A friend of my daughters just had a baby. So I have decided to weave a baby wrap. I am sort of amazed by the baby wrap craze. After so many years of weaving, weaving for myself, and for others I have seen and woven cloth for all kinds of uses, towels, clothing yardage, upholstery material, etc. etc. Being a handweaver and supporting yourself with this occupation is hard. It is difficult to weave and have enough inventory and at the same time market yourself. So it is with some amusement that I see the proliferation of handwoven baby wraps. They seem to sell for a lot of money and I see a kind of weird "greed" that goes on with Facebook "auctions", limited editions etc.
We do not come from a culture of "babywearers" which is something women have done with their babies for thousands of years. It makes a lot of sense. I can see that if you could comfortably wrap and walk with your baby it would be better than pushing a stroller. However I am a bit cynical of the popularity of baby wraps because, sadly with babies and baby paraphenalia, you know a lawyer and a lawsuit are just around the corner. We live in a litiguous society. No cloth is perfect and accidents do happen but an accident can happen just as well with a commercial baby wrap. Just some thoughts.
No comments:
Post a Comment