18 December 1998: Chilluns

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Last night Dot Org had its "holiday" party. (It's called "holiday" to be pc; what Christians would do to assuage their consciences if there were no Jewish holiday between U.S. Thanksgiving and Christian Epiphany to make a "holiday season" I don't know. It's a Christmas party.) It was held at the Denver Zoo, which shows what a cool place Dot Org is, and the Zoo decorates itself for Christmas with lights. To me it looked like a zoo dark with night and dull with animals trying to sleep through nightmares about carols played on endless repeat, the kind that sound as if they're sung by castrati (e.g. "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth").

And my boss, who has been away on maternity leave for three months and therefore missed my Return to Vanity, once again proved herself to be The Coolest Boss. She looked up at me from her baby's stroller and the first words to pass her lips were not, "You're wearing your hair down!" or even "Hi!" but "You're back in contacts!" Which shows that her priorities are straight.

Anyway, so many chilluns made me somewhat nervous. It's so strange for me to see people whom I know outside their parenting roles with their children. Only some people, the only ones I'd call good parents, integrate their parenting into all aspects of their lives so that if you know them at all, you know them as parents. Most people at Dot Org I know only by name, like Progo knew the stars. Well, not like Proginoskes, because his knowing was part of a deity's omniscience, which I clearly don't share, because I don't know everyone as a parent. Another reason I avoided the children is that I wore black velvet and my hair down. Another is that I like to play with kids, with which neither black velvet nor a work relationship goes. Another is that when adults see me playing with kids, some ask why I don't want kids. Some ask because they're curious about my reasons, which is fine; others ask because it's their moral imperative as parents to proselytize breeding, which is tedious and rude.

Some say I have no right, as a not-parent, to judge others' parental actions. Hogwash. I'm not a parent and I'm not one deliberately, because I think I would suck at parenting as much as I think most people suck at it. People find that offensive. Can't imagine why.

Someone said this morning that she, who plans to hatch within the next few years, didn't hold any infants last night because she was too nervous. She's never changed a diaper, never known an infant, hasn't babysat much nor ever for children that young. And she plans to bring a child into the world in this state of practical ("practical" as in "real-life" not as in "near") ignorance. She says it'll be all right because it's all instinctual. What are we, rhinoceroses, to need only instinct? By instinct, a mother cat knows to teach her kittens to hunt, but she wouldn't know how to hunt herself if her own mother hadn't taught her. I voiced doubt about the instinct issue and was told, "What would you know about it, you don't have any maternal instinct, you don't want kids."

I'll address that ludicrous assertion in its turn. Right now I'm ranting about how to raise a human infant even in an aboriginal society, let alone a civilized one.

Civilized: Know Latin. "Civilization" derives from the Latin "civitas" or city. By civilized, therefore, I mean an urban, highly-produced, refined-like-sugar society. I do not imply that "developed" is better nor do I mean "civilized" to connote "courteous."

Basic survival skills: these berries are poisonous, these are not: gather and eat. Plant above-ground crops in the light of the moon and below-ground crops in the dark of the moon: sow, reap, and eat. Hone these widgets for a wage: manufacture, earn, buy, eat. Regurgitate the product of your brain that others will pay you for: cogitate, sell, earn, buy what others have manufactured cultivated or gathered, eat. No such human skill is instinctual.

Other people--friends, relatives, nosy parker strangers like me, authors of books--tell you how to care for your child. The further the child lives from the earth, the more she must know to survive (could I be a hunter-gatherer, please? for my conscience's sake? except with an ISP, of course).

Now the rant about my maternal instinct or lack thereof. There are two main reasons I don't have kids: One, I am hypocritical enough (which would make me a poor parent) that I do not kill myself off to reduce my environmental impact but I can refrain from creating another earth-sucking impact in the form of another Usan human. Besides, if I did kill myself off, no one would shove my carcass under an acorn to fertilize a tree anyway. We're too overpopulated for that to be legal, which is ironic if you ask me. Two, I know myself well enough to judge that I would be a poor parent, and therefore I will not raise a child. That means my maternal instinct is so strong that I love children enough not to inflict myself on any. My avuncular instinct is also strong, and this means I can aunt lots and lots of kids. I can aunt kids without inflicting my mother-self on them.

But I don't bill and coo over babies just because they're babies. I bill and coo if I know and like the parents enough to presume the baby will be well-parented, intelligent, and interesting--i.e., to want a relationship with a baby-toddler-child-adult as a individual person, not just because it's fresh out of the egg.

Aftermath of the party. N.B. the following testimonials were spoken by people not in my paid employ but in fact by the spouses of those in whose employ I am. They therefore cannot be the result of coercion.

I talked to my boss on the phone this morning. She said that as she and her family drove home, she asked her husband if he remembered this person or that and so forth. She asked if he remembered me. "Lisa," he mused, "that was the intellectual one, right?"
I swear by my Climbing Tree that I have no idea what inspired that. I'd love to know, of course. I don't remember saying anything to him besides the random chat you'd share with a coworker's spouse at a party. Their kids, the lights at the zoo, Christmas, the end of my boss's leave. The usual.

So I preen about this (although knowing "intellectual" is not the universal compliment I'd like it to be). Eventually I pop into another coworker's office about something or other. I do remember at least one thing I said to this person's spouse and child: something about how the animals probably are in their dens with their paws over their ears hoping to block out the ninety-gillionth playing of "I'm Getting Nothing for Christmas." I told the story of "a friend of mine" (which is how I describe journalers whose lives I know intimately but whose voices I have never heard) whose parents dragged him and his brother to "It's a Small Word," eschewing a ninety-gillionth ride on "Space Mountain" or whatever. During their ride, the ride broke down. Now of course this is Disney World so even while it took 45 minutes to fix the boats, the dolls--the dolls--they kept on singing. (Bill will excuse my paraphrase I hope.)

But anyway, the coworker's husband and son (who is my age) didn't comment on my appropriated story. What they agreed upon (after I had left) was that I was very attractive. She told me this and I grinned: "Must be the hair." But also, she said, her husband who is--get this--a ski instructor--said, "It looks like she works out." A most unprofessional "bwah!" of an amused though sarcastic snort escaped me, and the coworker laughed. "I told him that's how you would react." Damn. I might be intellectual and attractive, but I must be predictable too!

 

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