Baby Emily Gives Up Gerber Bananas Puree to be Bikini Ready for Baby Tommy’s First Birthday Party

While Evanston women may share salacious stories at a weekly brunch over mimosas, the most notorious local baby playgroup can be found catching up on gossip most Saturday mornings at Lighthouse Beach. And the topic of this week's playdate was surely going to be Baby Tommy’s upcoming Winnie the Pooh themed first birthday party.

Playgroup conversation typically focused on the best practices to make your parents cave and buy you a bikini, but all this changed with one birthday party Evite. As soon as Tommy arrived to Lighthouse Beach, the all female playgroup competed for his attention, discussing whether it would be too tacky to wear a swimsuit that said honey on the bottom, or whether any Eeyore themed suit could in fact still be fun.

The exact moment baby Tommy strolled out of the park with his mom, the baby girls of the group started discussing their bodies. As many of these babies have not started walking yet, they have lots of fat rolls around their knees, elbows, and bellies. Not a single baby had lost their baby weight because they happened to be literal babies.  Baby Jenny, the loudest voice in the playgroup, preached, “I govern my body; I determine what goes in it, and I’m cutting out that sugary, carby, Gerber banana puree for my own good and self care, so I can feel confident in a two-piece at Tommy’s birthday.”

For a second, baby Emily pushed back on baby Jenny’s comments thinking, Where do baby Jenny’s notions of body ownership and feminism come from? If baby Jenny uses the rhetoric of empowerment to explain changing her body for the sake of Baby Tommy's first birthday party, is her frame of mind an extension of her internal oppression ultimately controlled by male societal expectations?

Baby Emily wanted to tell baby Jenny that true body ownership does not lie in fixating on a female body under a male standard or around a male deadline. Upon fully processing this confrontation, baby Emily clocked back into reality, noting that baby Jenny must have a far deeper and more complex understanding of feminism. Baby Jenny’s mom listened to podcasts on the way to the grocery store, and it seems that the babies that listen to podcasts are always up to speed.

Riddled with her own insecurities about the idea of herself in a swimsuit this August, Baby Emily clung to the feminist icon that was Baby Jenny, and decided to forget about bananas until Tommy’s party.