Did you know that they’re older than money? Yes, older than currency. Back to the days of bartering. Something to think about when you’re forking over fifty to one hundred hard-earned dollars for a baby carrier that promises you bonding, soothing, and multitasking all in one. A relatively recent phenomenon in the West, where women’s roles evolved from either rearing children at home or leaving children in the care of another to go to work, crafting baby carriers out of spare swaths of hand-woven cloth started as a practice among mothers in agrarian (read pre-industrial) civilizations in Asia, Africa, and among the peoples indigenous to North America.
To help you find a baby carrier that becomes your dependable stand-by instead of a dusty relic, it is important to understand the origins and history of baby carriers, how they have evolved, become specialized, and, even in some cases, lost their original charm.
Mother Nature: Agrarian Momstyle
In every ancient civilization the world over, mothers tended their children and their crops. Baby wearing was not a choice. Rudimentary fabrication skills and steep terrain (think Tibet, Vietnam, the Andes) delayed the invention of babies-on-wheels by several centuries. With little but herbal remedies and ancient rituals to protect newborns from high infant mortality rates, being next to mom was the best way for a child to survive and thrive.
In short, why did women wear their infants? Every child breastfed. What choice was there? In fact, it was common in most villages to breastfeed another’s child, if the mother could not provide milk.
Agrarian life required constant attention to every element of survival (drinking water, growing and preparing food, rearing children, constructing shelter, caring for the aged).
Before being able to walk, the infant would know nothing of play. He only knew the closeness of his mother’s breast, her breathing, her movements, as he clung to her, swaddled in the outer layers of her wrapped clothing. Here he stayed virtually 90% of the time, in both waking and sleeping states.
For Bonding’s Sake?
Interestingly, bonding was the last thing on a mother’s mind. There was no child care. No formula. No one to delegate the planting and harvesting to. In short, there was no choice for a mother but to wear her baby. Yet across the centuries, it’s a certainty that mothers back then loved their babies as do mothers, now. With none of the accessories and rituals of modern love, the all-day closeness of her loving child provided that sense of joy in the parent-child bond that we easily recognize in ourselves when we become parents.
Middle Ages, Feudal Stages
As an English teacher, I can tell you that when the silly Nurse, in Shakespeare’s classic tale of love and woe, says that Juliet is “the prettiest babe that ere I nursed withal,” she means it. In fourteenth century Europe, when the feudal system thoroughly segregated people by birth, nurse maids were female servants with children of their own who also nursed the infants of the lady, duchess, or queen. At this stage, sling-like carriers were still the norm, but were used less due the multitude of servants and the ease of specializing their tasks. In other words, the nurse was the stand-in mom and nothing else.
In the Americas…
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, pre-invasion North America was an unconquered pastoral, a patchwork of cultures and tribes that followed the weather and the buffalo. Some carriers were woven wool, the blankets used by everyone, but wrapped around mother with baby in the back.
The term ‘papoose’ (also known as a cradleboard) refers to a more structured baby carrier. They are made of a bone or wood frame, with a sewn leather or woven basket pouch. Some of these papooses (the word is Algonquin in origin), were ornately decorated with carved designs and turquoise ornaments.
Impressive handmade carriers, the Native American pre-cursor to the modern baby carrier, has the best of what was to come: the warmth and structure for an outdoors life and the flare and style indicative of its wearer’s culture. Some even had sunshades and other accessories.
1830s-1950s: More Work, Less Wear
From industrialization in Europe and the Americas up to the 1950s, baby carriers became something of a scarlet letter. Mothers in the laboring class took jobs where their infants couldn’t come along. Mothers in the leisure-class frowned upon anything messy, including close proximity to their own little mess-makers.
With infant mortality rates still high, in hindsight, it was the older children who took care of infants while the mother worked. Until, of course, those older children could earn twenty cents an hour for twelve hours a day. Child and labor: two words that should only be put together when talking about a birth!
The 1960s-Present: The Equal Right to Wear
It makes sense, then, that the 1960s, with its surge of civil rights, social justice, and egalitarian mind-set, that baby carrying experienced a renaissance. The swaths of fabric were still the choice, tied (and tie-dyed) in sling, back, and front positions. Breastfeeding was also back in and completing the pattern, babywearing was part of a more relaxed lifestyle that spread during this and the subsequent decade.
Most long-standing companies like Babybjorn
These wraps and slings are as old as the agrarian mother who simply slipped her baby into a pocket fold of her dress. Simple design. Hand woven and organic materials. Ease of breastfeeding. Maximum closeness.
Not much has changed. Except for one major fact. Dads. 48% of men report wearing their infants. Even though they don’t wear them nearly as often as mothers, this represents a shift of continental proportions.
In households where both parents work, both become babywearers as a way of bonding while still getting out during precious weekend hours. If one works, the one who stays home is increasingly likely to be as dad. Finally, trends show flexible scheduling, telecommuting, and freelancing from home as lifestyle changes that have men wearing the baby.
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