The photos above are two of my favorite photos ever taken. That’s me, my mom and my sister on the left. And me, Mazzy and Harlow on the right. Kind of crazy how similar they are, right?
Except nothing is similar when it comes to raising kids in the 70s and 80s and raising kids today. They didn’t even have laws regarding car seats then— it was an optional thing and my own mother can’t even remember if she used one!
“Mom, did I have a carseat when I was a baby?”
“I have no idea. Do you remember if you used a carseat?”
“No, I don’t remember! I was a baby!”
A few weeks prior I had pitched an idea to Munchkin about doing a “Throwback Thursday” series talking about all the innovations in baby products since we were kids ourselves. You know, since Munchkin is largely responsible for many of the newfangled baby products today’s parents can’t imagine living without.
“What baby products do you wish were around when you were a parent?” I asked my mom.
“The suction bowls! I don’t know what we did without those. And the bibs with the food catchers on the bottom. There was a whole lot more that ended up on the floor.”
That is hard to imagine.
My mom also talked about how everything she did with my sister and me is now considered unsafe.
“I put you in a crib with a rail that came down on the side. With a bumper! And laid you down on your stomach!”
It’s a wonder I am still alive.
“I also used a walker which I don’t think they even make anymore, because kids were walking right toward the stairs. Those were a lifesaver. And a play pen. I always put you in the play pen when I needed to take a shower.”
I guess new moms in the 70s used a containment strategy, whereas we use an iPad. I’m betting the iPads probably involve a whole let less crying.
“You let me watch TV though, right?”
“You watched Sesame Street and Mister Rogers every morning while I got ready, but that was it. It’s not like you had your pick of programming any time you wanted to turn on the TV.”
We talked about the newborn phase too. My mom said she decorated the sides of my bassinet with greeting cards so I would have something interesting to look at when I turned my head. How old school is that???
And apparently, the diaper pail stank to high heaven.
“It was just a regular pail with a deodorizer hanging inside. It wasn’t like it sealed shut. Every time you pooped, I would take your dirty diaper directly to the trash can outside.”
Feeding was different too. My mom tried to breastfeed but got mastitis and was put on antibiotics. She thought it was unsafe to breastfeed while she was on medication so she started formula.
“It was liquid that came in a can. I would pour it in a bottle and heat it up in a pot of boiling water.”
“Did you ever feel guilty about not being able to breastfeed?”
“No. It wasn’t guilt. I didn’t think I was doing anything unhealthy. I was just sad that I missed out on that opportunity for closeness.”
When I started rejecting milk, my mom fed me a mixture of milk and juice, which sounds downright INSANE.
“We thought juice was good for kids back then!”
I also had bars connecting my feet from the time I was three to six months, prescribed by my pediatrician because my feet were turning in. Now, they say there is no evidence that those bars do anything and feet almost always correct themselves.
(Doesn’t my sister look like Harlow in the photo above?)
It’s easy to see how my mom wouldn’t think twice about throwing me in the backseat with nothing but a seatbelt or feeding me a steady diet of juice and Chicken McNuggets, she would have no idea what new parenting inventions, theories and regulations were to come.
I mean, in just five years since I had my first baby, it seems innovative companies like Munchkin have come up with countless baby products I wish I had when I was a new mom.
Plates with white strips that indicate if the food is too hot, 360 cups that create a perfect transition from bottle to cup, pacifiers with built-in speakers that produce the familiar sound of mom’s heartbeat, on-the-go bottle warmers… the list goes on.
For the next few weeks, I will be randomly awarding six parents who post “Throwback Thursday” photos with $100 gift cards from Munchkin.
To enter, just post a photo of yourself as a kid with the hashtag #whenweweremunchkins on Instagram, tagging both @mommyshorts and @munchkininc. Or post your photo on the Mommy Shorts facebook page. If you want to mention something your parents did when you were little that you can’t imagine doing with your kids now, that would be awesome. You can read the full rules here.
Below is a slideshow of just a few of the ingenious products from Munchkin that make being a parent today so much easier, safer and cleaner than ever before.
16 Innovative products from Munchkin
Can’t wait to see your throwback photos! I’ll be posting some of my favorites on Thursday, March 19th, along with the first three winners.
Good luck!
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This post was sponsored by Munchkin but all thoughts and opinions are my own.
Munchkin rids the world of the mundane by developing clever, innovative solutions that make family life safer, easier, and more fun. You can find Munchkin products at Munchkin.com, Target, Babies’R’Us, Walmart, and Amazon. It’s the little things!
I am a twin and my mom remembers coming home from the hospital holding both of us in her arms. No car seats at all! Also, we would always sit in the front of the station wagon with one seat belt put across three kids.
I remember being totally jealous of the kids that rode in the middle of the front seat. We didn’t have a seat in the middle of the front and I remember thinking that meant our car wasn’t as high end. I think I associated the middle seats as being in a Cadillac or something.
This entry made me laugh as we have had these conversations in our family. I was born in 1981, my Mom had a car seat for me that she “rented”. It looked more like a bucket with a higher back. Lol. My older sister was wrapped in a blanket and put on the back seat of the car. Lol. PS I love your blog.
We fit a family of 5 in a cab pickup truck… my sister sat on my moms lap and me and my other sister squeezed between my 2 parents. We drove all around like that!
Also you have such great hair genes in your family!! Love it!
On long trips, my husband used to ride his tricycle around the back of his parents VW Bus. Way more fun than car seats.
I am a twin also and my mom said that we came home in her arms also! I remember playing in the backseat of the car not buckled in and something climbing up on the ledge of the backseat and laying on top of it while someone was driving! Crazy!
Pardon my misspellings and grammar! I was typing too fast!
Oh my god! You look so similar to your mom. And before you said it (I mean wrote it).. I did think Harlow looked a lot like your sis!!!
I haven’t thought about “corrective shoes” in ages – I remember we had to go to a special shoe store and buy really expensive shoes to correct the positioning of my feet, and my sister had the bar shoes as a baby. She was so determined to move despite wearing that thing, that one night she managed to hoist herself up and over the side of her crib and onto the floor – IN THE BAR SHOES. When she outgrew the shoes attached to the bar you just cut the toes out of the shoes. What an odd contraption.
I wish I could find it right now. There is a picture of my hubsand at like 4 months riding shotgun, no carseat, slumped over his mom’s purse in his lap.
I love the 360 cup – bought bc of one of your posts, actually! I’m never strong enough to open them though!
I went on bike rides all the time as a kid with my best friend. We would ride probably 5 miles + away from our neighborhood, which would probably get CPS called today.
The old lady around the corner, Nana, was our sitter growing up and we loved her to pieces. We definitely watched our share of Mr Rogers and cartoons but we also watched all of her soap operas as well. She couldn’t miss her stories! I remember rushing to nana’s house after school in 5th grade because I didn’t want to miss General Hospital!
We bought one of those 360 cups bc of your blog as well! Also, when he was younger that lulla vibe vibrating pad was a lifesaver!
I have my mom on getting pics! I remember one where I was in a plastic, yellow bucket basically with one strap for my car seat. My mom said we weren’t in car seats after we were babies. We used crib bumpers. We rode in the “way back” of the van (no seats) and waved at everyone out of the back and tried to get trunks to honk. We begged to ride in the “way back”! We also loved riding in the middle front seat of my mom’s old Oldsmobile. The best! Meanwhile my 6 year old is still in a 5 point harness.
My sister and I used to sit in the far back of the station wagon, facing out towards other cars. Also watched Mister Rogers and Sesame Street. Slept on my stomach as a baby too.
my mom says she “cut back to a pack a day” when she was pregnant with me- to be safe.
LOL Dr.B does look like Harlow!
Greeting cards on the side of the crib…. that’s genius!!!! Totally doing that with my next kid since they’ve put the fear of bumpers in me!!!!
Wow you look a lot like Mazzy, especially in the last and third to the last photos! The last photo though looks like a grown up Mazzy. lol
Anyway, I’m from the Philippines and generally, we don’t use carseats even ’til now.
[…] Mommy Shorts creator Ilana Wiles interviewed her mom about raising kids in the ’70s and ’80s, she learned just how different parenting looked mere decades ago. “Forget sippy cups, our […]
[…] Mommy Shorts creator Ilana Wiles interviewed her mom about raising kids in the ’70s and ’80s, she learned just how different parenting looked mere decades ago. “Forget sippy cups, our […]
[…] Mommy Shorts creator Ilana Wiles interviewed her mom about raising kids in the '70s and '80s, she learned just how different parenting looked mere decades ago. "Forget sippy cups, our parents […]
[…] Mommy Shorts creator Ilana Wiles interviewed her mom about raising kids in the ’70s and ’80s, she learned just how different parenting looked mere decades ago. “Forget sippy cups, our […]
[…] Mommy Shorts creator Ilana Wiles interviewed her mom about raising kids in the ’70s and ’80s, she learned just how different parenting looked mere decades ago. “Forget sippy cups, our […]
[…] on: March 25th, 2015 by Caroline Bologna No Comments When Mommy Shorts creator Ilana Wiles interviewed her mom about raising kids in the '70s and '80s, she learned just how different parenting looked mere decades ago. "Forget sippy cups, our parents […]
My mom used to put me in a harness as a toddler and attach the leash to the close line in the backyard so I could play without escaping. Once on a while she’d come outside and untangle when I’d cry cause I was too tangled up to move anymore.
On the 9 hour car rides to grandmas our parents would toss a mattress, a few pillow , blankets, and toys in the back bed of their covered truck. No seat belts, no seats. If we wanted a potty break we would have to position ourselves so that dad could see us in the rear view window and wait, since no amount of pounding on the partition could be heard through 2 window and the open space in between to the front cabin. Sometimes it took half an hour for him to see us. We could kill each other back there while they traveled in complete silence. Other times we would ride in the back trunk looking out back.
[…] that’s exactly what Ilana from Mommy Shorts wanted to convey when shared these photos from her childhood. Ilana, a working mom from NYC who runs a personal blog, then went on to ask her community to submit […]