I never thought I’d be the kind of person who’d want a “Baby on Board” sticker for my car, but as I neared the due date for my daughter, suddenly “Baby on Board” seemed like a brilliant idea. I imagined myself out with my newborn, the sticker waving like a flag, letting all my fellow humans know that I was ferrying something precious.
When we drove home from the hospital, I remember feeling like the sticker gave us some sort of immunity, a forcefield of acknowledgement and care that would encourage everyone in our immediate vicinity on the highway to drive 40 mph.
It didn’t take me long, however, to realize that the “Baby on Board” sticker wasn’t there to warn other people to drive safely around us, but a giant “Beware” sign asking people to be gentle with me.
My daughter hated the car. So for a while my partner drove every trip while I sat in the backseat with a battery of toys (crinkle paper was her favorite, second only to a hand puppet we named Mr.Bee).
It wasn’t until I finally drove by myself that I realized the real reason behind Baby on Board signs.
We were headed to the doctor and she was howling in the backseat, her face slowly turning red. I was trying desperately to assuage her by handing back one of the toys she had dropped, when I swerved suddenly into the other lane. I righted myself quickly but I saw the car behind me flashing their brakes. Holy crap. I can’t believe I almost let that happen!
Little did I know, this was just the beginning.
I’m handing my daughter back a book and almost miss that traffic in front of me has slowed to a crawl.
I’m scurrying to get “The Happy Song” to play on the stereo and nearly sideswipe a mailbox.
I contort my arm like an octopus handing back a snack and almost miss an exit.
My daughter is screaming because she can’t get her shoe off and my nerves are so fried I end up speeding through the end of a yellow light.
The Baby on Board sticker isn’t there to alert everyone to the presence of my passenger…
It’s there to tell people who the driver is, and why she needs four whole lanes of gentleness and understanding.
My daughter is now solidly a toddler, moving towards a full-on child. But part of me doesn’t ever want to remove the Baby on Board sticker.
Honestly, I wish I could just keep the sticker, and simply display it across my entire life.
When I go out into the world with my shirt on inside out, my hair a frizzy halo and a smear of berry juice down my front. Baby on board.
When I don’t return my dear friend’s phone call for a day. Then a week. Then months. And I can’t believe we’ve somehow fell out of touch. Baby on board.
When I’m at the end of my rope and the checkout person says the simplest, kindest thing that suddenly makes me want to cry. Baby on board.
I don’t know who originally made the “Baby on board” stickers, or how much they understood of motherhood, but maybe when they screen-printed that first shield they already knew…this bumper sticker isn’t actually about the passenger.
It’s about the mother, us mothers, who need people to see how much we’re carrying.
How we’ve made ourselves into vehicles, our bodies into places where souls travel.
How our nervous systems are now the highways in which an entire new generation learns to regulate, flow.
We need these signs because we need people to know—we are ferrying, very literally, those who will determine which roads we’ll take next in this world.
So be gentle with us when we can’t stay between the lines. Be kind with us when it seems like we’re veering off course.
Help us if we just can’t seem to get ourselves started in the morning.
Give us a wide berth if we’re swerving mad. We’re probably mad for a reason.
But most of all, recognize us out in the world.
See us pouring everything we have, the compressed millenia of maternal care, into our mothering.
Into these vehicles we are creating for our children as we move with high speed through existence.
As we juggle the million things needed to keep us all alive.
As we fly towards the horizon that is our child’s destiny, and our single sacred task.
As we figure out, day after day, how to keep moving forward.
"How our nervous systems are now the highways in which an entire new generation learns to regulate, flow."
This is pure perfection, I feel truly seen in all of this. So grateful to you Asia, as always ♡
Thank you. - mom in the trenches