Babies Everywhere

Population explosion is upon Costa Rica. Unlike our aging little Oregon town where a newborn is a rarity and a community-wide informational event, here babies are seen everywhere we go. Evidence of this explosion is clear in mainstream advertising where TV and billboard ads feature various infant formulas and even pregnant bellies being rubbed with the best lotions to avoid stretch marks.

Strollers are rarely seen – due to either persistent poverty, most sidewalks either crumbling away or having bottomless pits, or both. Mothers and fathers carry their infants everywhere they go, tucking them in close under chin. No hand-held infant seats for this population; no hauling babies around in a contraption that looks like an oversized purse or putting them atop grocery carts. Both parents cuddle their babies close at all times and mothers nurse them openly in restaurants, parks and while shopping. Older children stop what they’re doing to frequently kiss or sing to an infant sibling. Grandmothers and grandfathers dote on their infant grandchildren, often walking with an arm around their daughter-mother or son-father. I cannot recall hearing a Costa Rican baby cry.

Costa Ricans have a strong sense of family and each moment with a baby is cherished. Surely constant close physical contact until babies are at least a year and a half old has enriched this sense of belonging.

Our caretaker Marcos and his wife Maria have a new baby boy. Marcos proudly carries updated pictures of his son in a plastic ziplock baggie that he keeps in his rubber boot. We stopped by the other day and Maria and her 12-year-old niece and nephew were there. Maria held her baby close and coo’ed to him the whole time we talked, while the older children leaned in and repeatedly kissed the baby’s forehead and sang to him. Such open affection in front of strangers by older children for baby cousins is uncommon up North, and that’s a shame. 