“Does that look like a blue line to you?” I asked Nate as we huddled in the bathroom together first thing in the morning, shining a flashlight on a four-inch-long plastic stick. Neither of us could tell, at least not definitively enough for what this particular blue line portended, so we took a 6:15 a.m. walk the six blocks to the dollar store to buy more tests. I took tests number three and four and by test number five, we were pretty sure there was a blue line, but I wondered why the manufacturers didn’t make it a “YOU ARE PREGNANT” sign in flashing neon. This whole blue line thing just wasn’t very convincing. So I called my doctor, who said I could come in for a blood test if I really wanted to, but that it wouldn’t tell us anything more than the blue line had. True, I thought, but you can interpret my blood with state-of-the-art lab equipment and a person who had to go to school for this, not me in a bathroom with a flashlight, doubting my eyesight and the veracity of a piece of plastic that cost $3.99.
My desperation must’ve been obvious to the doctor, that or the fact that I was plastered with sweat on account of jogging the twelve blocks to her office. So they called me back with the results that evening, just as some friends walked through our front door for a dinner party. I welcomed our friends with a delusional grin, then pulled Nate into our coat closet to tell him it was definitely a blue line. I still had trouble believing it, so I started googling around for how accurate a blood test is at confirming pregnancy. It wasn’t until after our first ultrasound when we saw a tiny blob that the technician assured us (repeatedly) was a baby that I fully accepted we were going to have a child.
Fifteen months before this blue line appeared, Nate and I opened up our shared calendar and decided that the optimal time to birth our first child would be precisely November 15, 2014. This would be right after Nate’s busy season at work, so he’d be able to stay home with me and the baby until after the new year. Plus, I’d have been in my job for the requisite time to accrue maternity leave. Counting back forty weeks, we calculated that we should start trying on Monday, February 3, 2014. In case you’re wondering, attempting to plan a child’s exact birthdate exemplifies my need for control. Starting on Monday, February 3, 2014, Nate and I tracked ovulation, marked the calendar, counted days, and took tests. And for thirteen months, nothing happened. Not even a nebulous blue line.
On month twelve of trying to conceive, we found ourselves in the waiting room of a fertility specialist who was adjacent to an obstetrician’s office. Nate and I sat there, palms sweating, reading pamphlets titled “IVF: Not as Painful as You Think” while glowing, globular, pregnant women sailed past on their way to ultrasounds and a lifetime of childbearing bliss. Some of them even had older children with them. The nerve. I couldn’t understand why we weren’t getting pregnant. Had the fertility gods not read the statistics? That children do better with two parents? That children do better in a home that’s financially secure? That children do better when mothers have advanced degrees? I mean, please! I was eating kale daily, going to yoga thrice weekly, and considering both acupuncture and something called the Maya fertility massage. I was booked in for a set of increasingly invasive and ominously named tests and waiting the requisite month to get on the schedule to start intrauterine insemination (IUI).
It was while waiting for our appointed IUI start date that this blue line appeared. My first thought was all the wine I’d drunk that week. I’d abstained almost entirely for those thirteen months of trying, but I’d given up the charade of assuming pregnancy that month because I couldn’t take the disappointment yet again. I called the fertility specialist to cancel our IUI appointment and starting crying on the phone. I just couldn’t believe it had happened. Through our very brief, very painless interaction with infertility, Nate and I found something we couldn’t control. Something we couldn’t pop into a spreadsheet or create an efficiency for. I know that many couples endure years of painful, challenging circumstances around trying to conceive and I’m keenly aware that our experience was nothing by comparison. With the wisdom and benevolence of retrospect—plus the fact that I like to make myself look good—I can say that it was a humbling experience that taught me the value of patience. But honestly, at the time I was just angry. I’d always assumed I’d be able to have biological children, that this rite of womanhood would come easily to me. I was in excellent physical condition, I ate all kinds of green things, and I was in a mature relationship. I wasn’t prepared for the whims of fertility and the utter lack of control I had over my own body. After six months, and then ten months, and then finally a year, we made contingency plans: we could adopt, or have a pack of dogs, or make peace with the idea of childlessness. So this blue line, this apparent baby, felt like eating pizza followed by ice cream cake followed by a release of balloons with white doves cooing at my feet while a rainbow burst across the sky and a marching band went past carrying a banner proclaiming: “YOU are pregnant!” It was almost too much happiness for one person’s body to contain, so I wondered if boundless joy could negatively impact a fetus (verdict: it does not appear so).
The very next morning I started worrying about the baby surviving the precarious first trimester. It’s nearly impossible for me to rest in happiness because my brain picks away until it finds something fresh to worry over. I’d compulsively read every book on pregnancy that the Cambridge Public Library had in stock (some books twice, and I had to pay a late fine on another) so I was all too aware of the chances for miscarriage. Despite this excessive anxiety, I breezed through the first trimester and learned the first two universal parenting lessons: 1) you are not in control, and 2) there is always something to worry about where your children are concerned.
The third “truth” I kept hearing is that children are always, and without exception, expensive. I don’t even know how this yarn wended its way into my brain, but it’s a pervasive trope in our culture and one that’s lobbed at every expectant parent by advertisers, baby books, obstetricians, and of course fellow parents. In addition to the excitement I felt over, you know, having a baby, a close second was the excitement Nate and I had for our plans to entirely upend this hackneyed conventional wisdom. Yes, having a child is more expensive than not having a child, but it doesn’t have to cost anywhere near the egregious sums I see headlining clickbait scare-tactic articles designed to send already apprehensive pregnant women—neurotically scanning the Internet while inhaling ice cream (speaking for myself here . . . )—into near panic attacks.
By the time we finally got pregnant in March 2015, Nate and I had figured out how to apply extreme frugality to every aspect of our lives. We reasoned parenthood shouldn’t be any different. Once you’ve ingrained the mind-set of frugality and reaped the multitude of benefits the lifestyle offers, it’s actually more difficult to spend money than not. There’s an assumption that parenting is somehow impossible to square with frugality, but let me ruin the rest of the book and divest you of this notion right now: it’s not. There’s a stigma associated with used baby things and yes, babies are expensive if you care what other people think about your diaper bag and burp cloths. Nate and I learned that the stuff of babies, the rockers, bouncers, and changing tables, was all around us, in the attics and basements of everyone we knew with kids slightly too old to sleep in a crib any longer. Before we even got pregnant, my friend at work mentioned that she needed to transition her youngest son into a big boy bed and that she didn’t know what to do with his crib and changing table, since she couldn’t sell the crib, an old drop-side model, on Craigslist. She figured she’d have to throw it out. My frugal antenna went up, way up, and I asked her if I could have it. Nate and I took the minivan over to her house one Sunday and spent the afternoon disassembling the crib and changing table and squeezing them into the back of the van. We’d long since taken all the rear seats out of the minivan, rendering it a sort of pick-up truck with a roof, because either we or our friends were forever hauling furniture or two-by-fours or, in one memorable instance while dog sitting, three greyhounds.
As Nate worked to take apart the crib, my friend and her husband, thrilled we were carting away this old stuff, asked if we wanted any other baby things. She pulled out a high chair, car seat, changing pads, clothes, crib sheets, toys, books; a gold mine of hand-me-downs. She was surprised we wanted all this old stuff, but delighted to unload it. Nate and I stored this stash in our upstairs guest room (where I wouldn’t see it and weep during my un-pregnancy) for almost a year and a half before our daughter was born. Housing this stuff for so long was worth it to us for what turned out to be a nursery we spent all of $20 on. Baby things are like Christmas trees: when it’s in season, you really want it, but once that season is over, you want it out of your house like yesterday. Once I was pregnant, I put out the word to friends, neighbors, coworkers (anyone I knew with kids) that I’d happily take their hand-me-downs. Most of them were initially surprised that I wanted used things since, as an upper-middle-class urban couple expecting their first precious child, it was assumed we’d want to buy brand-new, top-of-the-line baby gear. After people heard I’d take their castoffs, a mother lode of baby goods came pouring in. I also joined my local Buy Nothing group, which was a bastion of baby and kid stuff. I started cleaning out our basement and gave away wedding gifts we’d never opened, picture frames, throw pillows, and anything else we didn’t need in exchange for bibs, clothes, blankets, books, toys, a stroller, swaddles, a bassinet, and more. All well used and all completely free.
The insidious thing about new baby paraphernalia is that manufacturers and marketers know they’re dealing with a vulnerable, susceptible demographic: expectant parents. If there’s a more anxiety-provoking time than being pregnant with your first child, I’d like to hear about it. Because you are now weighted with the gravity of knowing you’re going to be responsible for another person, a life you’ve created. After all, don’t you want what’s best for your child? What’s safest? What’s most likely to ensure their spot in Harvard’s class of 2037?! Any special occasion or life event is an advertiser’s dream, and weddings, graduations, and funerals are all ripe for cowing participants into spending way more than they can afford because, as the ads taunt: “you deserve it” and “everyone else is doing it” and “don’t you want to honor your loved ones?” The golden goose of all is the baby-industrial complex. The pressure is so compelling that if Nate and I weren’t already secure, confident, and well-practiced in our frugality, I would’ve been sucked right into the fray. As it was, I was firmly off the consumer carousel and suspicious of claims that used baby stuff was gross or unsafe. These ads play on our basest fears that we won’t be able to provide for our children, that they’ll get sick, that they’ll be unhappy. But buying stuff doesn’t mitigate any of those concerns. If anything, it enhances them, since by buying tons of stuff, we’ll have less money to deal with potentially serious issues, such as an unexpected health crisis.
There are very real safety considerations with baby goods, so I’m not recommending that anyone go all 1820s on their child and forgo modern conventions like sleep sacks and car seats. Merely that you use your brain. I know my brain took a hiatus during pregnancy, but bear with me. Nate and I accepted a hand-me-down car seat, an action that’s cited as the ultimate parenting sin; however, we took that car seat from a trusted friend who told us the seat hadn’t ever been in an accident. We then researched the serial number and manufacturer, and determined the seat wasn’t expired and that there were no safety recalls or innovations. In other words, it was a perfectly fine free car seat. Same story for our high chair, which did in fact have a safety recall so we ordered the parts to fix it from the manufacturer, which, by the way, were free. And as for that drop-side crib? My friend had already installed the conversion kit that turned it into a safe, fixed-side crib. I probably wouldn’t use a twenty-year-old car seat, but a two-year-old seat? Absolutely. We also played the long game in assembling our nursery, which is the heart of successful hand-me-downing. You can’t expect to find everything you need in a day, a week, or even a month. It takes time to curate an entirely secondhand home, but as someone who has done it, I can tell you it’s altogether possible.
Plus, the thrill of the hunt is unparalleled. When you walk into a store and buy everything you could possibly need, you deprive yourself of the unadulterated providence of happening upon just the ExerSaucer you need sitting for free on the side of the road. There’s no rush quite like it. My dear friend Torrey asked if she could host a baby shower for us and I was conflicted by her offer. On one hand, it was an incredibly sweet gesture and a shower would be a lot of fun. But on the other hand, I didn’t want to condemn my friends to buying brand-new stuff for me when I knew I could find the things I needed for free or cheap on the used market. It felt unfair and out of alignment with my frugal ethos. And so I asked Torrey if she would instead be willing to keep our dog for us when we went to the hospital to have our baby. She very kindly agreed. Torrey explained that she wanted to do something to support us during this time and if dog sitting was what we needed, then she would do it. Forgoing a registry and baby shower might be unconventional, but it worked for me and it made me feel like I was able to keep true to my anticonsumer goals. Plus, we genuinely needed a dog sitter and were grateful to be able to take Torrey up on her generosity.
Frugality also eliminates the paralysis by analysis that’s endemic to buying new. If we’d decided to buy everything new, hours of our lives (and a fair bit of sanity) would’ve been lost to comparing the merits of a City Mini versus a Snap-N-Go and an Ergo versus a Snugli. By taking whatever came our way for free, the time and stress endemic to making these choices was eliminated. More choices do not lead to more happiness. In fact, research has proven the exact opposite. When we’re overwhelmed with the sixty-seven different styles of baby onesies, we’re not going to be satisfied with our choice; no matter what, we’ll wonder if we chose the wrong one. We’ll second-guess our decision and compulsively read reviews to see if we’re vindicated in our selection. Conversely, I was thrilled with any and all free baby onesies because I didn’t have to labor over selecting them. Didn’t hurt that I didn’t pay for them either. We’re led to believe that having the ability to select between multiple options is a boon, but in reality, any time we choose stuff over our circumstances, we’re losing. The real freedom of choice is to turn our backs on consumption. You’re not exerting your free will in spending money, you’re turning your free will over to someone else. Choice is the ultimate freedom we have, yet so many of us put choice of material possessions ahead of choice over how we spend our lives.
In addition to decreasing our happiness level, endless choices also ratchet up our spending. If the $300 stroller is good, then the $375 model must be better . . . and we’re now reading through the 276 customer reviews and it looks like people actually prefer the $425 model, which comes with a cup holder . . . open a few more tabs and it seems that there was an improvement made at the $450 level and so maybe that would be best . . . although actually, the $556 model is the one with five stars . . . and on it goes. Our unfettered access to massive data sets, scrolling customer reviews, and online forums has created an unrealistic expectation of exhaustive research before buying a single solitary thing. Purchasing a bib turns into a hair-tearing, nightmarish landscape of horror stories about babies smeared with irrevocably staining beet juice! (Side note: beets really do stain babies something awful.)
Is my high chair the best, most perfect, highest rated high chair ever designed for babies? Probably not. But it works mighty fine, and I wasted none of this time and mental energy. I just picked it up for free one afternoon from Nate’s colleague, whose kids had outgrown it. And I actually like this high chair quite a bit, as it’s cute, it’s functional, and it cleans up well. I’d wager I appreciate it all the more because of the embodied time, stress, and cost that it doesn’t represent. Plus, what’s new today will probably be recalled or changed or otherwise modified for the next buying season to ensure we continue worshipping at the altar of eternal consumption.
I didn’t suspend my own personal clothes-buying ban during pregnancy either. I figured if I could find so many baby things secondhand, surely I could source hand-me-down maternity clothes too. And I did. Everything from nursing tank tops to maternity cocktail dresses came my way for free as hand-me-downs. Maternity clothes that you wear only for a few months tops? Total rip-off. My collection of hand-me-downs weren’t all perfect, weren’t all my style, weren’t all my size, and some were downright shabby, but they were all free and they all worked just fine. I managed to look professional every day at my job (plus requisite work cocktail parties), participate in several conferences, go to a family reunion, and attend a wedding while pregnant, all without buying a scrap of clothing.
Babies have this penchant for not caring about anything but eating, sleeping, and snuggling on their parents. Whether that’s in a crib that three other children have already slept in or a brand-new $1,400 contraption is immaterial to them. The only person who cares what that crib looks like are the parents. If I’d spent thousands of dollars before my child was even born, what exactly would that portend for the rest of her life? Hundreds of dollars on a new preschool wardrobe? Thousands of dollars on school supplies for kindergarten? A pony for a seventh birthday? Start off from the perspective of spending as little as possible and you’ll have more resources at your disposal to pay for the things that actually matter later on in a child’s life.
Nate and I found that using secondhand baby things and eschewing the idea that more stuff makes a happier kid did not create a sense of deprivation. For us, it became not only an economical choice, but also a way of teaching our child how to value ingenuity over consumption and people over things. As we prepared for our child’s birth, I realized that instead of spending time shopping, or working longer hours to earn more money to buy more stuff for our kid, Nate and I were going to circumvent that entire system and instead simply spend more time with our child. As Nate and I discussed our nascent parenting philosophy, we agreed that what kids truly need and want is time with their parents to help them learn, grow, and explore the world. For our family, thousands of dollars spent on the latest educational toys could not replace an hour-long (free) walk through the park together to explore the grass, talk about the trees, and comment on a squirrel burying a nut. Nate and I decided that what our kid needed most was us. Not us distracted and harried by jobs, struggling to pay for expensive trappings of childhood, but our presence, our imperfections, our dreams, our unique skills, our unhurried ears, and most of all, our love. Our lives were enriched and made demonstrably better thanks to our embrace of frugality. We figured that a kid would reap those same benefits.