The Tyranny of Breeders

There are periods in my life, whole three-year blocks, that can be labeled by theme. 1993-1996 was the Reign of Nirvana, wherein I turned up my nose at all other forms of music not released by this trio of very sad and angry, and to me, very genuine young men from the Pacific Northwest. 2002-2005 was for Lamentations from the Pink Collar Ghetto, where my soul died a quiet and nearly complete death while still remembering that the form for Accounting is on salmon colored paper while the one for Purchasing is on cornflower blue.

2005 marked the beginning of the Tyranny of Breeders, so maybe that means that this year will mark the close of a long, arduous period where I've had to nod and smile and pretend to care about a mountain of baby-related minutiae.

Maybe it's the Navy lifestyle. Maybe it's some weird social pressure that comes from getting married, like the world at large sees Pants and I as an incomplete sentence, all subjects and no verbs. Whatever it is, starting in 2005, my social circle suddenly included a while lot of parents, most of whom were five or more years younger than me. There's something uniquely isolating about sitting in a tastefully appointed breakfast nook with six other women and being the only one without a chubby little infant slumping over and drooling in my lap like a bad drunk.

If I could have just gone undercover with my childlessness this might not have been such a problem, but I've constantly found myself in the position where I'm expected to weigh in on a parenting conversation, and suddenly I find myself having to make the disclaimer that no, my kids aren't just in day care right now, I actually have none. Yes, and I'm really this old. An example: my former wives' club used to give nice little gifts to each new wife entering the squadron, just something small to say welcome. It was a very nice thought. But when we started to vote on ideas of what this gift should be and everyone was suggesting a little baby blanket or a burp cloth (gross!) and it was my turn to vote, I suggested, inappropriately as I now know, that we give a small gift basket of condoms. In the resulting silence, I tried to elaborate. "Maybe in the squadron's colors?"

At another meeting we a friendly raffle on which of the five pregnant women in our group would give birth first, and what her baby's weight and length would be. Kind of like the "how many jelly beans are in this jar" contest, only with uteruses. I put in my guess for delivery order, but when it came to weight and length I was clueless. "How much does a baby weigh, "I tried to ask someone discreetly, "Like, I mean compared to a bowling ball?" In retrospect, I realize that the hand motion I was making, the three-fingered bowling ball-hefting motion one makes at the alley to determine if this ball is light enough to throw, was ill-conceived in this context, and again I got the shocked silence. I ended up guessing the ridiculously insulting figure of 15 pounds for one woman, and it was entirely out of ignorance, not a comment on the fact that she had gained quite a bit of weight with her pregnancy.

The other complicating factor at work here is that contrary to evidence, I would actually like to have a baby. Soon. It's just that Pants and I have agreed that now, and the three and half years that we've been married prior to now, is not the time. So forty-minute debates about the proper age at which to turn the baby around front-ways in the car seat, while I agree that at some point in my life could be illuminating and helpful, just make me want to bash my quickly-drained beer bottle against my own head.