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from Natural Life Magazine,
September/October 2009
A woman sat down next to me when I began to nurse my son without getting him out of the sling. She said, “Is this how it goes now? You just have everything you need on you. Except for diapers… But, wait, I don’t see any bags with you.” Her eyes got wider when I told her that there was not even a diaper, because as soon as we would leave the subway, I’d take him to the nearest restroom and he knew that. Ultimately, she summed everything up by saying, “So you don’t really need much to have a baby, huh?” Here I was, somebody who used to work at today’s leading diaper-bag company that also specializes in everything that a parent or a baby will ever need, convincing this woman that all any baby needs is love from his parents and his mother’s breasts!
As a pregnant woman spending every day at the office where words like pacifier, diaper bag, bottle, baby wipes, stroller and so forth were being pronounced almost every minute, the least I can say is that I got overwhelmed. The information was coming at me in every direction, from work, family, friends, media and the street even, because there was a huge baby department store on my way from work. I couldn’t help wanting to go into this heaven of things that I and my baby should have. The key word is wanting. All these companies are convincing us future parents that we should want these things for our children, by implanting it into our minds that our children need them. Nowadays nobody can even imagine a baby without a diaper on – disposable or cloth – therefore the baby will need wipes, some . . . To read the rest of this article, subscribe to Natural Life's digital edition, which includes access to this and other back issues. Natalia Prokopenko was born and raised in Ukraine before immigrating to New York, USA in 1995. She received her degree in International Business from Barnard College, CUNY and worked as a model and marketing associate in the baby products industry before discovering her passion for mothering in 2007, when she gave birth to her son Najib. Natalia currently lives with her family in Princeton, NJ and is expecting to homebirth her second child any day now. |
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Taking the New York subway is always an interesting experience,
especially if you have a four-and-a-half-month old baby wrapped in a sling. By
this point, I was used to catching everyone’s attention: My son was quietly
sitting in a sling, curiously studying his surroundings, leaning his head on my
chest every now and then. It was September, still extremely hot and humid in New
York. Najib had his shoulders open, without a top on and, to be honest, without
any bottoms on either. Here in the U.S., it is called Elimination Communication
and, back in Ukraine, where I’m from, there is no name for it. This is simply
what we all do, or at least what our mothers used to do. 
