Formulating Experiences of Parenthood and Belonging in the Context of the Finnish Welfare State: Baby Box and Complex Nostalgia

Abstract

This article explores the Finnish welfare state object, the ‘baby box’ (or literally ‘maternity package’), issued to families ever since 1937, as an emotional object. The emotion ‘as practice’ to be discussed through people’s written memories of the baby box is nostalgia. Drawing from the history of experience and emotions, I explore the ways in which people, by reminiscing about their encounters with this material object, produce and use nostalgia to formulate the experiences of parenthood and belonging in the context of the welfare state related modernism. The baby box will be examined as a repository and producer of nostalgic meanings in relation to three key narrative themes: the baby box as an instrument of equality; the baby box signalling the care of one’s own child; and the baby box as part of experiencing transgenerational continuity. The article demonstrates the coexisting retrospective, progressive, productive and future-oriented elements of welfare state nostalgia, and how nostalgia is entangled in material-discursive intra-actions. The arti-cle also argues that the baby box can be seen as a mediating object between subjective and shared experiences in the context of the welfare state.