This was an original post for LA Moms Blog on April 27, 2009. SV Moms Group was acquired by Technorati so I post my archives here on Fridays.
This morning when I came back from a walk I touched my ears absentmindedly and froze: one of my earrings was missing. My heart sank as I feared it might have dropped along my route, and I sighed with great relief when I found the tiny trinket in the fibers of the carpet on the floor next to my bed. This is no ordinary set of earrings. They’re not heirloom-quality but they mean a lot to me. They were my first push present.
A “push present” is a special gift presented to a woman after she lives through the ordeal experiences the blessing of childbirth. Not everyone recognizes this custom and some people even go so far as to say that the child alone should serve as the woman’s gift and she should expect no more. But this is not a blog post about “shoulds.” I am not setting out to make the push present controversial. Lord knows we have enough journalists and bloggers presenting any possible perceived controversy about every aspect of motherhood in hopes of generating “discourse” to serve as material for their further writing and profit. No, I’m just here to tell you about my own push presents and why I love them.
I first heard about the concept during an episode of TLC’s “A Baby Story,” which I watched religiously before the birth of my first son four years ago. During preparations for the baby, the push present had not been on my list and certainly it was not a necessity, but I liked the idea of having a special little prize for my pain and suffering. Of course my child would be a prize in himself – a lifelong beautiful and frustrating prize. But a push present? If I got the right one I would have something shiny and pretty that my husband could not deny me. Within reason, of course.
I informed my husband, who is not a skilled gift-giver to begin with, that the push present was a crucial item in the overall morale-boosting of the mother, and not knowing any better, he went along with it. We set off on a quest to find just the right thing, because of course we had so much time on our hands pre-children. Incidentally, I honestly cannot remember living that way – the carefree quality of the shopping trips, interrupted only by the frequent pee-breaks or swollen ankles. Eventually we went downtown to the jewelry district and had my earrings made by the same artisans who made our wedding rings. They are simple squares of white gold filled with four tiny diamonds each that dangle just a hair’s breadth below my earlobes. The final cost was much less than we would have spent in a retail store, but in the end my push present was still a true extravagance.
I don’t regret the purchase for one second. I waited until after I delivered the baby to wear the earrings for the first time, and I have worn them almost every day since then. On those spit-up covered days when time stood still and then rushed forward faster than I could catch up, when the clawing despair of early motherhood threatened to swallow me whole, I would catch a glint of light in the mirror and see my earrings sparkling under my tattered mass of unwashed hair and they would put a tiny but crucial spring back in my step. The earrings are simple and timeless and I still feel a frisson of delight when I put them on to wear them to work at an office with people around. As I hook them into my ears or glimpse them in the mirror or fiddle with them while I sit at my desk, I remember their purpose – to mark the enormous change in my life that happened when I became a mother.
When I had my second son a few years later, I again wanted to recognize the occasion with a token, to have that little treat to anticipate, so I reminded my husband of the push present idea. Ever practical, he knew we needed some kind of device to time my contractions because we had lost our stopwatch, so he went to Target and got me a $35 sports watch. God bless him.
Yes, I recognized the love and intent that went into the Timex watch. But honey, this is a push present. Gone were the days of strolling through a mall and taking my time to hint at what I wanted. Two days after I got the watch I marched into Lenscrafters and ordered a set of prescription sunglasses that I had wanted for years and years and years. Every time I put them on my face now? Frisson of delight!
That’s a push present. You don’t have to get one. It’s not required. Your baby and its mother will be fine without one – lord knows money doesn’t go as far as it did four years ago. But even a little something to mark the occasion and make a new mom feel special can make a difference. It can be extravagant, like something inside a Tiffany blue box, or it can be a $35 sports watch, or a homemade mix CD. However it’s done, what’s wrong with giving Mom a little frisson now and then?
I remember reading this, and feeling the celebration of a capable body with you.
This is a joyous post, and only someone who’s had to endure something and overcome it, really reads between the lines here.
This is lovely. And makes me smile.
Thank you – your words remind me of the joy.