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

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.