What We Grannies Didn’t Have When Our Own Kids Were Babies

By Sally Wendkos Olds

When I see the young moms in my neighborhood walking their babies in double strollers, I think how I would have loved one of those to go out with my two-year-old and infant. When I see the clear plastic rain covers on strollers I think how great that would have been when I had to take my baby along when I walked my older daughter to nursery school. And this just skims the mommy surface. Here are a few other things we didn’t have:

Disposable diapers. Disposables had just come on the scene for my youngest baby and I saved them for special occasions, like traveling to visit her grandparents.

Convertible seats. I love those seats that go seamlessly from stroller to car to home, and how they save all that buckling and unbuckling, squashing little arms and legs in those straps, every time you need to change the baby’s venue.

The Internet. And all the services it can offer – from online ordering of groceries, diapers, pet food, and other necessities we didn’t have time to go out and buy (but somehow we found the time — usually).

E-readers. And how much easier it can be with them to read while breastfeeding, so you don’t have to use both hands to hold the book and turn pages.

Workout videos. So in the privacy of your own home you can snatch a few minutes at a time to shed those post-partum pounds.

Instagram and Picasa. So you can share photos of your DBB or DBG with the grandparents without having to schlep to the store to get prints made.

Skype and FaceTime. So you can let your parents meet your babies – and “babysit” virtually with your bigger kids while you tend to the baby.

Cell phones, of course, with all their convenience as described in The New York Times.

But what we did have, which modern moms have too, were breasts – so we could give our babies the best start in life by breastfeeding them, as the most modern moms can still do today, thanks to help from lactation consultants and, of course, books!

Sally Wendkos Olds is an award-winning journalist, author, and speaker with 11 books to her credit as well as more than 200 articles published in major magazines including Woman’s Day, Redbook, Working Woman, Ms., New York Times Magazine, Newsday Magazine, New Woman, Self, Good Housekeeping, Parents’, Reader’s Digest, Family Health, and Seventeen, among others. Her travel articles have appeared in The New York Times and other major newspapers, and her work has been reprinted in many textbooks and anthologies. Please visit http://sallywendkosolds.com/.