Babies against capitalism

Those cute little radicals

I’m currently planning a “Frozen 4th” party for my little one’s birthday. Yes, my baby will soon be four years old, and like the basic baby she is, she loves herself some Anna & Elsa.

This being my fourth full winter of parenting, I’ve started to notice a pattern in parenthood. One I’ve discussed in other times of the year, but which emerges with especially ❄️ice-crystal clarity❄️ around this time of year:

1. I have plans, goals, and carefully structured to-do lists

2. Disasters, either natural or viral, and sometimes both, strike

3. I go from Productive mode to Maintenance mode

4. The frustration of losing my illusory sense of control is agonizing!

5. I decry the personal costs, but ultimately am forced to mutter to myself the old balm: We are more important than our productivity… we are more than our productivity…

This month it has been my kid getting sick with RSV, leading to my getting sick with RSV, then, wildfires devastating my beloved Los Angeles, and the inauguration of a (autocratic? oligarchic? fascist? pick your adjective) politician.

Same old, same old!

Frankly, our household probably had it easy: just down the street, our neighbors have been getting hit with Flu A, RSV, norovirus, and broken bones.

At least this year I remembered, ahead of time, that January sucks. (I believe this is what they call Personal Growth.)

January Januaries.

January is deep winter.

January is for wintering.

January is not for doing.

And that’s why I say January—plus February and most of March—is not for capitalism.

You know what else really just grinds against the gears of capitalism? BABIES.

Who, me? Photo by Nihal Karkala on Unsplash

Babies super-duper hate capitalism. They acquire no value, further no accumulation, accrue no interest, and own no means of production.

If anything, babies are always doing their chubby-cheeked darnedest to tear the whole capitalist system down.

Hold me! they cry. Love me! they coo. Never put me down—just play peekaboo! they suggest, waving their slobbery fists.

Just plotting to subvert the dominant paradigm. Photo by Minnie Zhou on Unsplash

Sometimes it feels like they’re exploiting your labor, but that’s your own paranoia and projection. Babies wish they could exploit you, but they have no guile. The screaming and crying is just about meeting their basic survival needs. It’s naked, transparent.

Soon enough those babies will take their first steps and learn their first words, each new skill and ability bringing them one step closer to entering the arena of capitalism. And once in, how often are you able to leave?

But I stepped outside of capitalism when my baby was born.

Maternity leave—or in my case, simple unemployment at the time of giving birth—is a period of intense physical and emotional and mental labor. And yet … what product do these labors create? What value do they accrue? (Let’s leave aside arguments about creating the next generation of workers, because with an 18-21 year timeline to vest, it’s hardly the kind of R.O.I. that shareholders crave.)

Dissatisfied with Q3 returns. Photo by Lydia Winters on Unsplash

Caregiving is circular and repetitive work. You rarely experience progress. You feed and bathe and dress the baby today, and tomorrow, you’ve got to do that whole routine over again from zero. After years of linear projects, with annual goals and quarterly milestones and performance reviews and Key Performance Indicators, it can feel weird AF to be, in spite of all the exertions, standing still, going nowhere, and noticed or valued by (almost) nobody. The world chugging forward without you. The show did indeed go on!

Your stakeholders are now a baby—inconsistent at giving clear feedback—maybe a spouse or other family members, who may or may not even understand the highly technical nature of your work. Really, the validation and recognition of other mothers at Story Time, or La Leche League, or Little Gym, is the closest you get, if you get it, to a promotion or even a congratulations.

After a lifetime of climbing and progress and graduating and promoting and achieving and earning … it’s a little hard to be left out of the action. Who even are you if you’re outside of the arena? I’ll tell you who you are: A concession vendor standing in the shade beneath those grand stone arches, watching the traffic go by and listening to the ocean of cheering within.

For me, it was a good ego check. Intellectually I knew that we’re supposed to value ourselves and one another for who we are and not what we produce, but a lifetime of social conditioning to the contrary will really do a number on ya.

That conditioning completely ignores a truth that, ironically, was at the foundation of the last wage-earning job I had before motherhood:

Care work is the work that makes all other work (whether under capitalism or on a kibbutz) possible.

‘Mkay, your turn: Have you stepped or fallen out of capitalism? Retired? Taken disability leave? Joined an off-the-grid commune? Left a job to take on caregiving? Switched from wage-earning to subsistence farming? How’d you like it?