BABY OFF BOARD

BABY OFF BOARD -

Monthly Archives: April 2012

What—You Want My Ball, Too?

by Aurora Bordeaux

Recently, a couple at a Rangers baseball game caught a lot of flack after catching a stray ball and not giving it to a sobbing toddler sitting next to them. The Internet is reaming these folks, and while I admit that they do sort of look like jerks in the footage as they ignore the crying kid next to them, I’m still on their side. 100%.

Why do we have to constantly cater to children, always bending over backwards to avoid smashing their tiny feelings? Is it because they’re new to the planet? I understand why parents would need to coddle and cater to their babes—I bend over backwards for my perfect Labradoodle, Bosco—but what makes the world at large responsible for every new person’s constant happiness?

The real world doesn’t work like that when you’re new at something. When you start a new job, move to a new city, or are a freshman in anything, things are hard. You have to work to earn people’s respect, and no one is going to coddle you. In the real world, there is no second baseball just because you cry.

If a 30-year old started sobbing, he would be the target of the world’s jeers, not the other way around. These people seemed to have caught the ball fair in square. Maybe if the kid’s dad didn’t have an armful of child at that particular moment, he would have snagged the ball first.

Worst of all, the kid learned that sobbing on television gets the world to give you exactly what you want. A magical second ball appeared from the dugout, just to appease the tortured babe. The kneejerk part of me goes “aww,” I guess that’s nice, but another part of me wonders what it really teaches kids about crying to get what you want.

The news claims this couple is oblivious, but the anxious look on the woman’s face proves otherwise. I think they knew, and despite the primal draw of giving into the crying child, they managed to keep the foul ball within their clutches. I couldn’t have done it—the pressure was too great. But, whether they’re naughty or nice in real life, I admire their ability to hang on.

Myth: Childless Versus Childfree

by Aurora Bordeaux

As a child, I was fed heavy doses of bible stories. You know, stories like Cain and Able, Noah and the Ark, and weird verbal annotations in between that included tales of Cain’s secret affair with a demon or a crazy angel or something that resulted in an especially tall half-human, half-demon race of people who eventually became aliens. I was also forced to wear ruffle socks to church.

I wish I was fabricating this section of my rearing, but I’m not. Masquerading underneath a supposedly traditional religion and reams of Sunday casserole dishes were boatloads of wacked out stories that might as well have come with black Nikes and a side of Kool-Aide.

In these old school stories, women who weren’t able to have kids were common. They were a permanent fixture of tragedy, always playing the weeping role of the downtrodden despite any other advantages they enjoyed—beauty, wealth, security, men who loved them. If you couldn’t poop out a kid, you were barren, cursed, and object of sorrow and spite. If you could make kids (and make ‘em fast), you were hot stuff, blessed, favored.

For women, procreation was power. Ladies sometimes got into procreation contests to see who could make the most kids the fastest, even naming the children after their victories or losses to permanently illustrate who was the biggest hen in the pecking order.

This is the same sort of culture I was raised in. Women who didn’t have children, the childless, were viewed as less than women who did. Not having children was an agony that brought the whole community together in pity and prayer. Heal her! Bless her! Bring her babies!

Now, fast forward to adulthood and a refined reality that’s 100% free of crazy. Or, is it? I’ve sloughed off the oddities of my upbringing, but even in a progressive community nestled securely in a post-feminist world, I still face the same attitudes when it comes to being an adult female sans enfant.

When people ask me point-blank if I have children and I say no, I’m actually pitied. People frown at me as if I’m one of God’s most forlorn creatures. Many offer condescending consolation comments, including, “aww,” or, my personal favorite, a tender pat on the hand accompanied by, “There’s still time.” They never bother to ask if I’m happy as I am. They just assume that I can’t be.

And that is absolutely retarded.

I’m not “childless.” I’m not missing any parts or less than the sum of a whole. I’m “childfree.” As in, my life is free of children, and by choice. Not barren. Bursting with contentment. Not childless. Childfree. Free!

Aurora Bordeaux: Ex-Auntie

by Aurora Bordeaux

It’s not that I totally hate kids. I used to really love them. As a younger child, I was always that weirdo who liked babysitting and wanted to “hold the baby.”

I grew out of it.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to have any kids in my life, or that I’m not supportive of the people I know who have them. I like the auntie role, with its major perks and minor setbacks. As a well rounded, intelligent, emotionally healthy adult, I feel that I have a lot to offer on the auntie front.

But recently, my sister-in-law (SIL) more or less gave me the boot out of her small children’s lives, using a special brand of mother-speak to ask (nay, tell) me not to talk to her kids again.

My SIL’s children are 6 and 2, and to my knowledge, I have never done anything to them except shower them with thoughtful and not-cheap gifts, have them to stay overnight in my home even when they left it a wreck, and basically watch every word I said around them. I didn’t just jump through hoops to try to be a good aunt to these two—I leapt through a series of hoops on fire. For years.

But it’s not enough. It never will be. I’ve essentially been ushered out of the kids’ lives by the elbow, as if I had come to a wedding drunk, never to be forgiven for something that should never have been a crime at all. It all officially kicked off when I said the magic words: “I am not going to have kids.”

My sister-in-law is a churchy type, the all-American housewife who lives to breed. I used to admire and respect her, even though I always had a creeping sense that she didn’t care for me much. More hoop jumping was the cure, I reasoned, believing it all that was necessary to make her flip the switch and like me for real instead of just pretending to.

The signs of her distaste with my existence were subtle, but after I said I didn’t want kids, they became more obvious and I started suspecting that it wasn’t all in my head. She’d tense when I would mention that I love krav, or that I was considering a tattoo. I don’t drink much or do drugs of any kind, but the fact that I enjoy a glass of wine or cocktail now and then made her twitchy. In her politically correct eyes, I’m a tattoo laden (I never even got one), gun toting booze hound.

Her daughter is excessively dramatic, and her son is wildly energetic, two qualities she doesn’t share. When I last played with them, our game evolved into an epic soiree revolving around zombie deer and a monster teddy bear. The kids were directing the play, but I thought the grisly topics of their designs were fun and funny. I don’t think she did. She seemed to want to blame me for the qualities in her kids she didn’t care for, those that didn’t mimic her own.

She doesn’t want her kids to see or know the world, and even though I have a deeply religious background that she doesn’t have a clue about, she probably views me as “the world,” and therefore wants to shield her little perfects from me. She thinks I’m Satan, but one she technically has to tolerate.

At the last visit, she let her oober Christian façade slip for a fraction of a second and finally gave me the sweet peace of concrete proof that I wasn’t making it all up, dicing me up at the kitchen table with a direct, though muttered, comment. I won’t bother repeating it here, because it’s a long story. But the bottom line is that the real message was: “Don’t speak to my kids. Stay away from them. You are not welcome, nor wanted.”

I sat there and smiled politely until I couldn’t choke the tears back, then made a quiet retreat into the woods out back and called Mimo, my ancient grandmother, for reinforcement. Mimo was having a clear day and gave me a verbal chiropractic adjustment of the soul, helping me remember that the bitch didn’t matter. I don’t need her.

If I was a mom, I’d be tickled to have an aunt around who could balance out my parenting qualities with something a little more fun, who would embrace the role wholeheartedly and try her utmost to be a positive adult influence. But this woman doesn’t want anything other than herself and those identical to her in the kids’ lives. She definitely doesn’t want me.

It really hurt my feelings at first, but then I thought, why pine after people who don’t want you? It’s sad, yes, and rejection sucks. But screw it.

My bruised feelings were eased a by a recent visit from a firecracker aunt who never married, nor procreated. I have always liked her, but over a few glasses of fizzy beverage, I suddenly realized that we had a boatload in common. In confidence, she told me that she invited my husband and his siblings to her lake house every summer, but their mother consistently refused. The mother tried to keep the cool aunt away from her kids—here it comes—because she thought the aunt was a bad influence.

This, to me, is outrageous. The aunt is hilarious, fun, honest, and sharp. She has an amazing career and I think of her as a feminist trailblazer with unbelievable experiences to share. How could any mother not want a person like this around her children? Sure, she can be a little rough around the edges, but she has so, so, so much to offer. At least, I was pecking at her heels to take whatever she would give me. When she talked about being rejected as an aunt, her tough veneer broke just enough, and I saw genuine hurt in her eyes even though it happened so long ago.

It’s a hurt I understand well now, but honestly, just knowing that someone else that amazing has felt it as well sucked out a lot of the sting. If she got the boot as an auntie, too, then it turned out that I was in excellent company.

I think my SIL’s kids will miss out by being deprived of my auntie-ship; I know I would have a lot to offer them as they grew up, and heaven knows their vital sides need adults around who understand their natures on a more organic level. But if the mother wants to hang on her high horse and judge, that’s fine by me. I’ll live.

Because I know that I’m a good person, and I know that there’s nothing wrong with being childfree. Unlike her, I don’t require children to be happy. I’m Off Board, Baby.

Contraceptive Roundup: Review of Quarterly Birth Control (LoSeasonique)

by Aurora Bordeaux

Last summer, I made a big decision. I was done with periods.

Think about it. What earthly perk do periods bring us, aside from that heaving relief that we’re not pregnant? I realized that I can pay a pee stick to tell me that. Screw periods! Yeah!

I had tried the quarterly birth control deal back in college, but when a pushy female relative got wind of it, she scared me to death. The nut job literally cornered me and locked me in a bathroom for over an hour, at midnight, with her hand held to her mouth, aghast that I would do such a thing as use the pill to have just four periods a year. The fact that my doctor told me it was okey dokey had no relevance. She tearfully made me swear that I would stop using my birth control pill to segue into quarterly periods.

Yeah. She was a psycho.

But now she’s dead (hooray!), and I’m an adult instead of a college kid, and I can make my own decisions. So I marched myself over to my perky-perky gyno, who handed me a pack of LoSeasonique. I’m in no way trying to plug the brand, but I figured that if I was going to write about my experience with something, I might as well tell you what I’m on.

A few years ago, Seasonique and quarterly period pills like it hit the market with snappy ads featuring sassy women who brought good tidings of great joy, assuring women everywhere that the dream was possible. These commercial women were credible sources, given that they were engaged in their too-cool-for-school careers as they spoke, putting makeup on in actor’s trailers and designing their own wallpaper or whatever.

Speaking of ridiculous period marketing, do you remember when Always emblazoned every pad with the sunshiny phrase, “Have a happy period!” Golly, that pissed me off. My husband would be in the next room, hear a wrapper unfold from the bathroom, and then catch a quiet hiss: “Fuck you.”

“What?” he’d say, having done nothing wrong.

“Nothing,” I’d mutter, crumpling the intrusive paper and wadding it into the trash. Always must have gotten a lot of angry letters about telling women what kind of period to have, because they no longer put the phrase on their pads. Good riddens.

Anyway. Back to birth control. I write now from the perspective of having been on this newfangled pill for almost a year, and my verdict is positive. It wasn’t an easy ride to get used to, but after my body got adjusted over the months, the new schedule felt normal. Fantastic, even. Before, one week out of every four sucked. Now, I never think about those weeks except for four times a year when a blip shows up on the radar.

I bought some pee sticks to soothe my nerves, but only used one when I was first getting started. Now I feel that if I were somehow pregnant, my body would find some other way to tell me and I’d figure it out. But, God and LoSeasonique willing, that’s not going to happen.

The road that paved the way to feminine bliss wasn’t all lined with cherries. There was some intensive spotting that felt like it lasted forever, but it got easier and less major over time. I also ballooned and gained about 15 pounds, a self esteem crushing experience that ultimately led me to get my ass in gear in the new year and shed them, which is empowering and healthy.

Carrying the weight was a major drag, especially since I’ve weighed about the same thing for a decade and wasn’t used to the sudden slosh and sense of being forever swollen. Who was I? What the hell happened? How on earth did I get fat in under three weeks? I was in a tizzy over it then, but now that I’ve peeled the pounds off, I feel fantastic. It was worth it in the end, because it was the push I had long needed to commit to a healthier weight anyway.

All in all, I give the quarterly birth control thing a thumbs up. I’m on a basterdized generic of LoSeasonique, and it still rocks.

Update: I wrote this yesterday, feeling all chipper about the pill. But I had also expected my ho’ of a flow to come a few days ago, and last night finally lost my marbles over it, getting a little drunk off Jim Beam, forking my way to the bottom of a bowl of pasta until I hit bedrock, and whizzing on a stick for the second time in my life. I think I sat on my haunches staring at the garbage can for well over fifteen minutes looking at those blue lines, basically losing my mind.

As of this morning, I am proud to report that I am not pregnant in the traditional sense. But I felt that in all honesty, I had to add my bout of prego-terror insanity to the chronicle of this new birth control. Things aren’t as clockworky when it’s go time, so it can lead to major paranoia when the red gets to rolling five days later than you expect. Still, now that the issue is settled and the fear has been slain, it’s an inconvenience that I’m willing to put up with just four times a year. I just need to buy more whiz sticks.

Things In Common: I Understand and Respect Poop

by Aurora Bordeaux

(Note: Although I enjoy pictures, this post will be devoid of them except one of a fake Bosco. I was honestly too afraid to troll the internet for child poop pictures. I’m sure you understand.)

When people have children, a lot of their lives begin to revolve around poop. Which foods will produce which kinds of poop, when the poop is expected to arrive, and (worst of all) what could be delaying poop. It seems that a chunky portion of the care and feeding of a child has to do with its waste.

Poop is the almighty real-time determinator of how things are going.

This is one thing I think we may have in common. My perfect labradoodle, Bosco, serves as both a dear friend and a pseudo-child. Bosco’s health and well being are paramount to me. However, Bosco has one problem: She can’t talk. That’s why, in order to determine if she’s feeling fine, I have to listen to her poop.

If a dog stops eating, they’re sick. If a dog stops pooping, they’re sick. If a dog’s poop is, well, extra icky, they’re sick. Poop is the barometer by which I judge Bosco’s day to day health.

The difference is that Bosco’s poop comes out a lot less frequently than a child’s. She also takes care of things herself by depositing it in the yard like a lady where I can pick it up later through the safety of a plastic baggie. Unlike a child, Bosco doesn’t scream at me when she poops or try to hold her poop in as a form of power struggle. Bosco also doesn’t have debates with me over ass wiping.

Bosco’s poop, unlike a child’s, is simple. Easy. It doesn’t stink up my home or complicate my entire life.

Bosco’s poop I can handle. A child’s, not so much.

And can I just put my super judgy cap on for a second here, and say what the hell is up with parents who never potty train their kids? I know kids who have lengthy conversations with their parents as their parents are changing their diapers. I’m sorry, but that is really weird and kind of sick. If you can talk to me, you can deal with your own shit. Gross, folks. Gross.

As a teen who had unpaid babysitting duties thrust upon me regularly, I have changed a lot of diapers. I know how to do it, and I know it had to be done or no one else would have dealt with it (sucked for me). This one time, when I was changing a year-old niece’s diaper, she started whimpering, as if me doing the work was a massive inconvenience to her. I looked her dead in the eye, her ankles in my hands, and said, “Listen. I don’t want to do this, either, but we’re both stuck. Deal with it.” She zipped the whines up straightaway, we got it over with, and everything was fine.

Baby poop: Not fun. Young child poop: More not fun. Drunk teenage poop: Super extremely not fun. But Bosco’s poop? Manageable.

Parental Oddities: Photographing Newborns

by Aurora Bordeaux

Sometimes, the way people choose to memorialize their children and childhood is creepier and less dignified than a funeral.

I’m regularly unnerved by those Han-Soloed bronze children in parks and shopping malls, frozen for all time without ever being able to catch that midair ball. I’ll be walking, minding my own biz, when all of a sudden I’m face to face with a ring of stunned metal kids soldered to the ground playing jacks or whatever. They look like they could survive a nuclear bomb and still be sitting there playing those jacks, but I don’t think they’re actually happy in their neverending game. Why do people think these bronze children are endearing? What is so great about preserving childhood–permanently?

Newborn photography is another weird one. Artsy fartsy photos of babies have become a requisite for proper parenthood, and just about every youth minister’s wife has taken up the trade of capturing fresh life on a black background or wedging babies into fuzzy crochet contraptions and dangling them from coat hangers while they’re asleep.

But I’m even more disturbed by the trend of slapping newborn babies into socks to take their pictures. What is it about socks that makes people want to do this? I have never tried to put my perfect-in-every-way labradoodle, Bosco, in a sock. Okay, just that one time…

Some of these new-wave baby portraits can be touching or cute. But some are freaky deeky weird. (If you’re reading this and you photograph babies for a living, of course I’m not talking about your photography, since yours is obviously wonderful.)

Here is a collection of some bizarre-o baby pics for your viewing pleasure, complete with captions of what I’d say if I were these poor babes.

 

 

My Bedtime is Simple, and I Love That

by Aurora Bordeaux

In life, I appreciate simplicity. And one of the times I most appreciate simplicity is at bedtime. See, what I do is, I decide to go to sleep, and then I do. Several hours later, I wake up. Easy.

People with kids don’t live like that. At all. The fact that parents brag so much when they get a single night of five consecutive hours of sleep is enough of a testament, but as if I didn’t need more reminding of what children do to your sleep cycle from pregnancy through college graduation and beyond, I have nieces and nephews around to remind me.

While I love those little bastards because they’re related to me and they sometimes say funny things, they sure do have a way of snatching all my sleep sheep. I can play ball with them during daylight hours, but in that sacred time sandwich between dark and dawn, they start to piss me off.

For kids, bedtime really starts just before dinner. Parents have this thing called the witching hour that starts at about 6:00, and while I thought it was a myth for the longest time, the nuclear chaos that erupts at this precise moment during family gatherings provides consistent proof the contrary. Basically, at 6:00 on the dot, every nice, reasonable child in the world goes ballistic. They turn cranky, bitchy, finicky, and what should be the best meal of the day is watered down with the wrong kind of whine—saltwater tears instead of merlot.

The anarchic processional starts with the meat and peas and continues to a soggy bath time, which children never want to start, then never want to finish. Parents can never get the little devils in the tub, but once they’re in, the slippery guppies don’t want to come out. They’ve somehow remembered that baths proceed bed, and they don’t want to go to bed, so they protest, always finding one more floating toy to invent a story for, one more crevice that isn’t quite clean enough.

The process repeats with tooth brushing and the wriggling on of pajamas. From the mayhem I’ve briefly witnessed through doorways and the shrieks heard down the hall, even this is not always a tame process. I remember participating in the hell of being the one in charge as a frequent babysitter, and living within earshot of the piercing anarchy on visits to the in-laws’s only serves as a stark reminder of how good I really have it.

I have it really, really good.

The final round of the bedtime boxing match comes with story time, or prayer, or whatever tradition a parent embraces once their tiny ones are strapped in tight under the covers. There is always one more thing to pray for, one more book to lobby for, one more cycle of water sipping and tinkle and try-to-tinkle.

When you have kids, just going to bed is absolutely exhausting.

Then there’s the fear factor, the tiptoeing out of quarters to interrupt salty action movies and discretionary bowls of ice cream. “I’m scared!” the little ones chime, although most of them are just looking for a reason to tromp across the carpet long after lights out. The parents clench their eyes, sigh, heave, threaten, but bottom line, the kids usually win because they take up a parent’s adult time with their bullshit, shattering whatever semblance of peace may have been cultivated in their absence.

Here’s my strategy for fear of monsters: Throw them a foam sword as you click off the light, and tell them they’re on their own. One could also employ the use of a good teddy bear, but as someone who enjoys weaponry, I’d prefer to let the child feel empowered by a fighting chance in addition to a furry sidekick. Let them fend for themselves, win their own battles.

I’m going to retire now with my empty pipe, a snifter of something bitter and burning, and reruns of my favorite gritty gun-slinging television series, Justified. Merry bedtime to you all, and to all my ChildFree fellows, good night!

Aurora Bordeaux: Laser Tag Commodore

by Aurora Bordeaux

This past weekend, I went to laser tag with the hubs and some buddies. I have always loved laser tag and was really excited to go. However, I somehow managed not to factor in that there would be children there, too.

And of course there were children. Plenty of them. The place seemed to cater to a birthday-party-exclusive crowd, and it was crawling with them. They banged on video games in the arcade, yelled, hollered, slathered pizza grease high and low, whelped, cried, whined. The way they were fueled by frozen pizza and soda, I almost thought I caught a view of one or two crawling on the ceiling like spiders.

I am more of a zen warrior than one who thrives on the chaos and confusion of battle, and the outer sanctum of the laser arcade unnerved me. It was all flashing lights, digital coin solicitation from blaring claw machines, and sticky hands that always seemed to be a hair away from my favorite Marc Jacobs cross body bag. Scarlet birthday cake frosting smeared the walls like blood.

By the time our turn was up for laser tag, my zenlike trigger finger had become mighty twitchy.

We laced on our vests and stood single file at the curtained entry portal, waiting for game time. I surveyed my opponents: a few adults, some stray children, and one family of four dominated by a mother who liked to complain, all the time, about everything.

Once activated, we had thirty seconds to hide. I raced to the second level catwalk, which I thought had the best tactical advantage. The buzzer went off to kick off play, and the mayhem began. But unlike the untoward anarchy of the front of house arcade, here I actually had some control. Here, I could fight back with the sticky small people instead of having to ignore everything they did that annoyed me.

Long story short, I dominated.

The main advantage to my walkway hidey hole was that not only could I pop out and fire shots below to pick people off, but I could also feel the vibrations of feet coming my way and peg people before they knew what hit them.

“Good shot, Good shot, Good shot!” piped my gun, patting me on the back every time I nailed someone. I began to feel feverish, sucking in manufactured smoke, knowing that it gave me power the others would never know.

It wasn’t that I meant to go specifically for kids. It’s just that they were so much more fun to shoot. Adults would either come back for you later or shrug it off as if to say, oh well, you got me. But the kids would get so mad I thought they were going to throw their guns. “Oh my god!” they pouted and stomped. “You shot me!”

Of course I shot you, dumbass. This is laser tag.

Feeling more confident, I ventured outward, scanning my perimeter for hostiles. At the end of the catwalk, I found the family of four huddled in a small room like a band of refugees. The mother kept getting upset with her 4-year old daughter for shooting her accidentally. I thought, lady, she’s four. Get over it.

I hesitated for a moment, feeling like I had stumbled upon a vulnerable family of mice. The polite thing to do would have been to leave them alone and let them keep whatever semblance of fun they might have been having while just sitting there. But it was dark in there, and you don’t have to be polite in the dark.

I opened fire. My gun applauded: “Good shot, Good shot, Good shot!”

The tribe scuttled, trying to escape down the catwalk. That was when I realized my shots on the hyper-controlling mother weren’t registering. She was wearing a backpack that blocked all of her back sensors and some of the front ones! Bitch. I was annoyed that she would dare to cheat, and that she was clearly one of those compulsive, anti-bacterial-loving crazy-moms who couldn’t be without a full backpack of supplies for even a ten minute laser tag game.

It took a little extra doing since she only had two sensors visible, but I took her out. Again and again and again. “Good shot, Good shot, Good shot!” The smoke machine fueled the room with sweet haze, egging me on. “Good shot, Good shot, Good shot!” Bwahahahaaaa!

The game ended, as all good things must, and I paced out with the other players to see who won, wiping beads of sweat from my forehead.

The easygoing stoner referee piped results through a staticy mic: “And the winner is… #10.” I was #10! The children were furious and the mother complained. I had fired 442 shots, hit 57 people, and achieved the top rank of Commodore. That’s right: Commodore Aurora Bordeaux. Booyah!

If, as a childfree-er, you ever feel the need to burn a little energy and work out some aggression on children in a zone that is both safe and socially acceptable, I highly recommend laser tag. Just know that if you ever find me in the same arena, I’ll destroy you. I can’t help it. I’m a Commodore.

Remix: Pity the Childless Couple

by Aurora Bordeaux (introducing for Roslyn South)

Today’s golden nugget of wisdom was originally penned by Roslyn South in 1957 and later run by etiquette’s American Sweetheart, Ann Landers. This is the famous, but still airtight, “Pity the Childless Couple: Musings of a Good Mother–On a Bad Day.”

There’s nothing sadder than the childless couple. It breaks you up to see them stretched out relaxing around swimming pools in Florida, sitting all suntanned and miserable on the decks of their boats, or going off to Europe like lonesome fools. It’s an empty life. There’s nothing but more money to spend, more time to enjoy, and a whole lot less to worry about.

The poor childless couple gets so selfish and wrapped up in themselves that you have to feel sorry for them. They don’t fight over the children’s discipline, they don’t blame each other for the characteristics most nauseous in the child, and they miss all the good fun of doing without things for the children’s sake. They go along in their dull way doing what they want, getting what they want,  and liking each other. It’s a pretty pathetic picture.

Everyone should have children. No one should be allowed to escape the wonderful experiences attached to each stage in the development of the young.  The happy, happy memories of the baby days: The alert nights, coughing spells, debts, diaper deliveries, dipso baby sitters, saturated mattresses, spilled food, tantrums, emergencies and crises.

Then comes the real fulfillment as the children grow like little acorns and become real nuts. The wonder of watching  your  overweight ballerina of twelve make a fool of herself in a leotard. The warm smile of the small lad with the sun glistening on 500  bucks’ worth of metal  braces ruined on peanut brittle. The rollicking, merry, care-free voices as hordes of hysterical kiddies stampede at the birthday party.

A married couple without little ones envy their neighbor’s bairn.  It isn’t enough to be god-parents to the entire block, they still miss out on that glorious period of childhood that is alive, exuberant and bursting with healthy impulses to shatter the shredded nerves.

I pity the couple without children to brighten the cocktail hour by brushing the martini from the shaking hand, to massage the potato chips into the rug and to wrestle them for the olive. How dismally vacant is the peaceful home without the constant childish problems that make for a well-rounded, adult life and an early breakdown: the tender, thoughtful discussions when the report cards reveal the progeny to be one step below halfwits; the close-knitted family gatherings around the fireplace to roast hot-dogs and the pet puppy–if he isn’t fast on his feet; the end-of-day reunions with all the joyful day’s happenings related like well-placed blows on the temple.

Children are worth it all. Every moment of anxiety, every sacrifice, every complete collapse pays off as a fine, sturdy adolescence is reached. That feeling of reward the first time you took the boy hunting. He didn’t mean to shoot you in the leg. The boy was excited. Remember how he cried? How sorry he was? How disappointed that you weren’t a deer? These are the times with a growing son that a man treasures—these poignant moments that are captured forever and held in the heart—and in the limp.

Think back to that night of romantic adventure when your budding, beautiful daughter eloped with the village idiot. What childless couple could ever share in the stark realism of that drama? Aren’t you a better man for having lived richly, fully, and acquiring that tic by your left eye? Could a woman without children touch the strength and heroism of your wife as she tried to fling herself from the bedroom window? It takes a father to attain the stature of standing by, resolute and ready—ready to jump after her. The climas was when you two became closer together and realized that, after all, your baby girl was a woman now. A lovely young woman with the mind of a pygmy.

The childless couple lives in a vaccum, filling their lonely days with golf, vacation trips, dinner dates, civic affairs, tranquility, leisure and money. They contribute no additions to the human race—which is a satisfaction in itself.

There is a terrifying emptiness without children and the childless couple is too comfortable to know it. You just have to look at them and see what the years have done. He looks boyish, un-lined and restful. She’s slim, well-groomed and youthful. It isn’t natural. If they’d had kids they’d look like the rest of us—tired, gray, wrinkled, sagging—in other words, normal.

When You and Your Partner Disagree About Kids

by Aurora Bordeaux

A common topic in the kingdom of childfree couples is the conflict that can arise when one person in a couple doesn’t want kids and the other person does. That’s a heck of a conundrum, and one that googling “help me God” alone can’t solve for you. So what do you do if you’re not both on the same page about one of the most life altering decisions you’ll ever make?

Lordy, honey. I have no idea.
If you’re reading this blog, I’ll assume that you’re the one who isn’t into kids. Let’s start there. I’m sure that if we view the situation objectively, stay calm, and break things up into pieces, we’ll have a solution by tea time.

Actually, I’m full of it. I don’t have any good advice for you. All I can really do is hand you a figurative wad of cookies to dull the pain and talk about the wonders of how peaceful tea time can be without sticky kids running around yanking on the tablecloths.

I’m sure that, since you found this wonderful blog, you’re very smart, and therefore I can’t tell you anything you haven’t already thought about. But just in case, here are a few things to throw out there:

  • How long have you been in this relationship?
  • How important is the relationship to you? (Be honest.)
  • What are your reasons for not having kids? List all of them, from big ones to tiny ones, most personal to most general.
  • What are your partner’s reasons for wanting them?

You could also try renting a baby for a weekend, or longer. This may seem hard, but it’s surprisingly easy to do. Chances are that you know people who have kids under a year old, and they’re probably desperate to unload them on someone else. They can do this under the pretense of trying to get you to come on board into the breeder club, but in reality, they’re hard up for sleep and relief. Borrow a baby and see how it goes.

If you do rent a baby, you can also lovingly sabotage your partner by not being very helpful. This may give them a fresh perspective on what life might be like if you made a kid but were forced to mentally check out all the time just to stay sane.

When choosing a baby to rent, be particular. Don’t get a really adorable, easy, fun baby with neat little outfits and cute miniature shoes. Find a cantankerous one, a loud one, one with boogers always in the nose whose parents are almost certain not to return to pick him up at the agreed upon time.

I have also found that people who are on the edge of a childmaking decision find church helpful. I’m not talking about preaching or prayer, but about the cat-herding hell of Sunday school. Each week, litters of babies scream their heads off in church basements as they sit propped like freshly sprung mushrooms with doodey in their pants. There is nothing, nothing like the stress of “teaching” Sunday school to a gaggle of babies who aren’t having any of it. Stroll through a few churches on Sundays and listen to the wails echoing off the walls. If that doesn’t shatter your partner’s nerves, you have a problem. It means they want kids–bad.

Above all, try to remember that when you are talking to your partner about “to have or not to have,” it isn’t about winning or losing. But I really hope that, if you truly don’t want kids, you win. Not because I’m mean, but because I’ve seen firsthand what can happen when both parties in a couple aren’t on board. It’s too big of a decision not to agree on.

You can always fall back on the “one more year” clause, which is inherent in most relationships. Just agree that you’ll both give it one more year. Maybe by then you’ll be joyously bit by the baby bug (and I wish you well!), or maybe you won’t. Either way, a year takes some of that pressure off and lets you both think about it some more. Just remember, once you have the baby, there are no returns–only other childfree couples to pawn the kid off on when you’re desperate for a break.