Babushkas

Tallinn, ESTONIA

Pushing Dylan in his stroller one day, we’d come up behind two elderly women walking ever so slowly.

With seven bags of groceries, a backpack and stroller, I could have overtaken them. I could have stopped and probably still managed to pass them, but I hadn’t wanted to attract their attention. These were two European mothers of mothers of mothers.
This generation of people seem generally to exist to ensure that society’s youth are covered to their eyeballs in warm clothing. It’s got nothing to do with the weather. As my baby had been able to squirm about freely in his bassinet, it was a certainty that any woman over fifty would have found him severely under-clothed. We crossed to the other side of the street.

While I didn’t know what was expected of me as a mother in Estonia, I’d have bet then and would bet now that grandmothers the world over are disapproving of any mothering that takes place without the benefit of their advice. There is something especially intimidating about Eastern European grandmothers, though, and maybe it’s got to do with the fact that they have generally raised enough kids to form a soccer team, in turbulent times, harsh conditions and without the Teletubbies. When one of these formidable matrons tells you to give your teething banshee a shot of brandy, it’s not because she just Googled “teething” on the internet.

At the same time, like our mothers’ mothers, we must rely to a certain degree on our own instinct. We’re encouraged to do so by parenting gurus like Dr. Sears and our pediatricians. If the weather requires that I dress myself like the Michelin Man, then I’d do the same for my baby. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem necessary to insulate him so totally from the fresh air I’ve brought him out to enjoy. To be fair, though, these ladies knit sweaters by the dozen. I guess it makes sense that they want someone to wear them.

As I write this column and reflect on cultural differences of parenting, in fact, I find very little that contrasts philosophically with the American approach. Maybe that’s because Americans are essentially European way back when. But I’ve now lived in several countries besides my own and it seems that Europeans and also first generation Americans advocate that the children should be, at all times, hotter than the sun.  

A pleasant, sweet-smelling breeze in their context of child rearing is considered a deathly ‘draft’ and under no circumstances should a baby be placed in its path. In Europe, seasons of the year are closely adhered to: from September to June, you wear every component of cold weather gear: hat, scarf, mittens and boots – even if it’s sunny and 18 outside. On the other hand, Americans dress their pets in jackets – something I’m sure causes Europeans (the people and their dogs) to shake with laughter.

Out and about with Dylan, we didn’t always have to detour around the watchful eyes of grandmotherly types. In grocery stores and shopping malls, they’d all stop to admire my chubby little guy of 10.5 kilos. “Niiii suuuur” they’d coo, which I’ve since been told is the polite way of saying “My, but he’s fat!” These encounters are reassuring, because in Europe, big, cheeky babies are admired; it’s a sign of good health. Or maybe the thought is that the extra fat will keep them warm.

I realized, that soon he’d be walking and, outside of the protective cover of the stroller, my mothering skills would be completely exposed. Would a light jacket be enough? Should he be wearing a hat as well? It’s July…. Or would I be frowned at because he wasn’t wearing one of those strange little cloth helmets they always sell in European baby shops. I never knew, are they meant to protect the head? Or, is it a halfway hat – something that grandma can be satisfied with in the summer months when a wool cap would seem silly.

In any case, after run-ins like these, I’d think the grandmothers of America had lost their touch. Or maybe I didn’t worry when I visited the US from Estonia because I had a mother and a mother-in-law to tell me Dylan needed another blanket.

But mostly, nobody walks up to you on the streets of Chicago to tell you that one of your baby’s ears is exposed. That the direction of your stroller is permitting the breeze to blow in. Waiting to cross the street, they don’t sidle up to you and your baby to say “It’s cold,” which, I believe in Estonian is short for “don’t you think your baby should be wearing another hat?”

I wonder if the American parenting community could use a few stern European matrons to whip us into shape. A roving fleet of big bosomed, purse-lipped grandmas – the kind they don’t make anymore – and that you rarely see in the US where everyone is busy trying to be young.

They’d patrol the streets for haphazard parenting; to explain to oblivious young moms the hundreds of ways a baby might catch cold; to make sure nobody swims within an hour of eating; to encourage us all to eat enough fiber, and above all to ‘come indoors, you’ll catch your death of cold!’