Why are modern moms choosing products softest for baby skin

This post is a part of  Pampers #SoftestForBabySkin activity at BlogAdda

Babies change people! They make responsible parents out of normal, casual  people like you and me.

New parents, when they take their newborns in the crook of their arm for the first time and look at their little versions, it fills them with a sense of love and protection and this surge of emotions sometimes astounds them. How do we come to love someone we have barely known with such intensity? But there is a bond formed when you see little human forms, so soft and so vulnerable.   

You want to surround them with everything sweet and soft. Come to think of the most commonly used phrases: ‘soft as a baby’s skin’ or ‘sleep like a baby’ or  ‘innocent as a baby’s smile’ or ‘soft as a baby’s bottom.’

Everything that has to do with tenderness, calmness, beauty and anything pleasant and natural more often than not takes the metaphor of baby. Even the most violent image of “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater’ has to do with something that is still immature, needs care and protection.

Image credit: galleryhip.com

But it is a popular understanding that ours is the least responsible generation, that the millennials don’t have the time and energy to make good parents. Yes, we can never equal the way our parents took care of us and we can only aspire to reach there in our wildest dream. Yes, it is challenging and requires a lot of thought and precautions, but nothing in the world can make us compromise on our child’s safety and protection.

No wonders then, we surround our little babies with things which are #SoftestForBabySkin. Be it the soft stuffed bears (read toys, but bears are just the cutest) or soft tissues to wipe them with or preferring the softest diapers over the coarseness of clothes. We even barricade their world from the harsher and harder world outside with soft pillows and cushions.

And it all makes sense. After all the wipes our moms used for us when we were infants were mostly made of clothes meant for adult use. The thick and rough skin of a grown-up can take it, but how will a baby’s skin handle all the gruffness.

Come to think of what are the things that crosses your mind when you think of your baby. What kind of food do you want him to eat? Don’t you make sure that it is either liquid or semi-liquid food so that it is easier for it to swallow?

What are the things that you keep around him? You always make sure that any kind of hard-object is never in the vicinity, only the things which are #SoftestForBabySkin are allowed.  After all, the baby depends on you for everything and it needs a lot of taking care.

So, we try to bring to our baby everything available in the universe which is#SoftestForBabySkin and harmless. We choose diaper which are #SoftestForBabySkin  instead of triangular coarse cloth bits, prefer towels to soft wipes. We also switched to exclusive baby products because we understand babies are not adults and their needs are exclusive. Their carriers, cots and cradle will always be cushioned so that they are always protected, even when we are not in the immediate vicinity to keep a watch.

We make sure that they can play, sleep and wake up the way they want to because we have done everything to give them a soft and safe surrounding.

Do not Disturb

 

When I saw her for the first time she was sitting in the women’s compartment of a running metro on a winter morning in Delhi. I don’t know if she saw me. I mean I can’t be sure, but when I think of it I like to believe that she did. My favorite sequence is imagining her lifting her eyes and taking a note of me for a couple of seconds before getting back to her own business. I saw her and just kept looking at her face until I realized that I might be doing so at the risk of appearing like a dumbstruck fool.
It was already seven forty five when the lady constable was running her detecting machine across my body. She pressed my pockets twice, took a close look at me and then let me go. I have gotten used to that kind of look now. Have you ever seen the sign on the door of public washrooms meant to denote gender. The woman is always wearing a frock sort of a thing and has got long hair. I understand it’s for convenience sake, but then tell me honestly, how many women do you actually meet in India wearing frocks on a normal casual day? It’s rare sight, isn’t it? So you agree that it’s just a foolish way to signify gender? Women wearing jeans or say, sari are equally women, no? If that’s so, so is the woman with short hair. There is nothing wrong with her. She does not have to be mad or radical to do that. She changed her hairstyle without putting much thought to it and may be with the same amount of ease with which you change your dress. Yes, may be she isn’t your idea of a feminine woman, but that is a problem of lack of imagination on your part not hers.
Anyway, I am here to tell you the story about that woman whom I saw in the women’s compartment of a running metro on a winter morning in Delhi and not about me and my problems with the world. So, without digressing again let’s concentrate on the story.
I punched my smart card on the slot and rushed to the platform skipping every alternate step of the stairs. I entered into the metro seconds before the door closes. I bent a little by my waist panting, desperately trying to catch my breath. I coughed a little and tried to concentrate on something else other than my coughing and rushed breath. The way I was bent I could only see varieties of footwears, mostly shoes because winters in Delhi are ruthless. Midst all those shoes was a pair of boots being tapped on the floor with a certain urgency. They were the most exquisite dark brown boots I had ever cast my eyes upon. For a moment I forget all about my panting and was lost in its design, its beauty and richness of colour. I had probably figured out the image of its wearer in my mind by then. It had to be a beautiful rich woman with flawless skin, perfect dressing style, known among her friends and colleagues for her supreme taste and style. May be even now she must be busy dealing with her numerous admirers on whatsapp or smiling on the number of likes on her latest photo on Facebook, I thought.
But why that urgency in the tapping of her boots?
A paper fell beside her boots. I saw her hand when she picked it up. And the first thing that I noticed was the flawless sparkling even coat of black film on her nails. She had beautiful, shapely fingers.
I noticed that my panting had stopped and so I got ready to face that face which is still fresh in my memory. She was everything that I had imagined her to be with a couple of minor changes here and there. So, she wasn’t busy checking her status on phone, rather she was busy with a couple of notebooks and papers spread across her lap. At first, I couldn’t see anything but the white beanie berret cap that she was wearing. Will you believe if I tell you that her hair was also cut short? Little strands of red mahogany coloured hair hung loose all around the cap but her face was bent over her books in such a way that only the red rim of her glasses could be seen. May be she had an exam to write but I am not sure.
She raised her head a little to read a page kept at a distance and that is how I saw her face for the first time and froze right there. I had never seen something so appealing all my life. It just pulled me inside. I forgot myself. Forgot where I was standing. Forgot about the world around us.
I saw her shoving all the paper inside her bag and pulling out a thick book this time.
After a second she raised her face and looked in both the direction, may be randomly or to guess which station it was. She looked at me with questioning eyes but mumbling something all the time. She kept looking at me, stopped mumbling, looked more closely and then dipped her nose in the book. After a minute or so, she fished a small paper from her bag, scribbled something on it and made a hole on its edge. She tied it to the book’s marker in such a way that the paper hung from it. She looked at me once more and looked at the hanging paper.
The paper read: You’re distracting me. Please don’t disturb now. Call me instead after eight-thirty tonight. Her number was written below it.
I smiled.
It’s eight forty-five now. Should I call her? Will she remember that I am the woman from the morning metro?

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

While reading The Metamorphosis

A huge spider crawled beside him. He kept looking at it as it moved. It began to ascend the pile of books resting beside one corner of the room. The tube-light hardly illuminated that corner of the room. It occurred to him that the movement of the spider was so much like those people who he saw bustling around here and there in his office- swift and purposeful- as he watched them from his cubicle in the corner. Adwait was only mildly stoned that night as compared to other nights. His friends had left and he was lying alone on his mattress watching the spider.
The spider intrigued him more that night because he had been reading a story about a commercial traveler who wakes up one day and finds that he has metamorphosed into a giant insect. He could not finish that story but it had stuck somewhere, claiming a part of his brain.
The pile of books lying in the corner were mostly books bought from the pavement of one of the old book markets of the city. He could afford brand new, original and latest editions of these books, but he chose not to. There was something about the grimy, dusty, torn pale pages of the books sold on the pavements which drew him. He did not understand very clearly, however, why he read these books. He knew very well that once he had finished reading them he would never go back to them. May be this was also the reason why he didn’t spend on first hand books. But, he always lined them in a way so that their names could be seen from a distance. He did so for the visitors, especially the women who visited his room and could not help being impressed. These women always thought that he had possessed these books for a long time and that is why they looked so old now.
After sometime he got bored of watching that spider’s movement. In any case, it wasn’t moving any more. He could not understand what was so great about a man being metamorphosed into a giant insect. If at all he was given a choice, he would like to be transformed into something more significant, pleasing and lovely. He did not mind being a dog, for instance. Women loved dogs, isn’t it? How much he would have enjoyed it when a woman would stop and tickle his neck lovingly. As a child, he used to do the same to his pets. But suddenly he felt stupid. How irritating it would be, after all, to be touched by anyone and everyone and not having a say, a choice, an agency to decide. It was then better to be an insect and to be left alone, to be away from everyone’s gaze. But then he dropped the idea again unable to find anything good in such an insignificant, powerless life. He wanted to finish the story he had started may be only out of curiosity but could not gather enough will to do so.
He lay there staring at the light from his bed-light falling on the wall beside his bed. Immediately he felt a strong need to nestle his face under someone’s warm body and escape away from the light. He began to think about his past, trying to gain some warmth from there. But the image that he had of his past seemed like numerous spider-webs tangled with one another.
His phone beeped. There was a text message.
Sender: I couldn’t help drooling over you all day in the office today. I had thought if you didn’t ask me out, I would invite you. All day I kept rehearsing how will I do that. There I understood, how difficult it would have been for you to ask me out. But fortunately for you, I never declined your offer like you did today. So may be next time I hope you won’t be so ruthless and consider the way I accepted all your offers of taking me out.
He considered replying to offer an explanation and apologize for his behavior. But he didn’t. He felt too lazy to do so. Initially he had pursued this woman rather diligently, but he had never planned to be serious. He was just enjoying his time and had no further plans. It was more or less for fun and he had made sure that the point was clear between them.
Was it really his fault that this woman was threateningly becoming serious about him? How does one delegate responsibility of choice and intention? It felt like too much mess and Adwait didn’t like it when things spilled over on their own beyond his power to control.
He thought it would have been better to be a giant insect like the one in that story. Imagine the ability to scare people merely out of one’s appearance. People around you live in the constant fear that you could hurt them any moment. Imagine living without the burden of being expected to be good. What freedom!
This feeling made him go back to the story and begin reading again. Though he felt the story was depressing, it had the potential of appearing grotesquely realistic atleast for some of its readers, he thought. By the time he kept the book, he didn’t feel quite alright. He was disgusted by the family of Gregor Samsa for treating his so badly just because he had turned into an insect. He shut the book and cursed the author and then stopped abruptly and got preoccupied by another train of thoughts.
His phone beeped again. It was a message from the same woman.
Woman: Hey, slept already?
Adwait: No, was reading.
Woman: This part of you impresses me the most, you know. I have always wanted a guy who reads a lot.
Adwait: Yeah, but then I wasn’t reading to impress you, miss.
Woman: And next is this arrogance of yours 😉
He had read somewhere that misplaced sentimentality was almost like our birth-right. The whole thing began to disgust him.
Adwait: Yeah, but I was trying to make the details factually correct.
Woman: Let’s meet sometime.
Adwait didn’t want to reply after this. Once again, he could see, things spilling out of his control. He didn’t mind meeting her but did not want to harbor any hopes. He thought if it would be good if really was an insect, a giant one preferably.
Adwait: Let’s not make our meeting a routine.
Woman: I want to meet you everyday. Be with you every moment. I really have started liking you.
Adwait: You’re freaking me out now, lady. Stop it please.
Woman: Alright. Take your time. You’ll understand how I feel sooner or later.

Adwait wanted to slam that spider hard enough to murder it. But then he stopped short and placed his phone away from himself. This was all going wrong. He wanted to get back to the books and feel safe there. It was better, he always thought, to keep oneself away from complications and enjoy it from a distance. That is why he liked the world of fiction. There was no pressure and no liability.
He kept staring at the wall trying to think of a way to dissuade this woman. For once, he tried to make himself believe that he was too stoned to think clearly. But, it didn’t help. He was too self-conscious to dress up badly and not look good. For once, it seemed to him that he was to be partly blamed. The feeling of guilt began to rise within him and he started feeling repelled by himself. Once again, he thought if it would be better if he woke up as an insect. But what he did not like in the story and would therefore not like if he was to be metamorphosed into a giant insect tomorrow morning would be that stupid human brain, that faculty to think analyse and reflect. Otherwise, life as an insect was such a tempting escape.
He tried to sleep feeling hopeful, almost sure that he will wake up as a giant insect. But, then soon enough he did not like the fact that he will have to live the life of an invalid, not being attended and loved by anyone.
His phone beeped again.
Woman: Did you think about it?
This time he didn’t care to reply and actually didn’t reply. He was bored by so much thinking that he had been doing till now. He switched off his light and went to sleep. Before he slept for the last time he wished to be a spider and have an Adwait to stare at him and also a writer to write a story about it.