February 28, 2025
Questions I Find Myself Asking Since Having a Baby
Ruth Chan is an illustrator who lives in Brooklyn with her husband, daughter and dog. She writes and illustrates children’s books. For Cup of Jo, Ruth has also written about traveling, pets, grief, OCD, pregnancy and her favorite band. And here’s her beauty uniform!
P.S. 11 beautiful reader comments on parenting and the best thing my mom did as a parent.
Tags: comics
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75 commentsRuth Chan’s work is always so heartfelt and relatable! Love how she captures the little moments of life whether it’s parenting, pets, or even her favorite band. Also, as a mom, I’d love to see her take on baby boy clothing in her illustrations imagine the cutest little outfits! 💛👶📚 i bought my baby boy clothes from there, i think you should try those too, https://momyom.pk/collections/baby-boy
The stuffies! Loving everyone’s comments on well-loved stuffy friends. My 18 month old is deep into the loving her stuffies phase. She picks them up, hugs them so hard, gives them kisses, and hates to let go. It is so tender, so sweet to watch. I hope that tenderness doesn’t disappear! I want her to hold onto it, share it with friends and family, all the hugs and kisses we can handle!!
Why are baby feet so adorable and adult feet so yucky? This is so great. Thank you, Ruth!
On stuffies: My 3 year old has two extremely old school, well-loved and softer than you can imagine Mickey Mouse stuffies (Big Mickey and Tiny Mickey) – because and only because her Bubbe loved Disney and would buy herself stuffed animals here and there as an adult. When my daughter was born, she gifted her both. When my mom was on life support last fall and I had to fly across the country in the middle of the night to say goodbye, I snuck into my toddler’s bedroom and took Tiny Mickey from her bed. I tucked Tiny Mickey in with my mom when I got to the hospital, he kept her company again while we said our goodbyes. Now he’s back at our house; filled with more love and more magic. Hers and ours.
Oh, Melissa. I’m sorry for your loss. This brings tears of all feelings.
He’s doubled his magic ♡
Thank you for sharing — such a beautiful way to connect your daughter and your mom!
My sisters and I were laughing about how were were gaga over our 1yo niece’s chunky thighs, and were like ‘I wish somebody was like, Katie, you’re soooo big!!’ in a loving, proud way.
I always say this about baby rolls! Why are fat rolls on babies so unbelievably cute but considered disgusting on adults? Let’s all rejoice for (all!) squishy bodies!
Unpopular opinion, but I don’t like them on babies. Not because of fat phobia, I just don’t like skin folds. Not into wrinkly dogs or puppies either (though I love dogs)
My late mom used to say she wanted to relive one day in each phase of our childhoods (my two siblings and me). I’ve only been a parent for a few months but I understood that idea on a bone deep level the moment he was born. I have the most vivid sensory memory of his birth. And I can’t shake the feeling that somewhere in the universe, that’s just playing on loop: he is born, he is on my chest, a nurse is telling my husband, “he’s your son, you can touch him!” while my husband stares at the delicate miracle of his chest rising and falling. And then it repeats. I want to know what his voice sounds like, what his hobbies will be, his career, his mannerisms with kids when he’s an adult. And of course I want him as a newborn in my arms forever.
This is beautiful. You are clearly a writer :)
Oh I love this. Same same :)
If I start a band (will never happen) I would like it to be called “Some Bootleg grimace”
My son’s language arts teacher used to be in a band called “Fatter Than Albert.” Haha
Regarding tenderness and stuffies: I was recently on a trip to Ann Arbor with my kids and we went to the children’s museum. On the way out, we obviously stopped at the gift shop. We agreed on a small animal stuffy for each kid, but they were incredibly indecisive. I started pulling them off the shelf to help them survey options and pulled out the softest hand-sized hummingbird. I tried to ask my 7-year-old if she wanted it and she declined, and I immediately felt let down that it wasn’t coming home with us. After a minute, I decided that actually *I* would be buying myself a stuffy, too. Not that I think of myself as a particularly hardened adult, but I realized that I was imposing limitations on myself because play and cute and softness were the stuff of childhood, supposedly. I’ve kept it in my bed for the past couple of months since we got home, unless we’re all three playing with our stuffies together. I even packed Ming (the hummingbird’s name, I decided) in my purse for a solo trip I took last weekend. In my almost eight years of parenting, I’ve recurringly learned the greatest lessons from my teachers, my children. A path back to tenderness might be the path of childlike honesty about what we truly want.
I love this so much! When my child aged up (he is 15) I decided to keep all the books from his early reading years – picture books etc. I was going to put them in storage at one point but around that time I got a really bad flu, and work was rough. I was exhausted – but I had time to read the best children’s books. I keep them in the library now and when life is tough I go in, lay on the bed and read the books I read to my toddler.
I love this! (And hummingbirds are so magical – what a fine choice for a stuffy!) I’ve recently been re-learning that some “kid things” are great for everyone, too. I had only kept exactly three toys from childhood – two figurines and one stuffy – and I recently decided to bring one of them to sit on my desk in my cubicle. I was a bit worried that it might get me seen as a less serious person, but that one little bit of personality in my beige office has made everyone smile! May we all retain more childlike qualities.
Good for you! I AM a hardened adult (ha ha) but still have a bunch of my childhood friends. :-) My bf recently gave me a weighted unicorn stuffy and it’s so awesome–so soft, cute, and I was dismissive about weighted items being comforting but it the added weight really does feel sweet. And children’s books will always be my go-to comfort as well.
Also I’d like to be pushed around a nice park in a stroller a bit with a blanket. Not a wheelchair, I wanna be reclined and I’ll need a snack and my emotional support water bottle. I might fall asleep but that doesn’t mean you can stop pushing me, just put down the sun shade!!
Make that a double!
I totally had this desire as an older kid (probably ages 7-10ish) – i really wanted a me-sized stroller to lie in, get rolled around, rocked, walked outside looking up at the sky from under my comfy blanket… and when I expressed this, my mom would scold and berate me: “that’s a wheelchair, you don’t want to be in a wheelchair”. Hrmmph.
My question is, why do most of us stop making art when we are adults? On a recent kick trying to model for my 8 & 11 yr olds making time for my own creativity. And model not being a genius at drawing, just loving making things! When I can fit in a little sketch, I remember how great it is to use that part of my brain.
My artist friend says that art is a large part skill and that most adults have the skill of where they were when they decided (or were told) they aren’t an artist. That’s where their learning and abilities stopped. She’s adamant that just like an instrument or a language – we can all learn to be artists
It breaks my heart to watch this in live time with my nieces. At 12 she was a keen creator, at 13 an art teacher had corrected her sculpture in his own time. The bubble burst, she won’t touch creativity now. I’m studying the psychology of creative arts and I think I’d like to influence curriculum. Arts in school should be a refuge for self expression, not realism. And that’s where the break happens. I was lucky enough to be a good realist in my art, it’s taken years to unlearn that as the benchmark of creative success but I truly think that if you can’t photo-represent something then you’ll have your spark dimmed by the end of high school. And that’s a terrible shame.
I think about this often! I did have a realization in the last year or so that part of it is that I never learned how to use small amounts of time for creativity. As a kid and then young adult, I had the margin to spend endless hours spread out across my bedroom or dorm room floor immersed in a project and I L O V E experiencing that kind of creative abandon. As a parent flying solo with two littles now, plus a full-time job, my windows of margin are much much smaller and I’m reckoning with how to enjoy a similar level of satisfaction when I’ll have to be called back out of that bubble for dinner prep or bedtime or homework help or some other immediate demand. I tend to be an all-or-nothing devotee, so this has been a real exercise in building new pathways in my brain.
Ok this is all incredibly fascinating and I am living for this comments section. Last year I started throwing art in the park parties for families to come and be able to explore their creativity on a large scale outside in nature with fewer boundaries. Painting watercolors sensory bins play dough and the parents sometimes get involved but not nearly as often as I’d like to see. My next one is this Saturday and I’m going to encourage the grownups to get more involved! Also you CAN get an adult sleep sack and I know this because my husband got me one for my 36th birthday and it is marvelous!!
Parent to a 2 year old, I think about the question re: when does tenderness disappear all the time! I try to think about how adults who are bugging me (people at work, political nightmares) were once babies who needed snuggles and reassuring. But it does make me sad to imagine that my sweet, loving child who blows kisses to trees and strangers will some day stop feeling this joy toward fellow living things. More experienced parents who are as hippy-dippy as I am (lol), weigh in?
I’ve surprised myself in being remarkably chill re: my son’s physical safety (nothing monstrous, but more lax than my anxiety would have led anyone to believe) but channel all that mom worry into his emotional well being. I want to guard his tender four-year-old heart from whatever life events are coming that squash his big, open sweetness. …and then I worry that it might be the slightest thing I do (or don’t do) without realizing it that is what will do it!
I think about this on the other end of the age spectrum and have heard that sometimes family members of hospitalized patients will bring in pictures of their loved ones from their younger days so hospital staff will remember that they weren’t always older and sick.
Lori – I’m starting to think more about what it will look like to shift roles with parents and begin to take care of them more than they take care of me (and how to do that graciously). I wonder if COJ already has a post about this, or if that might be a topic they explore in the future!
When my son was two we had to rescue a stuffed polar bear at a bookstore because older kids were throwing it around and laughing. He is now 21 and I can happily report that this tenderness never goes away. It just changes as he grows and sees the world differently. It’s a bright gold through line of his character, so please don’t fear that tenderness is lost. It just changes shape.
El, a a hippy dippy parent to an extremely affectionate and loving 5 year old, to me it’s about modeling and emotional safety. When we hold that tenderness in our own hearts, caringly help ourselves regulate when we’re out of balance, and choose to dive into vulnerable places within ourselves where we feel closed off and hard, we’re showing our child how to do the same. And then we’re more able to show up with tenderness and acceptance as well as behavioral boundaries and guidance when our kids grow into more challenging phases. Can we stay spacious for them, even when they reach into ages that trigger our past hurts and current judgments? Can we love ourselves when we fall short of our ideals and need repair on a way bigger scale than we ever wanted? Can we call in professional help for our hearts and minds when we are consistently past our limits, and help our children grow as we ourselves are growing? There’s no age limit on kindness, on tenderness, on the sense of connectedness to all things. And if we continue to provide ourselves and our children effective and loving support even in times of great challenge, we’ll find new pathways to greater experiences of loving tenderness and awareness of oneness than we’ve ever thought possible. Each family, each child, each community, each generation is doing a brand new thing in the world – our ancestors and the angels rejoice in us as we uncover more love, more ways of being in transformational relationship, and more ways of healing than this world has ever seen.
Ana, Lori, Brittney, Amy— this set of conversation and responses is so soul-nourishing!! Thank you all.
❤️ every phase. My 35 yr old son’s fav quilted baby blanket sits in a gold lidded box on a linen closet shelf in my home. So love worn it’s bed sheet thin. Some memories have no expiration.
Nothing about baby and toddlerhood has phased me so far. Puked on in the middle of the night? Totally fine? Blowout? No big deal. Teeth emerging? No problem. The thought of those same teeth falling out HORRIFIES me. My son bonked his upper lip the other day, and my partner asked me to check to see if his tooth was loose. I had such a visceral reaction to the thought that a tooth might be loose or, heaven forbid, fall out. I am hoping this somehow passes before my son’s first tooth falls out!
I quite literally nearly fainted recently when my almost 3 y/o bumped his head on an edge and developed a raised bruise (no open wound!). I had not thought about losing teeth before. Oh my.
I feel this so hard. I’m pretty chill about most of my son’s falls here and there, but when he hits his face and his mouth starts bleeding, I always really worry that he’s going to lose a tooth pre-maturely!
My 15 year old boy just took up boxing. He’s the most sensitive kid I have ever met – as in even the pediatrition used to say “well he’s sensitive” then continue treatment for some rare and terrifying health conditions… anyway I guess my son is sick of being walked all over (boys are ruthless that way – they don’t really tease and manipulate like girls, but they cut you off cold and steely). So he is boxing, and I am trying soooo hard to be supportive, but gently gently I whisper “don’t let anyone punch your beautiful face…. remember if they do I will find where they live and cut their archives heels”. He knows I won’t but it totally makes him laugh that I say I would. And yes, I totally used the first time as an occasion to tell him the myth about Achilles. I feel guilty, because gosh I know I made my parents worry – and oh gosh, they STILL worry – even more, since love grows over time.
This has brought back memories. I can still recall the day my son’s school called me at work to inform me he had tripped and hit his mouth on the table. The thought that he may have lost his teeth was nightmare all the way driving him to the dentist. He didn’t. However, my daughter when she was about 7 or 8 was sitting on our kitchen bench and fainted, fell off the bench and face planted onto our tiled floor. Half her front tooth broke off.
Okay I have to share: I have an adult swaddle/sleep sac and I highly recommend it! https://hugsleep.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorXaiJ0VWqcWiRclLFMzJdGWVoBEnUveWhtR3ji44rSdN7en57r
Genius!
Came here to say this!!
Teeth falling out – scarier! The crazy wiggling, hanging on by a thread (root?) and still NOT budging… the whole thing is bonkers. And what goofball had the idea of teeth by the pillow for the tooth fairy? If I could turn back time, I’d get my kids into hanging them on the door handle or something. This creeping in the dark to swap a nubby, jagged edge tooth with money is hard.
We have a little tooth shaped pillow thing that my mother-in-law made that hangs on the door… highly recommend searching Etsy and not stressing about waking a sleeping child! (also super helpful when one parent is up late and the other is up early – we check each other’s work!)
And what does everyone do with the teeth after the tooth fairy leaves money? I think I’ll save one tooth per kid but I should just toss the others, right? In my muted mad rush to do the money/tooth swap while they slept I would always just cram the tooth (always in a special little tooth container from school) into a dresser drawer of mine where my kids can’t find them. So I have an accumulation of little tooth packages beneath my socks, to this day (my youngest is 8). This is how busy I am, I can’t even clean out tooth packages from my sock drawer. (This is not every tooth lost mind you, just a bunch. Still weird.)
Hanging them on the door handle: genius!!! Thanks, will try to keep that in mind :)
We use this little tooth pillow on the bedroom door and it’s perfect! https://www.target.com/p/kids-39-tooth-fairy-pillow-blue-pillowfort-8482/-/A-80774594#lnk=sametab Fully agree though, teeth are wild.
Lorraine, I got all my teeth back when I got married ;) My mother saved them in a tiny box decorated with sea shells. My husband was _very_ weirded out 🤣
@Lorraine, a few months ago, my youngest lost what was probably her 12th tooth, and as I went to put it in her envelope in my night stand drawer, I saw the tooth envelopes from my older two kids in there. And, I thought to myself, this is absolutely disgusting, and my kids would be absolutely disgusted if they ever came across envelopes of their teeth. So, I threw them all way, and zero regrets.
I just heard something on my news podcast yesterday about the average “gift” from the tooth fairy being about $5.84 per tooth! Seems so crazy high (but I’m old and got a quarter back in the day). Apparently the rate is higher in the south than elsewhere. So interesting!
We had the kids put the tooth in an envelope under their pillow, and the money went in an identical envelope. Much simpler swap.
Lorraine, my mom apparently kept my and my two sisters’ baby teeth, (as well as their and her wisdom teeth) in a Sharpie-labeled freezer bag, and a few years ago when I was visiting her she walked up with it and said, “want all these teeth?” I’m thinking of making a sailor’s valentine with then, or possibly invoking dark magic to bind my sisters to my will; it’s a toss-up.
This is all so hilarious and disturbing – what on earth are we supposed to do with these decayed teeth?! Love everyone’s stories! LOL I think I will do a sock drawer cleanup this weekend, when my kids are asleep…
We saved all our kids teeth(so tiny! like little Chiclets!). But then when we moved they all got mixed together and realized how gross it was to have a BAG of TEETH. I also have the umbilical cords from my younger two (home births), which is also kind of gross but I also can’t throw them away (we were attached to each other!). Per a neighbor friend’s I think we’re going to bury them all in the backyard.
My mother is a jeweler and she made me a pearl, bone, crystal and wisdom teeth necklace, so that I’d always have my wisdom with me. Clearly she’s also quite witchy. I love it but it does freak people out.
Im going to be buried with my children’s teeth in my pockets! I think I heard this on Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ podcast, Wiser than Me, from one of her guests. I suppose others may find it creepy and weird, but I love how those magical tooth fairy teeth from my sweet little children will be with me forever. Also, teeth don’t decay after they fall out. I know because my parents saved all of my baby teeth (which I have since thrown out)!
“Some bootleg Grimace” LOL As a child I had a stuffed bunny and blanket that went EVERYWHERE with me. Now my obsession is my phone..sigh 🙄
Oh I love these so much! It reminds me of question I turn over a lot (as someone who’s had chronic pain). When does the change happen from comfort to medicine the source of pain management. As adults, why is physical touch not at all a part of pain relief when it’s the sole means we provide to very young children?
Oh wow Emily. This is deep. Thanks for making me think about it is this way
My baby had chronic health concerns and we had oxytocin so actually medicine for serious pain is from the start…. But also touch is totally used for chronic pain management – massage, feldenkrais, physiotherapy, and even things like TENS machines are based on sensation upon the skin as a distraction. When I broke my back my insurance company made me see a chronic pain management team precisely to minimise the use of drugs and instead offer up more tactile ways to manage pain. There are many opportunities out there but you might just need to find more forward thinking providers. Drugs for chronic pain can help at peak times, but the side effects….we all know how terrible they can be. I am so sorry ! It does sound like you totally know in your gut what you need and I hope you find it. I wish more doctors asked this question…. in Australia and the UK I know there are significant movements around social prescribing – where social welfare workers and doctors work together to make sure doctors prescribe arts hobbies and nature engagement as part of patients care plans, because the research shows it has amazing benefits. This book is AMAZING for everyone, including the reaesrach behind it. https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Creative_First_Aid/E5XlEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
Petition to make mid afternoon nap time socially acceptable beyond toddler years !
Right there with you, Anon. The pause that refreshes! Siestas for everyone! Normalize the disco nap! Rest is best!
Shhhh … I work from home so don’t tell my boss, but I’ve been taking 20 for a snooze most afternoons and then I can get through the rest of the day. I’ve been doing this for about 3 weeks. It takes place of a short coffee/tea break!
Inquiring minds need to know: in the sleep sack cartoon, are those pacis spread out optimistically for self-soothing or butterflies on the sheets?
Are they tiny Winnie-the-Poohs on the sheet?
Looks like Winnie the Pooh ! :)
Teeth are so weird. Our dentist used the term “erupt” when referencing my child’s teeth the other day, and I’ve been inwardly cringing ever since.
Hahahaha Nicole this comment made me lohl. For me, the true horrors have emerged in the tooth losing phase. I cannot get into this grotesque, multi-staged rite of passage. “Mommy! Look at this loose tooth!” “No. I love you, and no.”
Yes!! And the horror when I fully realized that “teething” is not a small temporary phase but YEARS of their life!
Sarah – I agree. Losing teeth is a horror. The dollar from the tooth fairy was not worth it compared to the anxiety.
Don’t ever Google “kids skull teeth”. 😬 You’ll never unsee what’s happening in your kids jaw bones.
UGH, I know. And then they just…fall out one by one a few years later?!
This comment thread is cracking me up! I, too, am grossed out by teeth just falling out one by one for YEARS of a child’s life.
This is Sarah reporting back… this evening I discovered that a toenail that died during a race in November is finally coming off. It’s even more gross than a tooth attached by a thread because it looks dead and it is only attached along the bottom… and toenails aren’t meant to fall off. I stand by tooth loss being gross, but I’m gross, too.