Survival Kits for Babies: Baby Box Books and Infant Temporality in Finnish Maternity Packages

Abstract

Maternity packages, introduced in 1938 by the Finnish state to counteract declining birth rates and infant mortality, have reached all newborns regardless of income or social status from 1949 onwards. The box is a unique phenomenon internationally and a significant part of the Finnish history of childhood as its contents mirror contemporaneous views on childhood. In 1982, a baby book was added to the box. Research has, however, kept focusing on the social aspects of the box, ignoring the baby books. In this article, we make up for the lack of scholarly interest in the baby box books by studying how they depict temporal normativity. Drawing on queer temporal studies (Halberstam 2005; Freeman 2010), we introduce the terms infant temporality/ baby time to discuss the interplay of aesthetics and normative timelines. We claim that these books use bodily tempo, rhythm, movement, as well as sensory and tactile aspects to depict non-normative timelines, understood as infant temporality. Drawing on Hartmut Rosa (2019), we argue that the interplay between adult caregiver and infant encouraged by these books aims to achieve resonance, understood as presence and connection. In contrast to adult acceleration, we claim that these books, as part of their unique hybrid aesthetics, present infant temporality as deceleration. Reaching a vast number of Finnish families yearly, the baby box books provide a strong temporal discourse while promoting a resonant reproductive time. However, we find that while the books studied deviate from adult temporal normativity, infant temporality is still included in a normative reproductive timeline, sanctioned by the Finnish state. Hereby, the baby box books expose temporal complexities of our era.