lately i've been obsessing over babywearing... i began wearing beatrice very early on and i have a few different carriers, but lately i've been wanting more. i've been spending time on various babywearing boards and have realized that it's a vast and diverse community. and it's a community...there are so many women {and some men} out there, but it's still not very mainstream. unfortunately, the norm is still those very uncomfortable baby bjorns...
and with every community, there is definitely diversity...but many babywearing mamas fall into the crunchy mama realm: natural birth, cloth diapering, babywearing, AP, non-vaxing, co-sleeping, eating organic, respecting the child, gentle parenting, etc. i consider myself very crunchy, i definitely do all of the above, except the non-vaxing {my decision to vax is another, long post...}. i'm pretty on the hippie side and i also fall on the liberal side. my experience of "hippie" coming from the san francisco bay area {haight ashbury, berkeley, etc} has been that hippie or crunchy equals liberal. well not so much in the mama-hood world...
i'm finding that many of the mamas on the boards are pretty conservative socially and quite religious. there is definitely a faction of mormon mamas who are very crunchy. and i have to admit: this is a bit unsettling for me sometimes...it definitely puts me on guard a little bit when i'm posting or on the forums. i find myself using the partner word but avoiding the she pronoun for fear of being judged.
however, i know that by withholding information and assuming that i will be judged, that i'm the one doing the judging...i'm the one judging them and assuming that their views will not be accepting of me. what would that say to my daughter? don't be yourself, for fear of being judged? that's certainly not a message i want to send her. so in order to practice my philosophy of leading by example, i'm working on acceptance on my part...
{photo of me wearing bea at an outfest fundraising event}
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I have noticed the same about the "crunchy" momma set. It kind of caught me off guard. I guess on some level I should have assumed at least a portion of the SAHM/AP/babywearers were super religious, etc, but it never occurred to me. (Not that there's anything wrong with it, but religion is not my thing at all)
I love this post from you. So honest. I don't know how I will be when I'm a mother (the fact that I use the word mother may shed some insight...) but I do know that I am fairly conservative now (more-so fiscally but also socially). And I sometimes hide that fact for fear of judgement in the lgbt community. Funny enough though, I rarely ever (can't think of one time) hide my gayness from conservatives. It is me being me but simultaneously sharing some of their views and ideas that makes me think maybe they will see I am not much different and can impact how they see gays.
As a new mama, and a pretty crunchy one too, all I can say is keep at it. I totally know where you're coming from. I live in the South and have many friends, who I cherish, but are pretty religious and whose views I don't share. But I find many of my generation shares my opinion on LGBT rights and equality. So don't stop being yourself and don't hide who you are. This is your world, we just live in it. :)
Hi, I think I am semi-crunchy. I really do things my own way, and I'm not sure I'll go with all of the crunchy mama things you mentioned. As a LDS woman (mormon) though I can tell you we believe in respecting everyone's right choose, regardless of whether we agree on a personal level with their choice. It seems to me you are a good mom that wants what is best for her child and family!
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