McBirdie`s Nest

I had a dream the other night wherein I had nine babies. Let me clarify--I had nine babies at one time. As in nonuplets. Funnily enough, though, my main concern was their names. I sent my friends off to name the little blighters while I did some paperwork (I recovered really quickly--I'm tough) and when I got back, I was horrified to discover that they had named one of the girls Jessica. We had to have them all named before we were allowed to leave, so I was in a desperate hurry to come up with a good girls' name that didn't repeat any of the other eight names and didn't suck. I think I ended up with Clarabelle* and felt bad about it.

 I'm pretty sure what kicked off this insane little dream was the fact that my Facebook has of late been pretty much hosed down in babies. Everyone's status update is how their labour is going, which style of baby carrier is the best, potty training snafus and the like. It's been...tedious.

Look, I know I have to put a disclaimer on any journal post that is anything less than squee-ing over the marvel of babyhood, so let me just get it out of the way:

 I think babies are great. Children are marvels. People who raise children are...um...people who raise children. Sorry, that's as far as you go with the accolades.

 Here's the thing: I see having children as just another hobby or lifestyle decision. Just another aspect that is only part of the whole. You have kids, I have a dog, you have hobbies, I have hobbies, it's all a nice mix. Good for us.

 What I don't get--and what gets my dander up all to high heaven--is when people stop being people and turn into Keepers of Children. Why is that okay? Why does no one stage an intervention when people can't come up with any conversational topic that doesn't centre on Little Johnny Who Struggles To Go Potty? If a guy can't talk about anything other than his job, we call him a bore and refuse to invite him to our dinner parties. If a woman can't do anything but talk about extracting milk and carrying cheerios in her purse, we're supposed to smile indulgently and ask to see pictures. Why?

 I had a friend in college (yes, smartasses, I actually had more than one friend, but they're not relevant to this post--hush) who was the perfect example of What We Learn Outside of Classes in College. She was completely different from anyone I had been exposed to until then and she really stuck out at our university. I went to a school that had formally been a woman's finishing school in the South and the clientèle and ambience retained some of that feel.

J, in contrast, was anything but a candidate for finishing. She was a strange bohemian sort of chick--curious and energetic and always on the edge of doing something awesomely outlandish. You just knew she was going to graduate and start sending you postcards from Africa, joining the Peace Corps or backpacking around the world, or something. She was actually a big stimulus to changing how I saw myself and what I assumed I was capable of. There has been more than one occasion in my life when I thought, "Heh. J would think I rocked if she saw what I just did."

Now? She's a grade school teacher (yes, yes, teachers are the foundations of our future, salt of the Earth, etc. etc.) and with a misbehaving toddler running her life. I know he is misbehaving because she updates on him so often, I know him like he's my own. I don't know squat about anything else in her life, though. If there is anything else in her life.

So two questions. First, do parents get as bored with themselves as the rest of the world does? Do they ever look down and think..."Crap, really? THIS is what I did with my life? Huh."? Or are they as pleased with themselves and their loins as they tell us repeatedly they are? 

And secondly, am I the only one who is less than impressed? My uterus doesn't contract longingly when someone tells me that their little one just vomited on every duvet in the house. I just think how glad I am that I never got suckered into that life. Is it some sort of chemical change that happens that takes you from, "I like knowing what is going on in the world outside my house and having interests" to "Having a child is the most magical thing you can ever do--if you don't understand, you don't have a child" or are child-free people as deluded as they think?

*--If I hadn't been dream-panicked, I totally would have gone with Isabella. How great is that name?