Everyone I know is pregnant.
This is obviously an exaggeration, but in truth a lot of my friends are pregnant. Every time I log into my email or onto facebook, there’s another announcement. Someone new is expecting a bundle of joy. I blame this on my age, being 32 is to having babies what being 25 is to getting married.
At one point this spring I had 13 simultaneously pregnant friends. Friends, not acquaintances. 13. Pregnant. All at once. I don’t even know how I have 13 friends, let alone how 13 of them wound up pregnant at once.* I pride myself on being a bit of curmudgeon, so considering 13 people “friends” hurts my reputation.
I am not on the baby bus. Not even a little. And yet, I know a surprising amount about having babies. Maybe because I have 22 nieces, nephews, great nieces, and great nephews, or maybe because I’ve had the pleasure of having 13 simultaneously pregnant friends. I don’t plan on having children** at all, and so I’ve become a repository for mostly useless (to me) information. (There is no reason for me to know the term “ring of fire.”) (If you don’t know what that is you should not google it. Do not.) I can share an interesting story with the best of ‘em, and I can offer up information (but not advice) based on the experience of dozens and dozens of other people’s experiences, but I have no desire to be a parent.
For all of you who are pregnant now this next part is important: I will happily talk to you about your kids, and I will very happily nom on baby toes, but I don’t want to hold your baby. No, really, I don’t. I’m thinking about having a t-shirt made. (If you have kids and you just laughed at that, congratulations, you made it through with a sense of humor intact.) Holding a baby is great, for about 5 minutes. The problem is that new parents are a lot like sharks smelling fresh blood in the water when visitors arrive. “Do you want to hold him?” They’ll ask you, growing their pupils to anime puppy size. It’s then you realize that they’re baby avoidant ninjas, they hand them off and then their hands disappear for an hour.
I also want to talk about stuff other than your baby – I still want to know about the person I knew before the baby. I’ve been extremely lucky in that about 95% of my friends have maintained their sense of self post-baby. I’m sorry, I just got distracted overhearing the phrase, “…understand the practical reasons for learning calculus…” There are no practical reasons for learning calculus. He’s lucky this ring is already on my hand because I’m pretty sure he’s an alien.
So, yeah, babies. STOP HAVING THEM, I CAN’T AFFORD TO BUY YOU ALL PRESENTS. Also, Facebook needs to go away because it makes it impossible to lose friends. Generations past had small circles of friends because people would move and lose touch, but no longer. People stay in touch forever now. What have we done?
*I know how literally. Shut up.
**I know that there is a deep-seated, nearly pathological urge on your part to utter the words “you’ll change your mind” right now, but I want you to think hard before you type it.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I must be weird because I HATE handing over my baby to visitors, but I feel like I am expected to. I want her all to myself. (I’m also trying really hard to maintain my pre-baby self as much as I can, I promise.) Also, don’t need presents, just quality snark thanks
Love you.
I totally agree with SarahBeth. I don’t want anyone else holding Charlie. Mostly because who knows when they washed their hands last or if they are a secret nose picker or what. Plus after everything I am going thru with this pregnancy this is MY child, back off
PS: It is WAY to easy to lose any sense of your pre-pregnancy weight when one is on bedrest and literally have nothing else going on. I have actually been pondering this for the last few days. It’s scary.
PPS: I believe you when you say NEVER. And I don’t think you will change your mind
I didn’t mind others holding my son (now 6) when he was born, but I much preferred to hold him myself. I didn’t offer, I waited for people to ask (except family).
It took me about a year to regain my pre-baby sense of self, because year 1=BABY!! But I have learned that post-baby there are TWO selves; mommy-self, and social-self. You kinda forget about social-self in the flurry of diapers and cutesie baby clothes. Slowly she makes her presence known, and eventually you find yourself running out the door for girls-night-out without so much as a bye-honey-don’t-forget-to-feed-the-baby flung behind you.
I hate holding other people’s babies. I smiled at your t-shirt comment, remembered two months ago when my coworker got very offended that I didn’t want to hold her newly-minted child, and wondered if I could get a copy of your t-shirt.
I don’t want any more (I love my son, and he’s perfect. I’m one and done). I haven’t wanted any more since he came along, and my opinion is only getting more solid, not less solid, as I age. So I totally believe you. You don’t want kids. You will never want kids. And I think you’re one of the smartest people I know
Thanks for a blog that frequently makes me LOL at work (a nearly impossible feat).
You’ll change your mind. Tee hee.
p.s. I can’t believe people actually say that to you. Nobody says that to me. Maybe everyone just agrees that my genes don’t need to be propagated, and since I can’t even reliably keep a houseplant alive, I have no business caring for a fellow human of any age.
Sarah: LOL about hand-washing and nose picking. OMG NO NOT BOOGERS. Really? What exactly do you think some random germs are going to do to your kid? I might be concerned if they were recently handling raw chicken, but cripes. Babies get, and are, dirty. They came out of your uterus and/or vagina, it’s not like they’re some sanitized little being of pure cleanliness.
Newborn time goes so quickly, that’s usually the reason I’ll offer to let people hold my babies. At the same time, I never am comfortable with letting them do it for long periods of time. When K was 3m old and my MIL disappeared with her for hours at a time (without asking) it drove me up the walls — partially because I needed to nurse that little thing, and also because that was my bonding time with her. MIL was being crazy selfish in that respect.
Patti, you may only hold Sprout for 10 minute intervals. YOU HEAR ME, BABY THIEF?
Just to follow-up on the booger thing, I do support hand-washing before holding infants, the booger edge-case just made me lol.