There’s something wrong with me.
I’m one of those women who stop people in the streets so I can oooh and gooo over their baby or child. The especially cute ones get extra doting and pronouncements of being the most handsome boy or most beautiful girl in the world. The parents smile proudly and answer patiently when I ask, how old? Is he friendly? Does she know how to shake?
You see, I don’t obsess over human babies or children. I think humans are perfectly fine; it’s the dogs I can’t live without. I can’t pass one without trying to start some pointless, dead-end conversation. “Hey, buddy, how’s it going? Mind if I scratch your ears?” While other women excel at lullabies, burping, and bottle-warming, I’m a master in the art of belly-scratching, shaking paws, and hiding pills inside bacon-flavored treats.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a nurturing person, or at least I think I am. I do the things that other compassionate and nurturing people do. But when it comes to the baby gene that it seems like 98 percent of the female population has, I think I missed it.
I like kids, I really do. I can say this with confidence now because I had to do a lot of soul-searching this past year after I learned about a conversation a group of my married girlfriends had over a dinner without me. At some point, the question of whether I was dating anyone and whether I wanted to even have a family came up. Apparently, one person started laughing and said, “Rebecca? I don’t even think she likes kids.”
Ouch. This hurt and annoyed me. What had I ever done to make people think I didn’t like kids? Though I’m closer to some friends’ children than others simply because of geographic proximity, I still, oooh and gooo over the pictures my long distance friends send (genuinely, because their kids really are adorable). Okay, so I don’t send birthday cards and holiday cards. But I don’t send birthday cards and holiday cards to the parents, either. I’ve still got Mother’s Day cards from 2005 sitting on my dresser, for God’s sake. Does this make me a selfish, evil person? Maybe.
