Can I ask why it is self-aggrandising? If you've simply said you wear your baby? I don't personally use the phrase but babywearing is more than transportation and the odd bit of calming down. Also, I've made a deliberate choice NOT to buy a pram. I don't happen to like prams (although I don't consider them to be prison). It's not a philosophy, but all the same it is more than the odd trip out with a babybjorn. Why is it so wrong that other people might want to describe that action. After all it can add up to many (wo)man hours in and outside the he home.
My husband looks after my baby three days a week and 'lugs' her everywhere in an ergo. He's used the term babywearing to other dads at his dad playgroup (he heard it from me) and I'd hate for people to be sniggering behind his back for being a self-aggrandising twatty git. He's about as far from hippy as it's possible to get. But then again, men are a little easier on each other.
I'm afraid that unless that person using the word has then gone on to say something horrendously smug and self-satisfied (which can and does happen) then I think we should all hold back from immediately labelling a person who has uttered anything beginning with 'child-led' as an earth mother. I carry my baby, she sleeps in our bed and she still bfeeds. If I've ever mentioned it, I'm not trying to outdo others, appear as smug, define our whole life in those terms.
I do hate the tickers though. Seems divisive, intimates that you'll only see eye-to-eye with other 'cloth-diapered moms'.
And yes, I do agree that there is more to life with a baby than transportation and feeding, and I guess some blogs or forums create a rather fervid atmosphere of extreme AP parenting, where people almost try to outdo each other.
I am disappointed that people are so quick to judge people. My friends keep commenting on 'why I'm STILL carrying her' or 'why I'm still feeding her on demand' (and in PUBLIC shock horror), which is a shame, as I never mention it myself and don't ever go into my reasons because I don't want to come across as smug. I don't have any evidence that what I do will reap any rewards, but I have deep personal reasons and a temperamental inclination to look after my kid the way I do.
I don't think people who do controlled crying are heartless bastards, or people who puree foods are pusillanimous or ignorant, or that watching cbeebies will render your child developmentally delayed. I just think they are parents doing what needs to be done, in the style they want to do it.
So why can't some people extend the same courtesy to me? I am not an earth mother (whatever they are), or smug (I've had my moments in my life but wouldn't categorise myself as a smug person), or a hippy (do they exist?) or any ONE thing. I'm more complicated than that, and I have self-doubts, I make mistakes, and deep down I haven't got a clue what I am doing!
You just can't win, can you.