❤️