June 25, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode, we're looking at some of the weird and wildly misguided ideas from the history of childbirth and parenting, like a spinning birthing bed inspired by elephants (yes, really) and baby cages that hung out of apartment windows in 1930s New York... These days we have apps, alarms, and a whole lot of anxiety. Are we really any better off?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is for general information only and should not
be taken as psychological advice. Listeners should consult with their
healthcare professionals for specific medical advice. Hello. I'm Amanda Kella
(00:27):
and I'm Anita McGregor.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
And welcome to Double A Chattery. Hey guys, how are
you talking to?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Thank you. We've made our cups of tea, made our beds,
now we lie in them. Mm hmm, Well I'm taking
over today. Please, I'm thrilled. Okay, let me tell you
where my mind has gone. So I was I sort
just wandering away that little thing. So a couple of
weeks ago, my husband, I, myself, my kids, everybody like,
(00:58):
we were all on a big FaceTime call and just
chatting away. And I have no idea how it came up,
but my son Ben started talking about weird We were
talking about weird child bearing practices, and he sent an
image of this centrifugal. Is that the word centrifugal centrifuge
(01:22):
centrifuge for childbirth the birth, Yes, And what it was
was a birthing bed that was set up on a
spinning bottom of the of the bed and that the
woman in who's giving birth would start spinning, and so
(01:44):
she would have her legs a kimbo, and that there
would there was like a catcher's mint as.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
And they'd spin the baby out, and that the idea
was so it was this couple, this childless couple, not surprisingly,
who'd been in Africa, and that they had seen elephants
in labor and that the elephants were spinning, and that
the couple had had the conversation that maybe that this
was a process where they were creating this centrifuge in
(02:16):
order to help give birth, and so they designed this
birthing bed in the early nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Amanda and I thought there was going to be the
twenties or something, I don't know. In the sixties, although
they only got to the prototype, it was never actually used.
I do not believe that I know it's really all
of that.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
If ever, I see anyone training for space, you see
them going to those centric speeches, I think I would
just spew the whole way, As if giving birth isn't
bad enough, to be motion sick at the same time
would be horrendous. Remember once when I was at the
Midday Show, I was a segment producer and we had
some women on who had I think they were doing
the Lamas that were educating other women about the Lamars
(03:00):
birth method.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Was that underwater what was Lamar's, But it was.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
A changing face of women taking some power back in
the birthing suite and a breathing technique and rather than
you being the victim of how you feel, is trying
to control it slightly?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Maybe so.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
But there's a group of women in the green room
who are older women I think, is my memory serves
me correctly, who'd just done their HSC. So they were
older students, women in their fifties say, And so they
were watching on the screen these other women talking about
giving birth.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And they're all going, oh, no, it's private. I just
want to do that privately because you make all those
terrible noises, and you just think the length and breadth
of how we've approached women giving birth is either spin
them around and get that baby out, have a whole
group of people watching and making a community experience. But
the women of that age group, the older women, it's
(03:50):
a private thing that you do quietly because it's animal
and it's embarrassing. Well, you know, half the time they
were just completely knock you out for it. That's right.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Be happy for that, because it is something so primal
and unmasking that for many women, they wouldn't they wouldn't
want that side of themselves seen. They didn't want their
partners to see that.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
No, although I do remember being in some point in
libor and thinking I wouldn't have curred if the janitor camen,
and you know you just kind of I felt like
I just lost sense surprivors.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And that's the thing that an animal part of you
takes over, whether you like it or not. But a
lot of people wouldn't feel comfortable anyone seeing that.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Did you go through like pre needle classes and classes
we did.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
We had private ones for some reason because as a
woman who would go around all the houses in the
community if you wanted, if you didn't want to go
to those big classes, and a lot of women chose
that because they knew their husbands would be the one
asking the dumb questions. So I'm going to take my
husband out of that scenario. I won't have this at home.
I remember them just drawing on a big some butcher's paper.
(04:55):
Here's where you went to the third phase, and this
is where this happens and your brain can take in that,
but it's not until you're actually going through it that
And I don't have any memory of how I felt
connecting to what I thought the process was.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
I had, like I seem I did all the training.
It was in a group, it was And I remember
going into labor and Emmett at one point looking at
me and going breathe, and I went like, I think
my response to him was something like funk off. It
was just shut shut up. It was not pleasant, it
(05:29):
was you know, it was like there was no connection
for me about like I'm going to have to breathe
through this, and.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I know it's not a love you know, it's not
you look at your husband and filled with love. It's
just why didn't everyone just peece off? Yeah, So the
centrifuge obviously still a prototypes out there if one's interested
(06:00):
in taking that further. What are some of the other
things you've found about the old ways we used to
do it?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Well? You know, so I went from the centrifuge to
thinking about the jolly Jumper, which is, you know, are
both of our boys just loved the jolly jumper.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
And the jolly Jumper we had them here too. It's
where it's a big piece of spring, a giant spring
you attached to a door frame, and the kid sits
in it and bounces up and down.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah before they can walk is yeah, before they can walk.
And it's just a way of apparently the idea was
that it was like, you know, exercising the kids and
it would strengthen their their legs and all that kind
of stuff. We just found it just you know, the
kids just loved being in It just gives you a break. Yeah,
and you know, especially when they're scooting all over the place,
when they're crawling. It was yeah, anyway, So so apparently
(06:49):
you can still get them, but they've just kind of
gone out of out of favor. Yeah. Yeah, I don't
think that that they are as certainly not as common
they were pretty and when our kids were little.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Was it fear that the contraption would come down? Was
it a safety thing and springs and all of that.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I have no idea, like it could be that, you know,
it was felt like it didn't encourage proper growth or
oh god, it's interesting, isn't it that all?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Like remember the early flash cards, Babies were given flash
cards with pictures of a hip a campus on it
and things like that. Every child, pretty much, unless there
are some developmental issues, will reach those benchmarks at the
same time, whether you are giving them flash cards, whether
you're letting them jump up and down in a jolly jumper.
I saw something in here in the notes that Anita
(07:37):
you've gleaned. So after the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped in
the nineteen thirties, they had a thing called the black
light that would guard your baby. So it was a
foil to would be kidnappers. A baby's crib was guarded
by rays of in visible light, and this was seen
on display some big Chicago expo. But it was a
(08:00):
lamp producing a black light and its rays focused upon
the sensitive electric eye by the baby.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Blah blah blah. The baby's lifted out of bell rings.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
But there's such mechanisms and there's a whole lot of
contraption that's underneath the mattress. So eventually parents thought, you know,
I'm not comfortable with that much machinery hidden under my baby.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
There was another thing that they did in the nineteen
thirties which is alarming. They used to again to prevent
kidnapping of babies in hospitals. They used to brand them
with UV lights, so basically sun burned their little skin
with some kind of marking to go and say this
is you know, baby John or whatever, so that it,
(08:40):
you know, instead of having just one of those little
hospital bracelets, let's just sunburn our child. They like a brand.
Did you say it's like a brand? Yeah, it's it's.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Kind of hard to it was the thing you were
telling me about the cage.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So well, there's several of them, Aman. One is where
this was popular. I gather in New York where they
have pictures of these cages that sit outside a window,
so that that that you would that your child, you'd
put the child into this cage out your apartment window
(09:20):
so that they could get some fresh air.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
You'd hang them in a cage outside your apartment.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah. The other the other option was when you were
flying somewhere, Amanda, is that you could put them in
a little kind of a tube and when they were awake,
you could have the the the it kind of opened,
but when they were sleeping you could close. There was
air holes, but you could close it up, Amanda, and
have your child flying in comfort in a little tube that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
You'd put over your head or something in a like
a luggage compartment.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I know, yeah, just attached to the wing, get some
fresh air. Why don't you a lot of I think
it was just kind of attouched to your seat. It
looked like because the image of that cage.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
You know, I've seen I've seen movies about medieval torches
and things they do that to people as a torture.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, yeah, so it just it was just you know,
some alarming things there was. Again in the thirties, there
was like not just the fear of kidnapping, but I
would assume like post World War One, where there was gas,
you know, mustard gas and that kind of used that
you had a little baby gas mask where they were developed.
(10:37):
And then the the the upgrade that came at the
late thirties had a little viewing window so that you know,
the baby could watch the apocalypse with this. You don't
have to black out their eyes.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Well happening you want to see see if that would
have been useful, I mean, how awful that that was needed?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Well, I mean yeah, I mean I can see where
you know, men have terrible gous maybe, but like that
you might use it in that we might all need it.
I wonder if these were companies solving a real problem
or companies like we have today that is leaning into
people parents' fears. A lot of them, I mean a
(11:18):
lot of them were things that would tether your child to,
you know, like in the bath, so that the child
couldn't drown, although you couldn't actually wash them either, but
you know, apparently that might have been a you know,
a sign you know, from what was making sure that
they were safe, I suppose, but we all did our
versions of that. I think I might have spoken about this.
(11:40):
When Lim was born, we had one of those pads
that was underneath the mattress, not like the one in
Chicago where there was like a car battery underneath. But
if he stopped breathing, an alarm would go off. And
that's the only thing that stopped me going in every
ten seconds to put a mirror under his nose to
see if he was breathing. Well, they have the little
ones now that you just attach it to the little
(12:02):
baby's ankle and it will alert you, you know, if
there's a temperature change or change in breathing or heart
rate or those kinds of things. Shift in barometric pressure.
It's almost like a smartwash that the kid is wearing.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
See, the hard thing is as a parent, if you
know that something like that's available and you're not using it,
it plays into am I, am I good enough?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Am I doing all I can to protect my child? Well?
I was watching as my son and his wife were,
you know, doing the purchases of the monitors and this
and that. Like when my kids were small, we had
like the baby monitors. It was just audio though, and
you can just usually what it does.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
It picks up the dad flirting with the babysitter, obviously,
and you have to put an ankle around your husband.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
That's right, that's right. But it was you know that
that you could just hear that the baby. But now
these these monitors are audio and you can speak to
your and you know, it's just it's amazing, and you
know it's you can see them and you can record them,
and you can do all these things now.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
But part of that is also as citizen, and we
talk about this a lot, that we're not designed to
see the trauma of the world. It used to be
our small village and that was it. So when Madeline
McCann goes missing, every parent suddenly has this terrible fear
that you will be a bad parent and the worst
thing will happen if you leave your child sleeping in
(13:30):
a bed and you're not there. So this didn't happen
to somebody, you know, but we know about the story
and it's ignited everybody's fear.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I mean that iconic Australian the dingo eat may Bee.
I can't see it with the accent, not even try,
nor should you, But it was that that whole idea.
I mean, how terrifying it would just it would just
implant fear and.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Once again the parental guilt that you left your baby
unattend even though you were standing outside a tent. Yeah,
it makes it exhausting to be a parent. But we're
filled with guilt over things that may have happened in
other countries that we really let's look at the statistics.
It's not likely to happen, no, but we're shamed by it.
(14:18):
We all feel we need to be better.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
And it plays like every time you hear about anything,
it just plays into those fears. Yeah. Yeah, so you know,
I'm looking what's your favorite technique? What have you got?
I'm just trying to think. I think that any of
them really are this blend of a little crazy. So
like some of the bike seat things that they had,
(14:42):
like in the nineteen twenties and stuff were nuts just
completely unsafe, like had you know, they were mounted to
the handlebars of a bicycle, but probably not in a
very safe way. And I've got to say that. I mean,
just this past weekend, our little logan has has started
writing on one of the you know these things, and
(15:04):
it's the contraptions and the safety and the you know,
it's it's amazing. So I'm you know, it's not that
it doesn't happen now, but.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
It's it's no longer just like et and put something
in a basket.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah yeah, and af you go. It's it is so
much safer now. But you can you will probably come
across grandparents and say, don't bother.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Don't bother with that. I didn't bother with that. I
used to put you in a basket. Hang outside the apartment.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
We never had seat belts. Why we are you know,
why should you? And you know I think about I
smoked in your face. No, absolutely in the winter. I
still remember being in the car in the winter and
somebody was smoking a cigar and my dad was driving.
There was something in the front seat drive, you know,
and it was probably minus nine thousand outside, so we
weren't going to go and roll the windows down. And
(15:52):
it was like, oh my god, this is you know.
We were all crying.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
But that's I get cassick because I think I sat
in the middle. My grandmother was on one side, my
brother was on the other, my parents in the front.
My grandmother was smoke as we dried and it was
long car trips. Once again, my eyes streaming filled with nausea.
You know when you go up to an airport and
people allowed to smoke outside. Now I just smell that
and I feel instantly nauseous.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Really, so who did you choose to spew on everyone?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I didn't go anywhere in the car unless I had
an empty ice cream container on my lap, and it'd
be emptied when we started to be up to the
plimsoul line before we got to gossip. No contraption's going
to get you around that. Actually, do you remember the
strips that used to hang off the back of the car.
It used to be like a leather strip, and I
(16:44):
think it was supposed to take the static out of
your car. And it was supposed to stop car sickness.
Oh really, yeah, you never had that.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
We did not have that. I don't know if it
ever worked because everyone's still spewed, but that would indicate
that it did not work.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
The second car you saw had this strip hanging down,
but from the back of the car that would dangle
onto the road.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Sounds weird.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
It would hit the road, and that's how it diffused
the static.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I want to I want to see, well, how does
static mean? What does static have to do? I don't know.
It's time to do some googling. Go about your business
while I have a quick google for a moment, I know,
and I need some tea, So Anita. In the blink
(17:34):
of an eye, I've been able to google this. Look
at you.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I googled here what does an anti static strap do
to the car? It's believed that while in motion, the
friction of air molecules against the body of a vehicle
creates a build up of a certain amount of static electricity.
So you'd use the SCA the anti static strap as
a special conducive strap with metal inserts the ground all
(17:58):
static charges and reduce the stafe build up. So I'm
reading now do anti static straps work for car sickness?
And it says motion sickness is not caused by static electricity,
so these grounding straps won't help. We spent an entire
generation with these straps and they did nothing. It says,
Try having the sick person sit in the front passenger seat,
don't allow them to ride with their head down or
(18:18):
reading or watching videos, and make sure they've had something
to eat. Because if you're going to spew into an
empty ice screen container, you want it to have some
chunks in it.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
That's what I've got to say, Like anytime that that happens,
Like little Logan got sick on the way when we
were going down south and you were sitting next to
him in the bank, I was sitting next to them
in the bark, and it is I am a one
of those sympathy spewers. Sympathy like it was everything I
could do not too Yeah, but yeah, isn't that the
(18:47):
worst thing? All that stuff? As a parent, you're trying
to clean up some vomit and you just end up
spewing back on them. It's a trigger for all of us.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
There must be something very ancient in our mechanism that
if one of the tribe is spewing, we all have too,
because it means there's a poison of some kind.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Probably. Yeah, yeah, how delightful, How delightful? How did we
get here? How did we get here? I'm not doing
that as an episode, Anita. If you don't know the
birds and the bees by now, I'm not going to
talk here through that. I don't know what contraptions you
want to use around that. Maybe on my next birthday
you can split it old to me, show you some books. Well, Anita,
(19:23):
should we get to our glimmers and let's you go first.
I heard a Tim Minchin line the other day that
I thought was just so beautiful. And he was being
interviewed on the ABC by Virginia Trioli and she got
weepy over this lyric, and I can see absolutely why.
It's quite profound.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I think the song is called not Perfect, and he
talks about he lives on the earth and the earth
isn't perfect. Then there's a line here, this is my
body and I live in it. I'm twenty nine and
twelve months old. It's changed a lot since it was new.
It's done stuff. It wasn't built to do. I often
try to fill it up with wine. And the weirdest
thing about it is I want to cry too. I
(19:59):
spent some much time hating it, but it never says
a bad word about me.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Isn't that profound?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
On the days where you just think I can't do
this and I don't like the way it looks and whatever,
what a great lesson to be kind to yourself because
your body never says a bad word about you.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Isn't that gorgeous?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
And I like how the fact I didn't play to
mention singing it. I thought I'd do spoken word like
Telly Savalas doing if doing Lucy in the Sky with diamonds.
So my glimmer is I've spared you hearing him singing,
and I've just read it.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Out to you. That is my It really is, what's
your glimmer? This week? So recently in Vancouver there was
a person who drove into a festival, a Philippino festival,
and at I believe there is eleven people who were killed,
(20:55):
but many many other is injured. And I'm despite, in
spite of this tragedy, it made me feel so profoundly
proud of my son Ben, who was a paramedic in Vancouver,
who is a paramedic in Vancouver, and he was off shift.
(21:18):
I had actually just spoken to him hours before, and
that his first inclination was to go down to the
station to grab a car, and not necessarily he ended up.
Not necessarily, he did not go to the scene, but
he relieved all the other paramedics who had been there
(21:40):
and made sure that there was still people who were
you know, paramedics who were servicing the areas around Vancouver
that needed help. Because as awful as it is, Yeah,
life goes on. My paramedics is still needed elsewhere. Yeah,
And the thought of I love that. Emmett and I
(22:02):
have raised a son who goes where he's needed, who
is living a life of service. And I am so
profoundly proud of him.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Oh she get Tim mentioned to write a song about him, I.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Think, and I'll recite the lyrics, would you. Oh that's beautiful.
I am. He's he's a he's a good kid, a
good human being. Yeah, yeah, all right. In a world
of darkness, it's nice to be reminded of those things.
Absolutely all right. I love you, love you too. We'll
see you next time.
This podcast is for general information only and should not
be taken as psychological advice. Listeners should consult with their
healthcare professionals for specific medical advice. Hello. I'm Amanda Kella
(00:27):
and I'm Anita McGregor.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
And welcome to Double A Chattery. Hey guys, how are
you talking to?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Thank you. We've made our cups of tea, made our beds,
now we lie in them. Mm hmm, Well I'm taking
over today. Please, I'm thrilled. Okay, let me tell you
where my mind has gone. So I was I sort
just wandering away that little thing. So a couple of
weeks ago, my husband, I, myself, my kids, everybody like,
(00:58):
we were all on a big FaceTime call and just
chatting away. And I have no idea how it came up,
but my son Ben started talking about weird We were
talking about weird child bearing practices, and he sent an
image of this centrifugal. Is that the word centrifugal centrifuge
(01:22):
centrifuge for childbirth the birth, Yes, And what it was
was a birthing bed that was set up on a
spinning bottom of the of the bed and that the
woman in who's giving birth would start spinning, and so
(01:44):
she would have her legs a kimbo, and that there
would there was like a catcher's mint as.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
And they'd spin the baby out, and that the idea
was so it was this couple, this childless couple, not surprisingly,
who'd been in Africa, and that they had seen elephants
in labor and that the elephants were spinning, and that
the couple had had the conversation that maybe that this
was a process where they were creating this centrifuge in
(02:16):
order to help give birth, and so they designed this
birthing bed in the early nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Amanda and I thought there was going to be the
twenties or something, I don't know. In the sixties, although
they only got to the prototype, it was never actually used.
I do not believe that I know it's really all
of that.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
If ever, I see anyone training for space, you see
them going to those centric speeches, I think I would
just spew the whole way, As if giving birth isn't
bad enough, to be motion sick at the same time
would be horrendous. Remember once when I was at the
Midday Show, I was a segment producer and we had
some women on who had I think they were doing
the Lamas that were educating other women about the Lamars
(03:00):
birth method.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Was that underwater what was Lamar's, But it was.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
A changing face of women taking some power back in
the birthing suite and a breathing technique and rather than
you being the victim of how you feel, is trying
to control it slightly?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Maybe so.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
But there's a group of women in the green room
who are older women I think, is my memory serves
me correctly, who'd just done their HSC. So they were
older students, women in their fifties say, And so they
were watching on the screen these other women talking about
giving birth.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And they're all going, oh, no, it's private. I just
want to do that privately because you make all those
terrible noises, and you just think the length and breadth
of how we've approached women giving birth is either spin
them around and get that baby out, have a whole
group of people watching and making a community experience. But
the women of that age group, the older women, it's
(03:50):
a private thing that you do quietly because it's animal
and it's embarrassing. Well, you know, half the time they
were just completely knock you out for it. That's right.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Be happy for that, because it is something so primal
and unmasking that for many women, they wouldn't they wouldn't
want that side of themselves seen. They didn't want their
partners to see that.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
No, although I do remember being in some point in
libor and thinking I wouldn't have curred if the janitor camen,
and you know you just kind of I felt like
I just lost sense surprivors.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And that's the thing that an animal part of you
takes over, whether you like it or not. But a
lot of people wouldn't feel comfortable anyone seeing that.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Did you go through like pre needle classes and classes
we did.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
We had private ones for some reason because as a
woman who would go around all the houses in the
community if you wanted, if you didn't want to go
to those big classes, and a lot of women chose
that because they knew their husbands would be the one
asking the dumb questions. So I'm going to take my
husband out of that scenario. I won't have this at home.
I remember them just drawing on a big some butcher's paper.
(04:55):
Here's where you went to the third phase, and this
is where this happens and your brain can take in that,
but it's not until you're actually going through it that
And I don't have any memory of how I felt
connecting to what I thought the process was.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
I had, like I seem I did all the training.
It was in a group, it was And I remember
going into labor and Emmett at one point looking at
me and going breathe, and I went like, I think
my response to him was something like funk off. It
was just shut shut up. It was not pleasant, it
(05:29):
was you know, it was like there was no connection
for me about like I'm going to have to breathe
through this, and.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I know it's not a love you know, it's not
you look at your husband and filled with love. It's
just why didn't everyone just peece off? Yeah, So the
centrifuge obviously still a prototypes out there if one's interested
(06:00):
in taking that further. What are some of the other
things you've found about the old ways we used to
do it?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Well? You know, so I went from the centrifuge to
thinking about the jolly Jumper, which is, you know, are
both of our boys just loved the jolly jumper.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
And the jolly Jumper we had them here too. It's
where it's a big piece of spring, a giant spring
you attached to a door frame, and the kid sits
in it and bounces up and down.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah before they can walk is yeah, before they can walk.
And it's just a way of apparently the idea was
that it was like, you know, exercising the kids and
it would strengthen their their legs and all that kind
of stuff. We just found it just you know, the
kids just loved being in It just gives you a break. Yeah,
and you know, especially when they're scooting all over the place,
when they're crawling. It was yeah, anyway, So so apparently
(06:49):
you can still get them, but they've just kind of
gone out of out of favor. Yeah. Yeah, I don't
think that that they are as certainly not as common
they were pretty and when our kids were little.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Was it fear that the contraption would come down? Was
it a safety thing and springs and all of that.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I have no idea, like it could be that, you know,
it was felt like it didn't encourage proper growth or
oh god, it's interesting, isn't it that all?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Like remember the early flash cards, Babies were given flash
cards with pictures of a hip a campus on it
and things like that. Every child, pretty much, unless there
are some developmental issues, will reach those benchmarks at the
same time, whether you are giving them flash cards, whether
you're letting them jump up and down in a jolly jumper.
I saw something in here in the notes that Anita
(07:37):
you've gleaned. So after the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped in
the nineteen thirties, they had a thing called the black
light that would guard your baby. So it was a
foil to would be kidnappers. A baby's crib was guarded
by rays of in visible light, and this was seen
on display some big Chicago expo. But it was a
(08:00):
lamp producing a black light and its rays focused upon
the sensitive electric eye by the baby.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Blah blah blah. The baby's lifted out of bell rings.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
But there's such mechanisms and there's a whole lot of
contraption that's underneath the mattress. So eventually parents thought, you know,
I'm not comfortable with that much machinery hidden under my baby.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
There was another thing that they did in the nineteen
thirties which is alarming. They used to again to prevent
kidnapping of babies in hospitals. They used to brand them
with UV lights, so basically sun burned their little skin
with some kind of marking to go and say this
is you know, baby John or whatever, so that it,
(08:40):
you know, instead of having just one of those little
hospital bracelets, let's just sunburn our child. They like a brand.
Did you say it's like a brand? Yeah, it's it's.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Kind of hard to it was the thing you were
telling me about the cage.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So well, there's several of them, Aman. One is where
this was popular. I gather in New York where they
have pictures of these cages that sit outside a window,
so that that that you would that your child, you'd
put the child into this cage out your apartment window
(09:20):
so that they could get some fresh air.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
You'd hang them in a cage outside your apartment.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah. The other the other option was when you were
flying somewhere, Amanda, is that you could put them in
a little kind of a tube and when they were awake,
you could have the the the it kind of opened,
but when they were sleeping you could close. There was
air holes, but you could close it up, Amanda, and
have your child flying in comfort in a little tube that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
You'd put over your head or something in a like
a luggage compartment.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I know, yeah, just attached to the wing, get some
fresh air. Why don't you a lot of I think
it was just kind of attouched to your seat. It
looked like because the image of that cage.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
You know, I've seen I've seen movies about medieval torches
and things they do that to people as a torture.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, yeah, so it just it was just you know,
some alarming things there was. Again in the thirties, there
was like not just the fear of kidnapping, but I
would assume like post World War One, where there was gas,
you know, mustard gas and that kind of used that
you had a little baby gas mask where they were developed.
(10:37):
And then the the the upgrade that came at the
late thirties had a little viewing window so that you know,
the baby could watch the apocalypse with this. You don't
have to black out their eyes.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Well happening you want to see see if that would
have been useful, I mean, how awful that that was needed?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Well, I mean yeah, I mean I can see where
you know, men have terrible gous maybe, but like that
you might use it in that we might all need it.
I wonder if these were companies solving a real problem
or companies like we have today that is leaning into
people parents' fears. A lot of them, I mean a
(11:18):
lot of them were things that would tether your child to,
you know, like in the bath, so that the child
couldn't drown, although you couldn't actually wash them either, but
you know, apparently that might have been a you know,
a sign you know, from what was making sure that
they were safe, I suppose, but we all did our
versions of that. I think I might have spoken about this.
(11:40):
When Lim was born, we had one of those pads
that was underneath the mattress, not like the one in
Chicago where there was like a car battery underneath. But
if he stopped breathing, an alarm would go off. And
that's the only thing that stopped me going in every
ten seconds to put a mirror under his nose to
see if he was breathing. Well, they have the little
ones now that you just attach it to the little
(12:02):
baby's ankle and it will alert you, you know, if
there's a temperature change or change in breathing or heart
rate or those kinds of things. Shift in barometric pressure.
It's almost like a smartwash that the kid is wearing.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
See, the hard thing is as a parent, if you
know that something like that's available and you're not using it,
it plays into am I, am I good enough?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Am I doing all I can to protect my child? Well?
I was watching as my son and his wife were,
you know, doing the purchases of the monitors and this
and that. Like when my kids were small, we had
like the baby monitors. It was just audio though, and
you can just usually what it does.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
It picks up the dad flirting with the babysitter, obviously,
and you have to put an ankle around your husband.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
That's right, that's right. But it was you know that
that you could just hear that the baby. But now
these these monitors are audio and you can speak to
your and you know, it's just it's amazing, and you
know it's you can see them and you can record them,
and you can do all these things now.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
But part of that is also as citizen, and we
talk about this a lot, that we're not designed to
see the trauma of the world. It used to be
our small village and that was it. So when Madeline
McCann goes missing, every parent suddenly has this terrible fear
that you will be a bad parent and the worst
thing will happen if you leave your child sleeping in
(13:30):
a bed and you're not there. So this didn't happen
to somebody, you know, but we know about the story
and it's ignited everybody's fear.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I mean that iconic Australian the dingo eat may Bee.
I can't see it with the accent, not even try,
nor should you, But it was that that whole idea.
I mean, how terrifying it would just it would just
implant fear and.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Once again the parental guilt that you left your baby
unattend even though you were standing outside a tent. Yeah,
it makes it exhausting to be a parent. But we're
filled with guilt over things that may have happened in
other countries that we really let's look at the statistics.
It's not likely to happen, no, but we're shamed by it.
(14:18):
We all feel we need to be better.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
And it plays like every time you hear about anything,
it just plays into those fears. Yeah. Yeah, so you know,
I'm looking what's your favorite technique? What have you got?
I'm just trying to think. I think that any of
them really are this blend of a little crazy. So
like some of the bike seat things that they had,
(14:42):
like in the nineteen twenties and stuff were nuts just
completely unsafe, like had you know, they were mounted to
the handlebars of a bicycle, but probably not in a
very safe way. And I've got to say that. I mean,
just this past weekend, our little logan has has started
writing on one of the you know these things, and
(15:04):
it's the contraptions and the safety and the you know,
it's it's amazing. So I'm you know, it's not that
it doesn't happen now, but.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
It's it's no longer just like et and put something
in a basket.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah yeah, and af you go. It's it is so
much safer now. But you can you will probably come
across grandparents and say, don't bother.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Don't bother with that. I didn't bother with that. I
used to put you in a basket. Hang outside the apartment.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
We never had seat belts. Why we are you know,
why should you? And you know I think about I
smoked in your face. No, absolutely in the winter. I
still remember being in the car in the winter and
somebody was smoking a cigar and my dad was driving.
There was something in the front seat drive, you know,
and it was probably minus nine thousand outside, so we
weren't going to go and roll the windows down. And
(15:52):
it was like, oh my god, this is you know.
We were all crying.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
But that's I get cassick because I think I sat
in the middle. My grandmother was on one side, my
brother was on the other, my parents in the front.
My grandmother was smoke as we dried and it was
long car trips. Once again, my eyes streaming filled with nausea.
You know when you go up to an airport and
people allowed to smoke outside. Now I just smell that
and I feel instantly nauseous.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Really, so who did you choose to spew on everyone?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I didn't go anywhere in the car unless I had
an empty ice cream container on my lap, and it'd
be emptied when we started to be up to the
plimsoul line before we got to gossip. No contraption's going
to get you around that. Actually, do you remember the
strips that used to hang off the back of the car.
It used to be like a leather strip, and I
(16:44):
think it was supposed to take the static out of
your car. And it was supposed to stop car sickness.
Oh really, yeah, you never had that.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
We did not have that. I don't know if it
ever worked because everyone's still spewed, but that would indicate
that it did not work.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
The second car you saw had this strip hanging down,
but from the back of the car that would dangle
onto the road.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Sounds weird.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
It would hit the road, and that's how it diffused
the static.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I want to I want to see, well, how does
static mean? What does static have to do? I don't know.
It's time to do some googling. Go about your business
while I have a quick google for a moment, I know,
and I need some tea, So Anita. In the blink
(17:34):
of an eye, I've been able to google this. Look
at you.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I googled here what does an anti static strap do
to the car? It's believed that while in motion, the
friction of air molecules against the body of a vehicle
creates a build up of a certain amount of static electricity.
So you'd use the SCA the anti static strap as
a special conducive strap with metal inserts the ground all
(17:58):
static charges and reduce the stafe build up. So I'm
reading now do anti static straps work for car sickness?
And it says motion sickness is not caused by static electricity,
so these grounding straps won't help. We spent an entire
generation with these straps and they did nothing. It says,
Try having the sick person sit in the front passenger seat,
don't allow them to ride with their head down or
(18:18):
reading or watching videos, and make sure they've had something
to eat. Because if you're going to spew into an
empty ice screen container, you want it to have some
chunks in it.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
That's what I've got to say, Like anytime that that happens,
Like little Logan got sick on the way when we
were going down south and you were sitting next to
him in the bank, I was sitting next to them
in the bark, and it is I am a one
of those sympathy spewers. Sympathy like it was everything I
could do not too Yeah, but yeah, isn't that the
(18:47):
worst thing? All that stuff? As a parent, you're trying
to clean up some vomit and you just end up
spewing back on them. It's a trigger for all of us.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
There must be something very ancient in our mechanism that
if one of the tribe is spewing, we all have too,
because it means there's a poison of some kind.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Probably. Yeah, yeah, how delightful, How delightful? How did we
get here? How did we get here? I'm not doing
that as an episode, Anita. If you don't know the
birds and the bees by now, I'm not going to
talk here through that. I don't know what contraptions you
want to use around that. Maybe on my next birthday
you can split it old to me, show you some books. Well, Anita,
(19:23):
should we get to our glimmers and let's you go first.
I heard a Tim Minchin line the other day that
I thought was just so beautiful. And he was being
interviewed on the ABC by Virginia Trioli and she got
weepy over this lyric, and I can see absolutely why.
It's quite profound.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I think the song is called not Perfect, and he
talks about he lives on the earth and the earth
isn't perfect. Then there's a line here, this is my
body and I live in it. I'm twenty nine and
twelve months old. It's changed a lot since it was new.
It's done stuff. It wasn't built to do. I often
try to fill it up with wine. And the weirdest
thing about it is I want to cry too. I
(19:59):
spent some much time hating it, but it never says
a bad word about me.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Isn't that profound?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
On the days where you just think I can't do
this and I don't like the way it looks and whatever,
what a great lesson to be kind to yourself because
your body never says a bad word about you.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Isn't that gorgeous?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
And I like how the fact I didn't play to
mention singing it. I thought I'd do spoken word like
Telly Savalas doing if doing Lucy in the Sky with diamonds.
So my glimmer is I've spared you hearing him singing,
and I've just read it.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Out to you. That is my It really is, what's
your glimmer? This week? So recently in Vancouver there was
a person who drove into a festival, a Philippino festival,
and at I believe there is eleven people who were killed,
(20:55):
but many many other is injured. And I'm despite, in
spite of this tragedy, it made me feel so profoundly
proud of my son Ben, who was a paramedic in Vancouver,
who is a paramedic in Vancouver, and he was off shift.
(21:18):
I had actually just spoken to him hours before, and
that his first inclination was to go down to the
station to grab a car, and not necessarily he ended up.
Not necessarily, he did not go to the scene, but
he relieved all the other paramedics who had been there
(21:40):
and made sure that there was still people who were
you know, paramedics who were servicing the areas around Vancouver
that needed help. Because as awful as it is, Yeah,
life goes on. My paramedics is still needed elsewhere. Yeah,
And the thought of I love that. Emmett and I
(22:02):
have raised a son who goes where he's needed, who
is living a life of service. And I am so
profoundly proud of him.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Oh she get Tim mentioned to write a song about him, I.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Think, and I'll recite the lyrics, would you. Oh that's beautiful.
I am. He's he's a he's a good kid, a
good human being. Yeah, yeah, all right. In a world
of darkness, it's nice to be reminded of those things.
Absolutely all right. I love you, love you too. We'll
see you next time.
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