Do You Use Plastic as a Parenting Proxy?

It seems to me that as soon as babies pop out of the womb, they are parented more by plastic than by people.

Instead of being held closely, skin to skin, babies are transported and often left to sleep in plastic bucket car seats and strollers.  Instead of feeding and soothing babies with the breast, their mouths are plugged with plastic and silicone pacifiers and nipples.  Instead of sleeping body to body against the warmth of their mothers and fathers, babies are left to sleep alone on plastic covered mattresses in wood and plastic cribs.  Instead of being lulled to sleep in the arms of a parent, or in the swaying closeness of a sling, they are placed in battery operated plastic swings.

This parenting by plastic proxy is considered absolutely normal, totally unquestioned, and in many instances, even preferable (think of the medical and governmental takes on co-sleeping and baby slings).  It's crazy to me.

How did we get to this point, where actual flesh-and-blood human touch and caring of our children is too much of a burden? Why is it so hard for parents to hold, love, carry, touch, be with their babies?  Why do they always need a plastic something-or-other between themselves and their child?

I have some theories.

1.   Do as the Jones Do.   It's part of the human condition to do as others do.  Everyone parents by plastic proxy, and thus new parents do it too.  Plastic parenting is so prevalent that parents (like me, with my first baby) will ignore their instincts - their desire to love and hold their children - in order to heed the status quo.

2.  It Requires an Open Heart.  Flesh and blood parenting (that is, parenting without plastic) is hard work.  It requires a lot out of you emotionally and physically to give to your baby that which your baby truly requires.  It's easier to stick a bottle in a baby's mouth versus learning to breastfeed.  It's easier to plop a baby in a swing versus stopping what you're doing to hold and rock your child.  It's easier for most people to detach from their children, using plastic, than meeting the child's many and constant needs.  Parenting - in its ideal state - is work intensive, all hours, constant need-meeting.  Most people simply don't have the heart to do it.

If you're currently using a lot of plastic in your parenting, it's simple to stop.  Pick something, and stop using it.  Leave your stroller at home and buy and use a sling instead.  Ignore the Joneses, and bring your baby or child to sleep in your bed with you.  When your baby cries, don't pop a pacifier in its mouth.  Hold the baby, rock the baby, sing to the baby, feed the baby.  Respond to its needs. 

We parents can change the status quo.  We can open hearts.  Each one of us that provides our children physical and emotional responsiveness teaches them the importance of flesh and blood, truly human caring.  They will know how to love and give fully, and will pass these gifts on to their own children.  And slowly, plastic parenting will give way to humanity again.