Godmother by mail

Illustration for Charles Perrault's Cinderella from Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé: Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye(1697). Gustave Doré's illustrations appear in an 1867 edition entitled Les Contes de Perrault. Image is in the public domain.

In the fairy tale Cinderella, the heroine's godmother is curiously absent until she appears to give fashion advice, support and transportation to the venue where Cinderella finds herself a husband, thus getting out of everyone's hair forever. I wonder sometimes where the godmother was...why didn't she write? And even if the evil stepmother was intercepting Cinderella's mail as evil stepparents are wont to do, Cinderella's godmother was a fairy. Why didn't she bibbity-boppity her way over and help her godchild out?

My dear friend kissmiley is expecting her first child in far-away London. Kissmiley is bearing up under the pressure quite well, especially considering that she is all alone in a foreign land full of mini washers, seeking medical care and day care.


(Right) The Buckingham Palace in England. Picture relased into public domain by Misterweiss. Kissmiley does not live here.

I am lucky enough to be the godmother of babysmiley, but find myself in a quandary: how to be a godmother by mail?

It’s a bit hard, especially when one has superstition to deal with. Personally, I feel that it is tempting the fates to decorate the nursery too early or send baby gifts before the baby is available outside the womb to receive them. Maybe I’ve read Anne’s House of Dreams one too many times, but I can’t erase the image of the young, bereaved mother unable to even take a walk alone in their grief while simultaneously needing to deal with arriving baby gifts. I get all weepy whenever I think about it.



Prince Edward Island map 1765, somewhat before Anne of Green Gables was published. Image is in the public domain.


Another difficult issue is day care. My understanding is that many day care agencies have waiting lists of up to 3 years, which, if my calculations are correct, actually would require the parents to have planned child care over two years in advance of the baby’s birth. How is such a thing possible? I mean, OK some people might be able to plan with in vitro fertilization, but that can have some unanticipated effects, or babies. Just look at Jon and Kate…plus 8. It’s a great show, and they seem to be muddling along fine, but I really can’t believe that they were planning to have 6 additional children. They certainly aren’t claiming that they originally wanted sextuplets, although they pretty clearly wanted them as soon as they showed up in the womb. Most people in that situation would probably be prepared to have 2 or 3 more babies¸but 6 is certainly a handful, even if they are that cute (and those kids are pretty darn cute).

Which brings me back to kissmiley. Is it unreasonably superstitious to refrain from giving any gifts until babysmiley arrives in the light of these day care issues?