Behind every story is a maternal story

On baby Moses, wet nursing in ancient Egypt, and whether to give my daughter a doll.

My daughter’s favorite activity at school this week was bathing “baby Moses,” i.e., using a sponge to suds up a baby doll in a plastic tub. “Bibi,” she has been saying all week, which I hope means they spent a lot of time in Jewish daycare talking about “babies” this week and not another “Bibi.” Though this was her first time playing with a doll, I wasn’t totally surprised by her fascination—she has recently started gluing her face to the door of the baby classroom at daycare to observe the “bibis.” But despite the fact that I played with dolls for years and nevertheless turned out as a rabid feminist, I’ve been reluctant to give her any traditionally gendered toys—including dolls. She plays with balls and bubbles and play-doh and crayons and a singing train and books. I’ve wanted to see what would delight her, who she might become, without suggesting to her that her play should reflect the performance of pretend domestic labor. But right now, she is really into babies and, in the absence of any dolls in our house, bathing a plastic giraffe.

While she’s still too young to grasp any of the narrative surrounding baby Moses, I remember being fascinated by the story as a little kid in Sunday School—after Pharaoh orders that all Hebrew baby boys be drowned in the river, a mother tries to save her son’s life by tucking him into a floatable basket before placing him in the Nile! (Yet another traumatizing Old Testament scene!) But then, like something out of a Disney movie, the Pharaoh’s daughter finds him on the banks of the river, rescues him, and unwittingly reunites him with his mother. (At least that is what I remember.)