Small Pink Things: Part I

A friend asked me to be in a wedding for the upteenth time and while I certainly have bridesmaid experience I gave the wedding a miss. I sent a good present though and that at least calmed the bride. She really couldn’t fathom why on earth I would turn down such a good offer to be bridesmaid for the 12th time but composed herself when her next-door neighbour agreed to do it. So I went to the David Jones gift registry to buy something that would alleviate my guilt at declining both my bridesmaid obligation and attendance as wedding guest. It used to be white goods and wine glasses but now it’s all stainless steel and man that shit is expensive, especially when purchasing solo. Anyway the great thing is that if I’m asked again in the near future to go to a wedding I will have a partner to go halves in the gift. Certainly not the blind date even though he wasn’t from a Wes Craven movie but because finally Todd got his shit together!


My friend Gwen, started talking about having children very soon after the wedding. Sometimes I feel some girls are programmed from an early age to marry and breed before they even really experience life. This seems rarer these days though. It’s all about one thing. Biological clock. Tick, tick, tick. It can all get pretty fucking loud.


It has been interesting watching friends go through the whole trying to get pregnant thing (not literally of course), pregnancy tests, great results, miscarriage, one that sticks and the emotional roller coaster the whole thing creates. It never ends. From conception to death, yours preferably, that is one fairly important screw you are having.


Gwen was quite concerned about her life changing, which of course it did, immensely. She knew that down deep inside but persisted in asking people who have children whether or not that is true.


“Oh shit, yes,” they told her, “life will never be the same.”


“Bugger,” she said.


“No really. Never. Never, ever, ever, ever.”


“Right yes. Think I’ve grasped that. Thanks for your input (asshole),” she murmured, dry reaching.


Some just laughed hysterically at her and wandered away.


I just watched this and whispered to her, “told you.” Because it was amusing for me and because I was also jealous of the fact that she had a small child inside of her that will some day be calling her ‘Mummy’ (and much later ‘bitch’ and ‘mother fucker ‘in its teenage years).


I think Gwen had a very small, I’d even go so far to say teeny, denial problem about it arriving. I had been asking her for the last month or two of her pregnancy if they had any baby stuff yet and if they had prepared the nursery (I knew they bloody hadn’t because I was there quite a lot) and the answer of course was ‘no’ to both questions but when the nursery issue was raised she mumbled something like,


“We’re just putting it in the study”.


“Ahh right. What study?” I ask because I know they haven’t got one.


“Top of the stairs,” she says.


“That’s not a study. That’s the top of the stairs. There are no walls, just a computer and the bathroom. It’s a landing.”


“Proximity of the bathroom’s important.”


“You’re ambulant. Getting to the bathroom will not be a problem.”


“Good to be close for leakages.”


“What leakages? C’mon,” I say, “just make a nursery in one of the three bedrooms you have.”


“Nah.”


“A small one, with just a miniature frieze of tiny blue bunnies or something?” I beg, because this child will be my Godchild and I don’t want a Godchild of mine being placed willy-nilly on a cold hard brown tiled floor next to a desk and a scary stairwell.


Then I recall that this is the girl whose wedding I was bridesmaid in where we picked out her wedding dress in 30 minutes and she used to sit back, talk about it now and then while leafing slowly and very infrequently through reception venue brochures, just a wee three months before the wedding.


The hardest thing for her after she fell preggers was the lack of social invitations. Most of their friends like a drink or two and didn’t consider often inviting a pregnant woman who can’t drink, although she made for a pretty good driver so got a flag when it suited transport arrangements. She worried that their societal position would look like a black void after giving birth and having an extra attachment that may or may not lie quietly at dinner and can’t really go to the pub with them. It was all very scary to her.

Small Pink things - Final

My lesbian friends have chosen this particular sperm very carefully. They choose by genetics, looks and intelligence. It’s all very stressful for them as it is with any couple when they realise they have not conceived every month. The positive thing though for them is when one of the girls decides that they are no longer going to try, or unable to conceive for whatever reason, then the other one is able to have a go. The whole same sex couple-parenting thing has a lot more implications than heterosexual couples. Like any other couple they want children badly. They wonder if it is selfish because the child’s life will be different from other children’s lives. Two parents though might be better than just one parent and there are stacks of single parents out there. People in heterosexual relationships have children all the time and often bring those kids into dysfunctional, unhappy and even abusive relationships. But society seems to accept this more readily somehow. Buggered if I know why.


Kids are so beautiful when they belong to someone else. You can give them back and talk and whinge about them without any guilt whatsoever. But then sometimes when I hold my best friends little one (and life did change oh so very much for her) I imagine how it must feel to have your own and then I want one desperately, until I am shopping next time and a small childs head spins around 360 degrees and green stuff comes from its mouth. Then I laugh my arse off because I am glad it isn’t me with that crying, stomping child. I also enjoy the fact that I am able to get in my car without a pram, toys, big baby bag and Wiggles CD’s whenever I like. I can sleep in, stay up late, drink and eat garlic and it has no impact on anybody else except perhaps my partner. The thing about being childless is you really have no idea what so ever. It’s true I guess that you don’t miss what you don’t have but I think the wonder of it remains with you possibly forever until dementia and then its freedom from any regrets or cares of any sort I presume.


Gwen says quite often to me now while talking to me seriously with baby sick on her shoulder and thinking that, that is perfectly normal (and it is for her), that I have to have a baby, I absolutely must there is no if’s about it. She tells me it is a truly amazing experience that while extremely life changing wouldn’t be changed by her for a minute. Except perhaps after a row of sleepless nights and days, endless nappies, crying for utterly no reason, not eating, equipment needed on any given journey even a quick trip to the shop and being trapped in the home without adult conversation. She hates it when I say to her things like, “Why don’t you just sleep when he does?” it seems the most logical thing in the world to me yet she is staring at me in that inane way she does when I have said something entirely ridiculous or obtuse. She also hates it when he cries and I say,” Oh just let him cry, it’s called controlled crying,” or “here give him to me, I’ll settle him.” She hates it because she of course has attempted all of these suggestions a million times. She has even tried standing on her head on the deck railing beating the tune of ‘popcorn’ on her chest and it has not worked. She has read every single book written and internet article about babies and their darling cutsy qualities and it is still not working because they have minds of their own and they are still pissed at being out of the womb. It’s payback.


Life changes for the friends of people with children. It’s selfish of the breeders really. We don’t go out to dinner with them as much, if ever, we eat in with them (Hmmm riveting) or at Sizzler (fucking yum - NOT). We don’t go drinking with them much anymore and if we do it at all, it is with one of the parents only and there is a curfew. There is still a curfew even if both of them can come out, because of the sitter and hangovers and late nights with children are like a weekend in the army.


Another friend of mine’s baby boy is nine months old or so and is starting to crawl. It seems to be a hard stage. My best mate says every stage is hard and while wishing to get to the next stage all the time she has guilt over the fact that she is wishing her son’s life away and terror because she has also seen evidence of the hmmm, ‘joy’ of the next stage. I continually remind her that that will never end for her. Ever.


Conversations these days are completely dissimilar between us now. When in any group situation my best friend and I used to frequently put our heads together and yap about crap. Like our own prearranged little tea party. Now she heads straight for the parents and I head straight for those who are not. It’s natural that conversation would centre on common threads and having a child can set people miles apart no matter how close you are. You just can’t compare and really people with kids just don’t get the whole dog comparison.


Sometimes when I am listening to a story about a friend’s child I try to fit in and say something back like,


“Yeah that’s like my dog Karchi. She sounds like an old man when she sleeps too.”


And she’s like, “Yeah, Uh Huh. Anyway he really worries me when he rolls onto his face in his cot.”


“Yeah right. Same.”


It’s no wonder that the groups separate though because you don’t really get a full conversation with people who have children if the kids are present. There’s too much watching to do and prodding and tugging on Mum sleeves by the darling tikes.


Half way through most conversations they have to stop and say,” hold on. Lukas. Stop eating mud. Right now where were we?”


“I was just telling you about my appendectomy last week.”


“Right, oh God hold on. Lukas pull your pants up. UP, I said.”


“So how’s work?”


“What?”


And there is never any eye contact anymore because they are watching Lukas’ every move and they are asking the wrong questions because they have no idea about what you had been talking about in the first place and simply know that they have to ask something to show they can still hold adult conversation and are interested in your life. A conversation between two or more parents is just hideous. It’s really rapid pulp fiction.


The work thing though is what Mums seem to care least about after giving birth. Work is part of the old life. It seems an interesting transformation from striving to develop a profession after putting in the hard yards at Uni and getting that degree that will help enhance a career. Then doing that climb up the ladder in any given field after sucking cock or whatever because most of us do start at the bottom, then having a baby pop out mid run can see an abrupt halt to it all. During pregnancy you hear the odd defiant pre-baby whinge about having to take time off to have a baby therefore delaying that vocational process. There is the determined, dogged statement about only having a small amount of time off work after the birth because, “my career is still important to me.” What actually happens is they get home with that bundle of joy, get through the first hellish three months and realise there is no way they want to miss any of those beautiful developmental milestones their bundle of joy is reaching on a regular basis. One little smile on that gorgeous baby’s face is all it takes. Then it’s what career? “I’m a Housewife. That is a career.”


So much more than that seems to change though. A regular conversation about music and television is alien to both parties. I was talking to a friend with child about a band that I had seen called ‘Placebo’ and was met with a blank stare. If I told her it was a band who sang, “Hot potato, hot potato” or “Wake up, Jeff,” I know she’d know who I was talking about. Igglepiggle, Tombliboos, Makka-Pakka and Upsey-daisy is top television viewing now and far surpasses any of the Law and Orders or Spicks and Specs.


Parents ask what we have been doing and you wonder what could compare with stories of your own child, but really they desperately want to know I think because it seems like normal life and they need to live vicariously through you now while milk is spurting out of nipples and nappy’s dot clothes lines like semaphore flags or pile up in bins outside. After a while you find common ground of sorts and chat about a little of both worlds, or generally have two distinct conversations and don’t give a shit if you understand each other, the coffee’s good!