Cute little divining rods

An interesting thing has been happening to me when I’m out with my baby. This may have happened with my first two children, but honestly, it’s been over a decade, and I don’t remember. (I didn’t remember until today how tedious and Sisyphean quartering and peeling grapes for a baby is.) I’ve been encountering acquaintances and strangers who share with me about how glad they are that they don’t have children, or that their children are grown. In a world of oversharing and rude behavior, this seems so antisocial that it’s noteworthy. In one instance, an acquaintance who ran into me while I was out looking at Halloween decorations with the baby, enjoying some rare one-on-one time, blurted out that he was just glad he wasn’t me. He repeated this several times, and said that he supposed the next time he had to deal with “this” was when and if he had grandchildren. Mind you, my baby was being totally quiet in my arms and just staring at Halloween lights at dusk. The other time, a guy who came to work on my house had to share with me that he didn’t have kids yet and probably didn’t want any. (I hadn’t asked.) He explained that he was the last of three, and that there was “nothing left” for him. That’s sad, but I guess it’s good that he realizes what makes him tick.

Perhaps it’s a tribute to my advanced age that I didn’t get too irritated about this and instead wondered why people who don’t know me would share this with me, apparently because they see my baby. I can’t think of an instance when it would be okay to see someone with a dog, and go to a lot of trouble to tell that person that you don’t like dogs and never want one. I also can’t imagine seeing someone out with an elderly relative and feel free to tell them that you don’t like old people or that you’re sure glad you don’t have to take care of someone like that.

Now, I understand to some extent online trolling. It’s easier to be a jerk and have no empathy when you don’t know someone in real life or can’t see their face. It’s a pathological behavior, but it’s kind of related to yelling at other drivers from the inside of your own car on the highway, assuming that they’re idiots. Definitely the low road but disturbingly easy because you can’t see them or have never had a conversation with them.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to understand this weird truth serum impulse in these people (who in these examples happened to be men). I’ve thought about something that a novelist friend of mine said, that one sign of being a writer is that strangers seem to confess things to you. (That’s happened to me all of my life, and though I don’t understand why, it comforts me to know that I’m not alone.) And then I thought of something my husband said the first time we had a child: babies are divining rods. Family members, friends, strangers, all have opinions about your parenting and your child. Judgement of others around breeding and child-rearing is so common that this isn’t a surprise.

But what does astonish is what the mere sight of a baby or child can bring out in others. When it’s an acquaintance reveals that her favorite age was the toddler years, and that she misses that time, it’s a lovely surprise. The other reactions are so bizarre that I’m still trying to catalog them all. One that I will leave you with: my three children and I were out at a new, trendy pizza place (800 Degrees. Don’t go — it’s gross.). We’d waited in a long line full of hipsters and families with older kids. Already my plan to have a quick and easy take out dinner while my husband was out of town was going awry. I was wrangling the baby and trying to eat a cold and cardboard-like piece of pizza and salad, and the older two kids were digging into their already cold pizza. Nearby were several well-heeled college students. They eyed me and the stroller that was taking up a little too much room in the tiny space between our tables, and I eyed them and hoped they’d had all their shots since my baby hadn’t had all of his yet. I expected to hear some snark about the kids, but all I heard was some half-hearted swearing about their classes and jobs. A couple of them kept looking over in my direction, and finally one said that she envied my baby and thought he was lucky. It sounded unexpected sweet, and I must have smiled or thanked her. Meanwhile, he was pulling my hair and sticking his fingers into my mouth. But I had to ask why she thought he was “lucky.”

“He doesn’t have any responsibilities,” she said.
“Okay, you do understand that he wears disposable underwear and doesn’t have any say over anything in his life, right?” I said.
“Yeah, but still. I wish I were him,” she said.
After some silly retort about how much I enjoy being an adult, with bathroom privileges and my own car, I let it go. As I suppose I should do with the over-sharers whose traumatized childhoods or experiences as parents compel them to relive it when they see a kid.