BOOK

All site content and material copyright Lu Hanessian, 2009. All rights reserved.

Photos by Lisa Trakis for WYSH, LLC.

Note from the Author

If I had given birth to a different baby ten years ago--a baby who could snooze in a bouncy seat under my table at a wedding where the band is leading a drunken crowd through the Macarena, someone who could stare at his thumbs for three hours at a time, who could blow raspberries at wall shadows for the better part of a morning while I “got things done”...you wouldn't be reading this.

Thankfully, I didn't have a baby who was amenable to maintaining My Life As I Knew It. Fortunately, I had a baby who innocently threatened my defenses, called up my deepest vulnerabilities, and whipped up my fears like a cyclone.

As a new mother, I often felt like a teenager, racked with self-doubt under the weight of peer pressure to conform. But conformity often meant perceiving some of my baby's needs as unjustified, putting convenience before compassion--and a premium on power.

It's not that I wanted to dismiss the cultural tide. It's just that Popular Opinion was not at all popular with my baby. The chorus was chanting "Show him who's boss!" So, I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances: I let the baby drive.

I let his cues guide me. In letting the baby drive, I didn't hand over the keys and the wheel. I let him navigate while I steered. I discovered what drives him. Getting to know him, how he experiences life and makes sense of his world, gave me ideas about how to parent him according to his nature. Empathy bred understanding, a kind of two-way mirror that allowed us to learn from each other.

I would soon learn, as both of us grew, that he was raising me as I was raising him. And that, as words filled our world and as early needs shifted, the one thing that would shape him more than any rules relationship

I thought about what a baby asks of his mother, what she's willing to give, how need and love and fear co-exist, and who emerges from the complex process of sewing an abiding bond between mother and baby.

Let the Baby Drive tells a story of ambivalence and devotion, a parent's struggle to love without fear, of cloudless expectations and inclement weather, the spirit of adventure, uncharted detours, and learning to enjoy the ride without riding the brakes.

Lu Hanessian