I figure I might as well get this rant out now, all the better to laugh at my naïveté later on when I find myself doing it to other people.
My current suspicion is that everyone who gives birth in a hospital gets a handout on the way out with a set of instructions. These instructions prescribe a specific monologue one is supposed to recite next time someone tells you they are expecting a child. It goes something like this:
(person’s eyes start to focus on some point far in the distance)
Going to have a baby huh? Boy, will things change for you. No really, things are really going to change. You have no idea. You think you know what is going to happen, but you don’t know. You probably think you know what the word “change” means, but I’m telling you, you have no idea. You think the Industrial Revolution was a pretty big change? Well let me tell you, that was nothing compared to what you are about to experience…”
(and so on)
Now, I know people are trying to be helpful and supportive, and I appreciate that. But after hearing a similar unsolicited riff from four or five people, it can get a bit eerie. Kind of like wondering into the Annual Prophets of Doom Convention by mistake at a hotel. Hang out there long enough, and it’ll make anyone jumpy.
So hear-ye, hear-ye, I get it. Something, something I can’t possibly understand, something big, is about to happen. Check.
Alrighty, then.
P.S. I’m grateful to the people who, after channelling the required message from Gozer the Gozerian, refocus their eyes long enough to tell me how much joy and fun having a kid will be. That helps bring the Anxiety-o-meter back out of the red zone, at least for a few minutes.
P.P.S. Update: science weighs in on the side of the Prophets.