Here you are my sisters- like good little girlfriends on
Christmas morning running down staircases across this great planet to open your
laptops/desktops/iPads/whatever to peruse the internet over your breakfast and
belinis. And here I am in the spirit of giving on call in a hospital in the
Interior of British Columbia. Sit back, enjoy your morning coffee and your
eggnog or whatever and let’s have our usual weekly chat, shall we?
Firstly, did you unwrap your presents? Did you get anything good?
Was there a lump of coal in your
stocking or a Bergdorf gift card?
Yes I know my girlfriends- you all want the spirituality of
this Christmas day to penetrate beyond the gifts given and received but really?
Let’s talk turkey (no pun intended)…. This holiday does have
a certain present oriented theme, no? Make no mistake my sisters- I am NOT
knocking a holiday where you get some serious presents from others and then sit
around, drink champagne and eat in the name of God.
That is most definitely my kind of religious celebration.
Yay his holiness, I say.
Yes, I know what some of you may be thinking- it’s not like
that- it’s about family and friends and NOT the presents. It’s the thought that
counts.
Is it really the thought that counts?
I think not.
Firstly if it was really the thought that counts- just give
me a card… with your thought on it. Don’t bother with a gift. When you give a
gift- it’s the gift that counts.
There I said it. Yes, I’m a shallow cow- but hey you were
all thinking it.
And so in the spirit of gift giving I am going to re-gift
one of my all time favourite blogs…. Yes I know its lazy- but hey it’s the holidays…
cut a sister some slack….
Here goes:
A little girl sat down next to me on a plane last week. She
was 16 months old, I later learned from her naturally proud mother (who incidentally
told me later- she thought her daughter was a genius). She was pretty cute as
far a little kids go. She had the requisite round face and shiny blue eyes that
have not seen too much to know better. She was smiling her two-toothed grin.
As far as the outfit goes- she had on a corduroy jumpsuit
with a flower cardigan and rather flashy (for a 16 month old) plastic necklace.
By all estimations most people would have been cooing at this kid. In fact some
heads even turned around me to inspect and admire the “little darling”.
Her name, I later learned was “Claire” and her mother
affectionately called her “Claire-Bear”.
I smiled at Claire and tried to ask all the “right” questions;
How old is she?
What is her name?
Is this your only child?
You know…. The standard operating conversation when faced
with a solitary mother on a plane whose child will be seated next to you in a
confined tin can of a space for the next few hours….
Make no mistake- Claire was a cutey. But in that lies one
flaw- I don’t like kids. I know, my girlfriends, there you sit shocked and in
horror. “How can she not LIKE kids?” you think. “Who doesn’t like kids?” you
ask.
Well, it’s me. Me and the old lady in Hansel and Gretel. We
both don’t like kids. If some eight year old comes by my gingerbread house
hungry and decides to take a bite out of my back porch, make no mistake- I am
locking them in the cellar without hesitation.
It’s a shame really. I suppose it is a true character flaw.
I wanted to LIKE little Claire-Bear with her sweet little flower cardigan and
pediatric bling. I even paused for a moment to “check my insides”. Maybe there
was a shred of sentimentality that was dormant and would now spring forth in
the presence of this little cherub from Yellowknife.
Nope. Nothing. All I could think of was “Why is it people
still count their kids ages in months? What’s with the 16 months? When does
that shit end? When she’s just over five years old will it be 64 months or five
and a bit?”
It’s official. I do not have the maternal instinct. Make no
mistake- I think I am a great caregiver. But I would make a crappy mother. Not
only do I not have the desire (which is pretty EVERYTHING) but also I am wayyyyy to selfish for the job.
I wonder how many women like me ponder the very existence of
their “Motherhood Principle”
A study done in Japan in 2008 looked for physiological
evidence of the maternal instinct. Tokyo researchers used functional magnetic
resonance imaging (M.R.I.) to study the brain patterns of 13 mothers, each of
whom had an infant about 16 months old.
First, the scientists videotaped the babies smiling at their
mothers during playtime. Then the women left the room, and the infants were
videotaped crying and reaching for their mothers to come back. All of the
babies were dressed in the same blue shirt for the video shoot.
M.R.I. scans were taken as each mother watched videos of the
babies, including her own, with the sound off. When a woman saw images of her
own child smiling or upset, her brain patterns were markedly different than
when she watched the other children. There was a particularly pronounced change
in brain activity when a mother was shown images of her child in distress.
The scans suggest that particular circuits in the brain are
activated when a mother distinguishes the smiles and cries of her own baby from
those of other infants. The fact that a woman responds more strongly to a
child’s crying than to smiling seems “to be biologically meaningful in terms of
adaptation to specific demands associated with successful infant care,” the
study authors noted.
This obvious problem with this study was that it did not
look at MRI’s of women who did not have children to see if there was a
significant difference between them and the “parental controls”.
But I could not help but wonder if my brain was in fact
wired differently? I mean aside from my obvious quirks and eccentricities (yes,
I realize I am a bit special that way) was my brain hard wired against a
motherhood principle?
This issue became all too evident when after boarding the
entire plan, the flight attendant informed me that the isle behind me was free
and should I like to move from my window seat I could in fact have an entire
row to myself.
“She’s really good on planes”, Claire’s mother reassured me,
“But I understand if you want to move. “
A hush fell over the plane. Everyone looked my way. Was I
going to make a mother who had spent the last 10 minutes getting settled get up
out of her seat with child in hand and move aside so that I could vacate?
Damn right I was. It was a free isle for God’s sake- one
without a child in it…. Farewell, Claire-Bear. It was lovely to make your
acquaintance but I am one of the childfree in this country. As such, I am
entitled to die alone and fly in peace. I blame my brain…. My brain made me do
it. Amen.
Merry and happy my sisters….and as for the year ahead? Long
may we reign….
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