The crib as a feminist statement?

Last night I started to assemble the baby’s crib.  Feeling like the empowered woman of the 21st century that I am, I read the instructions, sorted the hardware, located the power drill my dad so helpfully gave me for Christmas a few years ago (my brothers got the same thing, so I imagine he didn’t want to be sexist and exclude me) and very quickly wished that I had a man in the house to deal with this.  I don’t often ask my male friends for help with physical labor.  I’ve been single long enough that I’ve developed enough skills to handle quite a lot of domestic chores.  The crib seems to be another matter entirely.

My child is going to sleep in this crib. Because of this, I am both determined to assemble it myself and fairly apprehensive that I’m going to do something incorrectly.  I mean, my child’s safety is at stake, right?  But what does it mean that I can’t even put together the crib without wanting to call for some strong guy to come and save me?  There are going to be hundreds, if not thousands, of moments when I am going to wish I had someone beside me to help with the baby.  And I know that I’m going to want to call upon my friends for that assistance.  I guess I just don’t know when I should be doing that. 

I’m the super-capable one in my group.  I’m the one everyone else leans on, the one everyone refers to as the strong one.  But am I the strong one because I don’t know how to ask for help?  I’ve never thought that asking for help meant that someone was weak.  I simply think that asking for help is frequently an imposition on people.  Given that I already know that I’m going to have to impose on my friends, I’m reluctant to do so until I’m in an extreme situation.  I guess part of this has to do with the fact that I’m the one who chose to adopt a child on my own (the old “you made your bed” argument – as if I’m a teenager who found herself pregnant).  As a result, I think I should be able to deal with the vast majority of issues on my own.  I’ll save my requests for assistance for the big stuff – the day when I’m inevitably bound to my bed with some dreaded influenza or worse – the day when I try to teach the boy how to pee standing up.

For now, I guess I’m going to go home, unscrew the pieces I put together incorrectly last night, and give crib assembly 101 another try.  Please, just don’t call PETA when I put one of my dogs in the crib to test how much weight it will hold.

October 29, 2007 Posted by Oscar and Etta's mom | Single mothers | Single mothers, Women | 4 Comments