“You don’t want a child. You want a baby. You want a human puppy. One that never grows up.”
“I want to have a child.”
“You don’t want a child. You want a baby. You want a human puppy. One that never grows up.”
My wife and I have this argument all the time. She’ll say she wants a child, but she never even remembers to water our tomato plants. I always do it. She forgot about them for so long that she was shocked to look out the window and see how tall they had gotten.
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She decided that the next big wave would be this baby thing. She would be entitled to a whole nine months of regaling us with her various whims and physical ailments, her emotional vicissitudes and weird cravings.
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“They’ve grown up so fast! I’ve been a negligent plant-mommy. I’ll have to buy them some wooden stakes so they don’t tilt over. I’ve been away, but I’ll buy them things to make up for it. Ha ha.”
And we both knew: this was the kind of parent she would be.
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My wife wants a baby like Paris Hilton wants a lap dog.
After the wedding extravaganza, she grew sulky and bored. No more wedding-related Facebook status updates. (“Hey you guys! I totally went in for the cake tasting today! With inspirational cake photos I ripped out of magazines, and sketches and blueprints. Ha ha. Just kidding. Not blueprints.”) Now she just had her boring job, and me. So she decided that the next big wave would be this baby thing. She would be entitled to a whole nine months of regaling us with her various whims and physical ailments, her emotional vicissitudes and weird cravings. She would make me take “cute” naked big-belly photos of her; she would demurely cross her hands across her breasts so they would be suitable for Facebook. “Like Demi Moore on the cover of ‘Vanity Fair’!”
In her daydreams, I’m sure, her belly would get big but the rest of her would stay thin. No chubby ankles, no puffy face, no acne or other havoc wrought by hormonal wonkiness. She would wear trendy maternity wear from Ann Taylor Loft. She would go to IKEA for nursery things; she would make me paint the room because of the fumes. There was never talk of actually raising a child, good parenting skills, saving up for college, or even of names. I’m sure she’s thought up a dramatic delivery scene — no actual pain, just me holding her hand and gazing down at her in wonder and gratitude, as if gazing upon the Virgin Mary, a sacred creature bringing life into this world. And then there’s the part where she’s carrying around the human puppy, and everyone oohs and ahhs, and I am never in the picture. I am pretty sure her daydreams just dead-end after that.
And what about me? What do I want?
♦◊♦
Irony of ironies: We got married because I thought she was pregnant. Because she thought she was pregnant. Yes, I know this is 2011, not 1950. But still, that’s the way it played out. Turns out her period was just late. It arrived, just not on time. Her biology is as tardy and inconsiderate as she is.
I was in love, once. Not with her. His name was Reynaldo, and I met him on vacation with my family in Mexico when I was 17. He taught me about Latin American literature. He taught me that Roberto Bolaño is frequently referred to as a “Chilean” writer, but really he spent his teens in Mexico and tried to return to Chile during a time of political turmoil but was arrested and then driven out, because he had said something in a Mexican accent on a bus and was presumed to be an outsider. He never felt at home there; he always said his home was the Spanish language.
This was a time before e-mail, before cell phones. I don’t know where Reynaldo is.
At night I lie in bed next to my wife, and on my nightstand is a copy of Last Evenings on Earth, a book of Bolaño’s short stories. I don’t care if we have a child or not. I don’t care about anything.
Photo–Flickr/dbgg1979
About Christie Chapman
That guy needs to cut and run before there is a kid. They got married because they thought she was pregnant. She wasn’t, why are they still together? Neither of them sound like they care about each other. She uses him as a means to an end, and he resents her for it.
They both need to get out before they bring an innocent child into this.
Hi 8ball,
No worries — this is a fictional couple!
I wonder if I should take a moment to explain what sparked this piece. I think the idea came from my worry — about *myself*, nobody else — that I had a childish notion of what it means to have a child. I get all gooey over babies in public, and occasionally feel all angst-y and yearning when I think about stuff like how my biological clock is ticking (I’ll be 34 next month) — and yet how often do I sit around thinking about what it means to be a good parent, and how often do I set aside dough for possible future kids? So while the piece might sound catty, it was an examination/critique of my worst fears about myself when it comes to the babies/kids deal.
Because I can be virulently self-loathing, I directed the criticism at me — from the point of view of a dude who’s married to a hyper-caricatured version representing my worst fears about myself in this department. Then I reckon I threw in the twist at the end (he’s gay! Reynaldo!) to explain why the dude’s in the loveless marriage. That part’s a bit arbitrary and not really related to the main theme.
But yeah, I am down with the babies and the children. I just worry sometimes that I wouldn’t be a good parent. But I’ve seen people say that if you worry that, you will probably be OK — it’s the bad parents who *don’t* worry about that.
8ball, thank you for your comment — and for your concern!