Were having a baby! That’s the most mature, decisive, life changing announcement you can make. The only comparable proclamation a couple can make is: Were getting divorced, were adopting an Asian baby or were going to form a comedy team, move to Australia and form a love triangle with some exotic, wildly erratic, multi-lingual beauty that Woody Allen would claim credit for creating.
We didn’t tell our parents about the incoming baby till after we got married . In short, we didn’t want our unformed, colorless, turnip size baby to steal any attention from us because in five months we won’t be able to make a purely selfish decision ever again. We also held off on telling them because we didn’t want to deal with any potential, worrisome resistance, unwelcome, dreaded, I don’t think your capable of raising it, silence, or unpleasantly surprised sighs of disbelief. Telling our friends, siblings, parents and other close family members about our first, incoming, bloodline perpetuating, family creating love child has given us an immediate feel for how freaked out it made them in both the positive and encouraging and deflating, resentful, you don’t know what your getting it into sense. First, we told my wife’s friends because her bachleorette party was coming up and she thought it was the respectful, thoughtful thing to do considering their shared history of lushing it up together since college throughout their high liver living, mostly care-free twenties in Brooklyn and Manhattan. So based on her friends shocked reaction to our baby announcement it seemed that we just yanked the plug out of their non-stop party machine existence yet to them it felt more like last call as the light at the end of the baby tunnel illuminated the stale, past its expiration date, binge drinking life that we just left behind and blew off for good. Two of my wife’s friends don’t plan on ever having kids while the other one does but struggles to find a man that worships her enough to give the middle finger to a lifetime of freewheeling, non committal brushes with lust while also granting her exclusive play rights to his penis pounder for all eternity. My friends were a little shocked by the announcement but there is nothing comical about their responses that is worth exploring here. Yet I do derive a sense of perverse power over not sharing the news with former friends that I don’t value enough to share my blessed fortune with. At the same time, my friends as opposed to wife are older and already have kids and are mentally checked out from that spontaneous hook-up, hot pursuit lifestyle already. The only remnant of their unscripted, exploratory single city life is the bottle openers on their key chains although those probably went out the window along with their surging self-esteem when they finally decided to ditch a life of loneliness for a life of sharing blankets, meals, lube, rent, and in-law, scarring angst, myself included. Now, her parents reaction to us having a baby was less stellar than I expected which wasn’t much. My wife tensed when I signaled for her to make the announcement so I came to her immediate rescue, my husband protect mode kicked into full gear as I said: Were having a baby, your going to make wonderful grandparents, congratulations. At that point, the mom who was already sitting on the couch, let out a confused, don’t know how to take this sigh and leaned her head back on the coach in a dramatic slow motion like we just told her that we couldn’t decide on the name of our kid because it’s going to be a cross eyed, Hermaphrodite. What do we call this cross eyed sex monster, beaver or butch? As her mom let out another surprised, tiresome sigh, I wanted to shake her out of this dumfounded, non motherly, emotionally retarded comatose state that was tearing my wife apart at a painstakingly, awkward, heart burning pace. At this point, it was up to the father to make up for her mom’s stupefied, incredibly annoying, glaringly inappropriate, sloppy reaction, no such luck. The man was tongue tied, speechless, all he can garble out was, I didn’t expect to hear this. Well, I didn’t expect you to instantly ruin the most special announcement of our lives with such clumsy, thoughtless precision. I know that your not excited about the prospect of having to spend any more time me than you have to but can you at least make an effort to conceal your glaring disappointment and displeasure in our family founding, soul lifting, divinely connected, humanity cementing announcement. If I knew you’d react like this, I’d have your daughter hide the pregnancy till the third trimester so you’d have even less time to cope with being such an unwilling, unsupportive, under whelmed, un-grandstanding granddaddy. You might think I’m being overly sensitive or a tad judgmental for accusing the father of intentionally ruining what’s supposed to be a classically wonderful father, daughter, Hallmark scene or for making no attempt to heal such a broken, can never take it back moment. As the extended awkward aura of bewildered silence hovered over the room like the ghost of spooked out past, her father rose the insensitive stakes and made a remark about how my father should be happy about being a Grandfather considering that he just had a heart attack and didn’t expect to see a grandchild before he died. Well, thanks for the pep talk there pops, just because you run marathon’s, doesn’t mean you can outrun the Grim Reaper. But I appreciate the projected highlighted contrast in reactions because it gives your daughter one last chance to be given an all loving, all enveloping, non judgmental, deserved, overdue, expecting mother embrace. As usual, my wife’s brother picked up the emotional load and infused much needed empty space with love and palpable excitement. My parents shed tears of joy when we told them that they’d be grandparents real soon which became that much more special knowing how much my wife’s parents squandered this insanely joyous, pro life-affirming, starting our own family announcement. Her parents must think it’s a rushed, non-thought out, financially unsustainable idea without their financial assistance. Apparently, having kids doesn’t stop you from always thinking about yourself after all. Written By, Josh Kornbluth
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