Friday, June 19, 2009

Odd Questions

A young woman in a forum described an odd situation. Soon after birth someone asked the mother, "Are you happy?" and the mother answered, "no". This was followed by a discussion about what a weird thing to ask. I tried to figure out what I would have answered. I probably would have diverted by saying, "I have no idea. I'm just tired.". I can't really say I was overjoyed like all those people in the movies after giving birth. It was more like a relief that the baby wasn't born dead or anything.

And you all know how paranoid I was about bad stuff that COULD happen. By the way, I'm a little paranoid about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), a condition where a baby just stops breathing for no apparent reason, so when the baby is sleeping in her crib in the other room I occasionally walk to her just to see if she's still breathing. Or better yet, I let her sleep on the couch next to me. She sleeps way better in the midst of commotion than she does in her crib in the nice quiet other room. Like really! If anyone would have told me 2 months ago that me and Erkki will be playing Guitar Hero World Tour using two guitars while a month-old baby is inches away sleeping soundly on the couch between us, I would not have believed it! She also sleeps well while I carry her on my shoulder loudly chatting with Erkki and getting a glass of water and she is still asleep when I place her in the crib. But 9 times our of 10, once she's been in her crib for a few minutes she's suddenly wide awake!

Ah, I'm so glad she doesn't do this at nighttime. After 1.30 it's magic time! We place her in the crib and she sleeps there 2-3 hours straight. Then she awakens, eats, and immediately falls asleep again. She doesn't even try to play with me at nighttime anymore. When she did that a couple of weeks ago I just held her and dozed off, barely staying awake. I made sure she sees that I can't keep my eyes open and I only peeked what she is doing. She gave me a wide sly smile and I tried my best to keep from replying with a smile. She was so cute. And finally she got used to "sleep time". Unfortunately she thinks sleep time ends at 6 or 7 a.m. After that, I try everything to convince her to let me sleep til noon. Oddly, if you asked me if I'm happy in the middle of the night when the baby smiles at me, and only me, I would replay, "yes, definitely" and it wouldn't matter that I'm tired.

That forum thread was sidetracked by other odd questions to ask a mother. The most common being, "Is she a good kid?". While it might be an okay question in general, it is a very odd way to ask about a newborn! Think about it - what's a newborn gonna do to qualify as a "not good kid". Probably not drugs and alcohol. This question should be phrased "Does she let you sleep at night? Does she spend much time not crying?", but if the answer is no, does it make her a bad kid? As if she's malevolently keeping parents awake and pretending to have gas pains to ruin all the parents evening plans. Ah what a mean little creature, what a bad kid. What a relief that I would be able to reply that I have a "good kid".

Well okay, maybe the question "is she a good kid" makes sense if you view it like this - a kid is good when the parents often get to say, "Ah, good!". "She fell asleep fast, ah, good. ... She quickly calmed down, ah, good." But the next question leaves no room for such rationalization.

The worst well meant question: "Does your son tease you much?". Uhm, that son was 2 months old. As if the son will pinch and bite and kick her mother. Or perhaps the son will play mean practical jokes to tease her mother. Or maybe verbally tease her? There is no way that the asker actually likes kids! There is a clear assumption there that infants are mean little creatures who get joy out of torturing their parents and ruining their lives. When parents don't sleep, the infant giggles in his crib and tries to think of new ways to torment parents. By the third week the kid gets the idea to pretend gas pains and gets bored of it after 3 months. And then gets new evil ideas to make everyone else's lives a living hell.

Anyway, I just wanted to share these thoughts about that forum thread but if I wanted this blog post to have a moral then it would be: if you hate kids, don't make casual conversation about children - your questions will show your true thoughts.

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