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Eden Kennedy and Alice Bradley have both been mommybloggers since before the term existed. The two co-founded the hilarious Let’s Panic About Babies! in 2008, and have been mocking fear-based baby culture ever since. Their book, LET’S PANIC ABOUT BABIES!, will be published by St. Martin’s Press on March 1st, 2011. In the meantime, I digitally cornered Eden and Alice to pester them about their website, their fears, and the best remedy for panic.
Ariel: What inspired the founding of Let’s Panic?
Alice: I emerged from my son’s gestation and early childhood feeling like I had come out of a psychosis brought on by listening to too many parenting experts. Once I had stopped hyperventilating, it occurred to me that someone needed to make fun of these guys. And I knew the best person to help me with that was Eden.
Eden: Alice came to me with an idea for a pregnancy guide by two doctors who disagreed with each other and fought all the way through the book. I loved the idea, but as we started to work on it we had to let it evolve into something a little different, and make the two voices come together as one, so that readers could alternately laugh and be horrified by what we – and by extension, all parenting “experts” — were saying.
What causes you personally the most panic in your parenting?
Eden: The fact that I might die before my son Jackson gets old.
Alice: The fact that I might die before Eden. You know she’ll use my eulogy to exact her revenge.
Eden: It’s true, I will.
Facing your birth fears
Q. We are planning our first homebirth with our 2nd child due in February in a state that has laws preventing homebirth. I am so... Read more
Why do you think people are so panicked about babies?
Eden: I think the sleep-deprivation plays a key role in that.
Alice: Reading incredibly specific advice about how exactly you have to raise your baby, minute by minute, while being sleep deprived, doesn’t help.
Eden: Judgmental in-laws also help make you feel as though everything you’re doing is wrong.
What’s the best remedy for panic?
Eden: Sleep. Food. Life-affirming melodies. The affection of a loved one. Deep breathing.
Alice: When you panic, you lose your perspective, and your sense of humor. So if you can laugh at where you are, you’re going to keep panic in check. May I recommend a certain website and forthcoming book, for that?
Eden: Hint: it’s not Web M.D.
Why do you think there’s so much fear mongering around babies? Do we like to make each other panic?
Eden: People are judgmental f*cks, sometimes. When we don’t know how to help, we judge. It’s a stress reaction. If we were all more loved and had better-paying jobs, we’d be nicer to each other.
Alice: Babies are noted fear-mongerers. Oh, wait, that’s not what you meant.
Seriously, there’s a lot of money to be made, if we’re all scared as hell that we’re not doing something right.
Eden: I’m not. I do everything right.
Do you think there’s an industry that’s built up around feeding the panic to sell more crap?
Eden: Absolutely, yes. Why else would someone try to sell your baby a helmet?
Alice: Because your baby is a BASE jumper, obviously.
Crib bumpers: baby-killing agents of Satan, or adorable softness?
Eden: Well, they didn’t kill MY baby . . .
Alice: Not for lack of trying, they didn’t. Fortunately I had my crib bumpers consecrated with holy water. Otherwise I don’t recommend them.
Tell me about the book!
Eden: It’s really funny! And if you don’t buy it, something awful will happen.
Alice: It was the most fun I’ve ever had working that hard. No matter what I say behind her back, Eden is the best writing partner a girl could ask for, and writing this with her will, I suspect, remain one of the highlights of my life.
Eden: Well, I do try to be agreeable, and fortunately Alice and I agree on most things. We like the same snack foods, which is terribly important when you’re writing together, even 3,000 miles apart. Also, Alice is just inspirationally funny, and we compensate well for each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
You can pre-order your copy of LET’S PANIC ABOUT BABIES!, and bide your time until its release by keeping up with lets-panic.com
this just rocked my morning, everyone in my office looked at me funny as i tried to hold the laughter in. 🙂
Thank you so so so very much for bringing the book and website to my attention. This has 100% made my work day far less productive and far more funny.
Please, for the love of God and all that is good and holy, get thee to these ladies’ website. I am literally choking back the laughter reading through these articles. Seriously.
These gals sound hilarious thank God! Somehow the mom and funny-haha combo rarely breaks the surface (I am talking to YOU, certain uppity local moms!!! or mums!). Off to their websit, thanks for the tip.
BASE jumping babies! lol
I have been a loyal reader of Alice’s blog “Finslippy” and Eden’s blog “Fussy” for years, and I started reading Let’s Panic mere moments after they announced it even though I’m not a mom yet. Thanks so much for featuring them! They are The Awesome.
Oh and if you’ve never read Eden’s birth story where she gives birth in her bathroom or Alice’s birth story wherein she’s finds herself in labor on the New York City subway and then in a cab where she gazes tenderly at the back of the driver’s neck during her contractions because he’s obviously nervous about driving a pregnant lady in active labor to the hospital, you need to go there, post haste. Oh, and try not to drink anything while you read, because the part where she sees Dan Rather, (yes, really) will make whatever it is come out of your nose. Just sayin.’
‘Nough said!
100% agree with @Angie’s comment! We need more birth stories – nay, more PEOPLE – like them. 🙂 I think parenting websites everywhere can be wayyyyy too serious sometimes.
that was amazing, as was the story she had referenced at the beginning of her story.. so many birth stories, so little time…
Thanks, everyone! And thank you, Ariel, for the interview (and being so patient with our embarrassingly tardy responses).
Awesome! XD The website cracked my shit up. <3
These guys are so funny. I love this interview.
I’m ready to order! But I want mine on Kindle. ( I already clicked the button to tell your publisher to make it so. )
Wait – not until Mar 2011? Arghhhh… so far away! Why do you tease us so?!?
OHHHH THE HUMANITY!!!
Thanks, KathyRo! But just a heads-up: barring some leap in Kindle technology, I don’t think reading this book would work all that well in that format. It’s rife with sidebars, tables, and pictures, and from what I’ve seen with my own Kindle, those books lose something in electronic translation.
Now go pre-order a hard copy. The book will be here before you know it. GO!
Hands down the best parenting expert interview ever published. Including Spock (that hack).
Yes! Yes! YESSS! finally, this is exactly what so many people (including my brother who is expecting his first at the end of the month and who can not stop freaking out) need to read. Laugh, people! It will make everyone happier and healthier…and it’s about the only thing you can do sometimes. Like, say, when the 2yo come out covered from head to toe in vaseline when you’re a minute away from leaving the house with all 3 kiddos. Nothing by the way gets vaseline out of hair. nothing.
Oh how I love this! I’m pregnant and soooo tired of people telling me what I should and should not be doing. Some people are downright hysterical, on top of grossly misinformed, and I’m glad that at least someone out there has a sense of humor!