Carseats, Fake Meats: All Related?

I came across today this interesting blog post today, which discusses the current trend toward carrying babies everywhere in their carseats--which I have noticed and commented on, and which, to my (granted, uninitiated) mind, seems like it would be much heavier and more cumbersome than just carrying the baby. (As the author points out, carseats in cars save babies' lives; out in the rest of the world, they may just result in a disconnected, fussy baby.) By the time they're too big to carry, they're probably close to getting big enough for--not strollers, which also seem to be overused, but how about walking? (I think my parents must have understood this, since from the time I could walk they actually got comments about the definition in my calves. Seriously. They are bizarrely overdeveloped calves.)

It's interesting because I think some of this probably starts in the hospital. In every maternity ward I've ever worked in (grand total now=4), nobody (not parents, nurses, anybody) is ever allowed to carry the babies in the hallway. We tell the parents that this serves the twofold purpose of a) keeping them from dropping the baby and b) helping us distinguish the parents from abductors. I think what it more likely does is serve the twofold purpose of alerting the parents that a) we don't trust you, the parents, to carry your baby safely--and if you can't do it here, with hallways wide and clear enough to drive a truck through per the fire code, how will you ever do it at home where there are stairs and toys and pets and other children underfoot? and b) you can't trust us, the hospital, to be a safe place for a baby. Think about that. The end result is that the first few days of the baby's life, the parents get set in a pattern of thinking that the baby is "safe" in a crib/carseat/carrier, and after that point, the habit has been formed and it might not even occur to them to do anything differently.

I think it's sad because it's part of a whole cultural shift it seems like we've made toward thinking that we can replace natural processes with "better" ones. Birth with Cesarean. Spontaneous labor with induced. Carrying a baby in our arms to carrying him in a plastic "bucket." Typically, it seems like when these interventions are applied across the board as opposed to strictly when needed, later research comes out against it.

Matt and I have especially noticed the trend with food, hence our fascination with foods like kefir, which we can make ourselves and which actually cultivates rather than eradicates a host of organisms and bacteria. It's one reason that, though we eat a primarily vegetarian diet, we really don't eat meat substitutes. When I was younger (middle and high school) and not much of a cook, I consumed my share of Chik Nuggets (a soy substitute for Chicken Mc) because I felt like they were healthier and more ethical than the alternative. Being that these were my main rationales for vegetarianism at the time, my goal was probably achieved. Now, Matt and I both have more of an interest in eating foods that are close to their natural form, with a minimum of additives and processing. To that end, we'd probably consider raising and killing chickens someday before we'd get in the habit of spending money on fake nuggets or soy sausages again. To that end, we also eat a decent amount of butter and I've swapped back to sugar rather than the expensive, who-knows-what's-in-it-but-we-can-eat-all-we-want-because-it's-calorie-free Splenda. We enjoy the foods in our diet for what they are, not for what they aren't. Similarly, if someone we love cooks us meat, we generally eat it happily, appreciative of the meal and the cook.

Please don't think that we think that we have all the answers. We certainly don't--not even close. But we are committed to thinking about the questions.