Technology and motherhood

This post is incidentally not about Tara, but about me.

Motherhood is very different these days from what it used to be. (As my mother and mother-in-law never fail to remind me.)

One major difference is the range of technologies available to us to help make the experience "easier". New age mothers are very lucrative markets and the market knows that. While my position on "markets" is less than complementary I must concede that certain items of technological innovation leave me wanting to really kiss the maker. I would like to proffer my cyber-kiss to the following innovations in particular.

The first is the inventor of that fabulous thing, the breast pump, which sounds like a really torturous thing (and is a thing of great curiosity I noticed for non-mothers, who are quite keen to know if it hurts or not. I usually offer it to them to try, but none have taken up the offer yet.) but to those in the circle of users, it is a great release (pun unintended) from the iron clasp of new motherhood. Now, being a new mother is not easy for independent women. For the first time, someone is completely, unrelentingly, day-and-nightly, TOTALLY dependent on you. Even if the someone is a fuzzy little ball of adorable cuteness, it can get to you. The breast pump allows you to turn into a normal person once in a while, instead of the human lactating machine (or cow, as some will unkindly say as being the correct metaphor) you are socially expected to be. If you work with it, you can even stock up and go off for a weekend escape with friends or the husband, as I did on two occasions. It is a fabulous fabulous invention and allows women to go back to work after three months yet continue 'breast-feeding' their baby. Many good workplaces have maternity rooms, where you can go for 'pump breaks' through the working day if you are still feeding. There are electrical sockets for the machine in private cubicles as well as refrigerators where you can store the expressed milk until its time to go home, for use the next day to be fed to your baby (in your absence) while you are away again at work. That's what I call a gender-sensitive workplace.

The second innovation is the sterilizer. I admit, I did a little growl and bark routine at the husband for buying an expensive one from Singapore. My logic was that it's the same as boiling. And what's so difficult about that? Just put bottles, nipples, whatever in a pot of boiling water and there you have it. Sterilised. The Desi inexpensive way. Don't need an electrical steriliser for that, I pooh-poohed. How I ate my words in the coming months. That Pigeon Sterilizer became our faithful companion for the next few months.

Third is something we never really used more than twice because of some incompatibility with sockets or voltage or something. But I would see how it worked beautifully in other people's homes and the concept was just marvellous. It's the baby monitor - a walky talky kind of thing, a transmitting device with two phones. One is kept near the baby and the other you can take with you wherever you go within a certain distance range. So you have the baby sleeping in the bedroom, and you're out on the terrace with a glass of wine in your hand? No problem. If s/he wakes up and calls for you, you can hear it on your baby monitor. In case you want to keep it on silent mode, go ahead, a green light will blink and tell you if the chickita is up and creating a racket. No need to keep checking on the baby every few minutes, you can enjoy that wine peacefully. Have no fear, the baby monitor is here! (At one English couple's house in fact, we never even saw their baby. They always seemed to enjoy their evenings with only each other for company with their little one snug in bed in her own room, momentarily announcing her presence through the baby monitor on the odd occasion that she would wake up. I often wondered how they did it. Getting the baby to sleep at 7 pm. It's an amazing feat.)

Some other innovations also deserve mention. This special SMS reminder service that our pediatrician got us on that would send us a reminder about Tara's vaccinations that were due. Brilliant. And I can't possibly not mention the two incredible things that are the foundation of Tara's daily life - diapers and wipes. Diapers one can still be less enthusiastic about, but wipes. Ah. There are few crises that match the crisis of running out of wipes with none in stock. (Some of you will know what I mean.) So this one's for the inventors of baby goodies - anonymous inventors of crazy things and brands like Pampers, Pigeon and the hundreds of others that really are making it easier for us. Thank you and keep up the good work!