Yesterday was Julia's first vaccination, and she behaved perfectly. She didn't cry or whine or scream at all aside from being fussy because she was hungry on our way out.
What was more interesting than our tiny, well behaved baby was the behavior of the other kids and parents in the room. Two women sat next to us with their babies strapped to their chests, and when their babies got fussy while waiting for the shot, the mother in each case grabbed their baby, lifted it out of the carrier and gave it one hard shake followed by jiggling. I'm all up for jiggling babies, but the hard shaking bugs me.
Part of the "joys" of having a baby in Japan is having to sit through hours of parenting class at the hospital where the overall message is don't eat western food, you must breastfeed, and don't shake your baby. I'm guessing they weren't paying attention to the end of that.
I try to keep in mind that parenting by comparison is a fool's game. I shouldn't be watching and judging everyone else, even as they do the same to me. The real goal is to be able to see other parents interacting with their kids without any thought other than, "That seems to work for them."
But what do you do when you see something that disturbs you? Since it all happened really quickly, and honestly my Japanese isn't really good enough to do anything like this tactfully, I just tried to look away and keep my distance.
It's not my job to save all the babies. It is my job to keep the one I made as safe and healthy as I can. This brings us to another problem with Japanese cultural norms.
It seems here that even after 2013, pregnant women and mothers are expected to forfeit every part of their pre-motherhood life that didn't involve eating copious fish and rice while breastfeeding constantly and parenting. When I was pregnant and had planned a vacation in the states we were advised not to. This was when it was believed that we had a perfectly normal, average pregnancy. Luckily due to the timing of my three week vacation, they moved up our transvaginal ultrasound and found that my cervix was half the length it was supposed to be. This meant that not only did I have to cancel my trip, I also had to quit my part-time job and surrender to bed rest indefinitely. The following week, we began our cycle of hospitalization and release that would last the rest of the pregnancy.
But in America, if you have a normal, average pregnancy with no complications, we wouldn't expect you to stay grounded indefinitely. And if you chose to take your normal, average 5 month old baby on an overseas vacation, the topic itself would not be as much a big deal as vaccinations and taking care to ensure the baby chews and pops her ears on take off and landing. Here even the topic makes the doctor give you a look of judgment before telling you that traveling with an infant is never advisable, as if I suggested feeding her poison.
It is my assumption, untested as this assumption may be, that the problem here is an archaic mindset. I want to say it's on the part of the doctors, but it's a cultural norm here. An expectation. Once you're a mother, that's basically all you are; the only thing you can be.
To me, daughter of a working mom who herself was a daughter of a working mom, this idea is as foreign as they come. Keeping in mind that my husband doesn't make tons of money, in a few years there won't be much of a choice. I will have to work, whether it's selling my writing or teaching again. We don't make enough to be a single-income household, the way most households were here through the end of the bubble economy.
But it's not just the lack of working options. You're not supposed to fly. People don't get babysitters. You don't have a life. You should be cleaning and taking care of the baby and that is all. No private time. No hobbies. No interests outside of being as perfect a mother/housekeeper/homemaker as you can muster.
I guess, given those assumptions and a lack of alternatives provided here, I can understand why the other women were so frustrated with their crying babies.
But that's still no reason to shake a baby.
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