Who should feel guilty about empty baby books?

Hey mama!

I own three baby books. One for each of my kids. You know, pretty books full of blank pages, spaces for baby’s first footprint, and writing prompts like “We will always remember this day.” Predictably, I did more for the first kid’s baby book than the second or third’s. When I consider all of the “firsts” I’ve failed to record in each of these baby books, I feel an instant pit of anxiety/guilt/disappointment/regret in my gut.

THIS IS BULLSHIT.

It is not my “natural” job to be the sole chronicler of baby milestones, and in a perfect world, marketing campaigns like this one wouldn’t feel so insidiously effective!

Kept

Kept on Instagram: ”⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - “I WISH my parents had this journal when I was growing up.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - “My daughter is 18 months - we had a different journal for her when she was born, and we never stuck to it, this format is 10000000% better!” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - “This is such a timeless and simple way to keep track of memories!”″

May 1, 2023

This book is sold as the antidote to the overwhelming baby books of the past. The about page reads as follows:

The idea for Kept began years ago when I was looking for a simple way to record the most meaningful memories and events from our son's life (and now our two other kids as well!). I wanted something that was both beautifully designed but also not overwhelming to fill out. I ordered book after book but in spite of my best intentions, I found myself giving up after a few pages.

But like - here’s a sample page.

I’m instantly stressed as I rack my brain to come up with something whimsical and suitably noteworthy to enter as an “adventure.” Does the grocery store count? What about being dragged to siblings’ sports events? Does preschool drop-off count? OBVIOUSLY I have done “cute shit” with my kids, but faced with these pages, I can’t remember a single cute thing and feel a curious mix of feelings about the pressure to not only provide children with “adventures” but to also record those adventures for posterity; to translate my memories into something adequately precious.

As is widely understood, MOMS ARE BURNT THE FUCK OUT and, as

Pooja Lakshmin MD

wrote in her book, Real Self-Care, “systematically abandoned.” Adventures and adventure recording feel like a big ask on top of everything else.

Memory keeping is a care task, and one I think is beautiful and valuable. But it (like many, many care tasks) is also gendered as fuck. I know for a fact that my husband has never lost a moment of sleep over our kids’ empty baby books. I know for a fact that he did not see a single ad this month (the month o’ dads) utilizing his paternal guilt over not keeping up with baby books in order to sell . . . A BABY BOOK.

I adore the commenter on this ad who wrote the following:

ad edit suggestion: for parents. is it just mom’s job to do the baby book? maybe dads can do it too?

And I call bullshit on the response from the brand:

absolutely. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. That is our usual copy with the word parents. We switched it for a little bit before Mother’s Day, and forgot to change it back. Thanks again 🤍

Their choice to target mothers (not PARENTS) was not in an effort to “switch it for a little bit.” They directly called out to “moms” because moms are their target demographic. Check out a screen shot of their grid. I don’t see parents, I see mamas.

In interviews to promote Momfluenced, I frequently talked about the visual power of archetypal motherhood as opposed to the action of mothering, something much less easily communicated through static imagery. This baby book ad campaign does what so many baby clothes, pacifier, formula, stroller, crib, and home goods brands do: it taps into a collective understanding that babyhood and childhood are a mother’s provenance. When we imagine recording tender memories of baby’s first word, we simultaneously imagine a femme mother recording these memories ensconced in a soft, domestic scene. We imagine her smiling fondly, seemingly unbothered by the laundry that isn’t getting folded, the lunches that aren’t being packed, the external employment not being attended to, or hell, the culty podcast she wants to listen to remaining unheard. She loves filling out her baby book and she is calm because she can do it all because she’s a good mom because she loves doing it all.

And this image of a mother loving the recording of baby’s milestones feels right to us in a way that a father in a similar scene just—doesn’t. And this has absolutely nothing to with maternal instinct (which is a myth!) or ideal motherhood (another myth!) and everything to do with the gendering of care tasks. When a care task is seen as a woman’s “natural” task, why would we provide systemic support for that labor? Why would we pay her? Why should she expect cultural respect for it? I’m not arguing that the filling out of baby books should be a salaried position, but I am highlighting the fact that the filling out of baby books is labor! Ad campaigns like this don’t frame it as labor, though. They frame it as a labor of love. And if you don’t love doing that labor? I guess that means there’s something wrong with you, not the expectation that mothers (not parents) should continue to shoulder a disproportionate amount of domestic labor, childcare, and [optional] care tasks like adventure-making-and-recording. And smile smile smile smile smile as they do the “most important [unpaid] job in the world.”