I attended a baby shower lunch mostly populated by people at least a decade older. It's not that I felt out of place or uncomfortable, but I had absolutely nothing worthwhile to say. I honestly can't fathom the situation of having children when I have been an "adult" for only a few years. What can I tell an expectant mother or father? Nothing. I have no experience or authority.
I don't have experience in a lot of things like skydiving or camel hopping in the Sahara Desert or even going to a live opera. But I can attempt to imagine it.
However, when I try, I only draw up with a blank.
Oh sure, I've had the ocassional nightmare where I'm about to give birth to ten kids at once. Then I only know fear. I've become some bloated monster waddling about, wringing my hands, panicking because I don't know what to do. And in waking life, I feel this same helplessness. While others coo adoringly at pudgy infant faces, I can only stare with horrified fascination as those same infant faces drool in my direction.
I realize that I have little, if any, maternal instinct. This in itself doesn't disturb me, but what is worrying is that this will be labeled as abnormal or deviant. There are people who believe that women should be perfectly happy for having children. Maybe evolutionarily speaking that is true, but I don't view myself as a breeder whose sole purpose in life is to increase the population.
Perhaps I've just associated with the wrong age group. I suppose I'm not mature enough to appreciate the priviledges and responsibilities one acquires when one enters parenthood. People my age are just starting to think beyond the fumbling in the backseat of a car. Commitment and independence are seeping into the periphery.
When I was seven or so, a few of my aunts became pregnant with their first children. I felt no awe. I probably didn't understand what was going on. They got fatter and crankier and whenever I got curious, I was promptly told to play somewhere else. And the end result was a small, wrinkled human being who wasted more diapers and attention than a hyperactive puppy.
