"Baby Boom "
Boom!
Here come the babies. Well, toddlers now mostly, but that’s not the issue. In the last two years, ten friends or family members have had children. That does not include the five coworkers who have also recently received bawling little bundles of joy and excrement. Add to this the twelve friends of mine that recently got married, and this list could grow considerably in the coming months. I’m surrounded by a growing herd of toddling, drooling, crying, cooing, giggling, peeing and pooping little people in purple OshKosh (b'Gosh!) overalls. Baby talk is becoming a second language.
What the hell is in the water? Fertilizer? Or is everyone just having a lot more sex than I am? Actually I think the Pope could be having a lot more sex than I am, but what else is new.
I was just in Arizona, visiting my friend Dave. I have known Dave and his family for nearly twenty years (God, has it been that long?). Dave and his wife Jenny have an amazing and amazingly energetic fifteen-month old son, Michael. Dave’s brother, Dan has a two-year old boy. His other brother Rick has two young kids of his own. My friend Matt, he also has a fifteen-month old boy, Jack. My sister Sherri, she has blessed me with a beautiful fourteen-month old niece, Summer Anna. Scott, Brent, Gary, Stacie, Craig, Arla, Anne all have little people toddling around the house. And my brother and his new wife Sheila have yet another Parisi en route.
It’s really remarkable, this hormonal epidemic of apparently global proportions. People are breeding. Intentionally! How does this thing happen? OK, so I know how it happens, but why all at once? Was there an invitation to this orgy? It’s crazy!
Don’t get me wrong. I love the kids. I really do. I can’t help getting goopy around the little ones. I love being Uncle Jimmy, and I’m damn good at it. The kids love me. Their parents love that the kids love me. I’m the eldest of four, spent my teenage years as the only responsible male babysitter in a neighborhood of grade-schoolers, and have been a proud uncle to Audrey for seven years. I’ve had some practice at this job. Throw in a couple years as a lifeguard and a stint at the local Boys/Girls Club, and I have got this gig down cold.
Parenthood Lite. All of the cute, none of the mess. Or noise. Or smell. Or responsibility. I’m down with it.
But as the last remaining bachelor, there are some pitfalls that come from being the one offspring-free man in a circle of old friends.
The Lecture: You think your friends pressured you to get you to smoke? Drink? Grow a mullet? Wait till they have kids. Then you really know peer pressure. I still can’t figure out if this pressure is the result of a sincere desire to introduce the uninitiated to the unconditional love of a child or simply a case of misery loving company.
Regardless of the motivation, every visit to the home of a new parent comes with the requisite lecture as to “how this is the greatest thing in the world and I can’t imagine life without him/her and why don’t you have one yet and don’t you want kids and wow don’t the kids love you and you should really get some of your own…”
Which inevitably leads into an exploration of my dreadful, freedom filled life as a bachelor. “Why are you still single and are you dating anyone and what happened to that nice girl in LA and you are such a great guy and don’t you want to get married and I know this really nice girl and she has a really, really great personality…”
The Dirty Diaper: Why the hell does every new parent try (repeatedly) to get me to change a diaper? What kind of sick pleasure comes from thrusting noxious green baby crap into the hands of a childless friend? Is this some weird fecal variation of "schraedenfeud?" Taking delight in sharing the excrement of others? Hey parents, this may come as a surprise, but I have seen baby poop before. It’s a lesson in biology I can live without. I really don’t need to see or smell the messy end product of your child’s digestive tract.
Maybe a big, swollen diaper makes a new parent proud, and that fuels the urge to share. “Look at the mess my boy made. Those are some powerful intestines he has there! Gets that from my side of the family for sure. Hey Jimbo, come and check this out! Have you ever seen shit like that in your life? Jimbo, where you going? Scared of a little dirty diaper?”
So to all the new parents reading this, let’s be clear, I have changed a diaper before. Lots of times. Back when my best source of income required it. But guess what? IBM pays me a lot more than babysitting, and until junior’s chromosomes come from me, I won’t be touching any dirty diapers. So quit asking.
The Night Out: It’s hopeless. My wingmen have all broken formation. I’m flying solo now. Carousing is almost exclusively successful as a group effort. But I lost the group to the PTA. Sadly, this doesn’t apply solely to evenings of alcohol induced debauchery. Camping trips, vacations, reunions, a weekend trip to the climbing crag, all delayed indefinitely for the videotaping of junior’s first sneeze. Leading of course to the next peril…
The Video: I dig the kids. I really do. But three hours of unedited coverage of baby’s first diaper change isn’t Oscar caliber entertainment. Please save it for Grandma, and let your college buddy out of the living room.
The Weakness: OK, I admit it. Just looking at a picture of Summer’s big brown eyes is enough the make me melt. She is just painfully cute. Audrey could get me to jump in front of a train at will. I would deny them nothing. I took Audrey to see Shrek this last spring and felt like - well - like a family. And it actually felt OK. It felt comfortable, warm like a sweater.
Despite my desperate loss of wingmen, I really enjoyed the rated G visits with my friends and family this last year. I got such a kick out of seeing my best friends in the world play with their kids that I actually started thinking that maybe there’s something to this parenthood job. Man, I can just tell how much they love those kids. Seeing that love, that selfless commitment, I think maybe, just maybe I could see myself with a family.
But right about then a baby starts shrieking about something, and I look at my friend’s bloodshot, exhausted eyes, the nondescript minivan in the driveway, and the pink and blue baby bag on his shoulder filled with sticky rubber toys that squeak and I realize,
What the hell am I thinking?!
