Saturday, June 25, 2016

Sepia Saturday 336: My fantasy Motherhood


I have no children; I missed being part of a scene such as the one depicted this week in our Sepia Saturday prompt. No photos of sleeping babies or nurseries were unearthed from my photo albums. I did bump into this baby picture of my sister...the classic baby nude, made into a post card. 


Whenever I've had fantasies of motherhood, the scenes I dream up for myself are similar to this one; the pretty bassinet, the gorgeous baby with an enormous head (is that a photographic effect or are normal babies heads that large?) sleeping so peacefully. In my fantasy, there's a lovely tinkling lullaby playing in the background and I'm reading the baby a children's classic -  something Dr. Spock would approve. My fantasy baby never needs a change, never throws up, never wakes up in the middle of the night. There are no ear aches nor colic and no crying. My name is Rachel and my beautiful boy is GT (Grosse Tete). In my fantasy, life is permanently like the photo, but I wouldn't have that awful racist Golliwog* doll on the dresser.


Shazaam...got rid of that!

Continuing the fantasy, I have perfect hair and a closet full of beautiful dresses that I wear for just these night time reading occasions. The fantasy nursery is always clean and tidy. There is no loud and boisterous husband/father to mess things up; the fantasy father, Biff, only enters the scene to bring home a large  very large paycheck which I deposit into my own account and use for beautiful dresses, manicures and hair styling at the beauty salon. There's plenty of money left over for the Swedish nanny who is busy just behind that curtain washing and ironing the babies clothes and perhaps, if she has time, making Swedish meatballs which GT and I will enjoy after naptime.

The Swedish nanny's name is Ingrid of course. She came to us straight from Stockholm where she graduated from the University with a degree in Child Development. Graduated at the top of her class - what else? .....

Because even my own imagination cannot stomach such perfection for even one more paragraph and because my imagination is, as we speak, cooking up an utter disaster to end the idyllic scene, I'm leaving Ingrid, Rachel, Biff Paycheck and GT alone...frozen in bliss forever.

As a footnote to my fantasy and an antidote to all the saccharinity, here's what I really think motherhood would have been like for me.

www.123rf. Vector Cartoon The real relationship.







*From www.historyofdolls.com
Golliwogg is a type of a rag doll. It is also known as golliwog or golly. It is made from black fabric and has black eyes bordered with white, red lips with white teeth and frizzy hair.
Inspiration for gollywogg dolls came from Florence Kate Upton who was born in 1873 in Flushing, New York and was daughter of English parents. Her father died when she was 14 and she moved back to England. To be able to afford art school she illustrated book “The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg”. It was a children’s book which had a character by the name of Golliwogg who looked scary but was a positive character. Inspired by blackface minstrels he had black skin, red lips and frizzy hair and was dressed in traditional minstrel cloth. Golliwogg proved very popular and the book was sold very well in England along with its sequels. Similar dolls and images started carrying name gollywog because of that popularity and because Florence did not patent the name. This made the doll a popular children’s toy during a large part of 20th century. It's fame was so wide that it spread to advertising and other selling items like children's china and toys, ladies' perfume, and jewelry. James Robertson & Sons, British jam factory, used Gollywog as a mascot from 1910 until 2001. “Blackjack” - aniseed candy made in United Kingdom used gollywog’s face from 1920s until 1980s.
One theory of the origin of the name “Golliwogg” says that while British soldiers held Egypt in the second half of the 19th century they had Egyptian laborers that worked for them. Workers wore insignia W.O.G.S. on their armbands which meant “Working on Government Service”. British troops spoke of them as “ghouls” - which is an Arabic word for a desert ghost. Egyptian children played with black dolls which they would sometimes give to British soldiers or they would buy dolls from children. That dolls were later called “Ghuliwogs” and later “Golliwogg”. How much truth is in this theory - it is not known.
“Golliwogg” doll in time became very controversial. While some see it as a part of tradition and part of childhood other see it as racist. That is why they started disappearing from shops and advertisements but they still can be found especially on the Internet. There is a possibility that “golliwogg” evolved into “wog” which is a racial slur applied to dark-skinned people.

14 comments:

  1. Wonderful and 'fantastic'. Now I know what was missing from my life - a Swedish nanny who is an expert meatball maker.

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  2. Yes, we all had dreams of perfect babies. Of course mine were perfect.

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  3. Perfect babies, perfect childhoods. How boring. I could've done with a few less episodes of colicky babies and the so-called 'terrible twos' which is really a misnomer. They can be 'terrible' at any age! But the special moments in between all that are what make it worth while. As for the cartoon of screaming baby and overwhelmed mother? You would have done just fine. No one's really ready for motherhood, but you learn to cope as you go along - wondering (Ack??!!) what new stage your child has just entered when you had finally figured out the stage they had been in! Your sister's naked baby picture is so cute, by the way. I have one of my daughter like that, but I didn't dare use it. :)

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  4. Thanks for a wonderful post on motherhood. Your perfect home life is not unlike fantasy sports enthusiasts who get players from different decades competing on the same team. And Golliwog was well spotted. Claude Debussy wrote a delightful piano piece called Golliwog's Cakewalk which is often arranged for other instruments. Unfortunately the cultural explanation, much less illustration, of the stereotype origin always diminishes the music.

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    1. Thanks so much. I checked out the Golliwog's Cakewalk on youtube and enjoyed it very much.

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  5. The reality is somewhere in between your imagined perfection and that cartoon. I must admit that having had 4 children does not equip me to know exactly how to look after my grandchildren, sad to say. I fear I've forgotten the art of 'bringing up baby'.
    Perversely those non pc golliwogs are still for sale in Australia, with what justification I do not know!

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    1. I can relate Jo! Another round of "baptism by fire" especially with three grandsons and only one granddaughter having had all girls...they really are a different creature altogether.

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  6. LOL. Dreams and reality are often far apart.

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  7. Part of my bedtime story reading as a child included Little Black Sambo. I even read it a few times to my own children, not knowing until it became politically incorrect, that it was somehow racist. The story itself didn't ever seem so, but I will go along with the sense of it because the people were not treated as respectfully as they might have been.

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  8. I remember the first time I was in England and was staying at a family friend's home. The daughter had a Golliwog. I was stunned. She loved it. It had only been a few years since Dr. King had been murdered and I felt like I was in some sort of time warp. A few years later when I was back in England there was Golliwog still on the shelves. By the last time I was there he was gone.

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  9. We might share your fantasy but reality is often closer to the cartoon. Interestingly ive noticed that golliwogs seem to be enjoying a resurgence in Australia lately...don't know why. They didn't cause nearly as much a surprise as the appropriately appurtenced male doll we bought in Italy.

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