Among my group of friends in college, there were a few who were eager to get married, but none who were eager to start having children. In the late 1960’s, the birth control pill was available to those who were canny enough to get it and all of us planned to get it.
One girl in the group was particularly adamant about birth control. Ginny had had an unhappy childhood and was determined never to have a child. She was accompanied at my wedding by a promising young man whom she dismissed shortly afterward. His failing: “Yuck! He wanted children.” Motherhood was such an anathema to her that she had even started a savings fund “in case my foolish sister ever needs an abortion.”
The less fervent members of our group remained childless for the another six or seven years before the first made the transition to parenthood. When this married woman informed me she was pregnant, I blithely asked “What are you going to do about it?” before learning that both she and her husband were looking forward to the joys of parenthood. Our friend group had definitely entered a new stage.
I was one of the last holdouts but eventually my husband and I decided that we would indeed have a child. Ginny, now married to a man who also wanted no children, reluctantly accepted my withdrawal from the childfree group. She even forced some enthusiasm over my decision. Her gift to the new baby was a generous one: a Gerry baby carrier emphasized that normal life, such as hiking, could go on, even with a baby.
When Ginny and her husband visited a city near us, my husband and I decided to make the two-hour drive in to meet them, with baby in tow. Jimmy was now fifteen months, with a few words, some mobility, and a lot of curiosity. We thought he was absolutely delightful but we also knew it was going to be a long, adult-driven day and a skeptical audience.
The little guy was adorable and cooperative all day. He ate Cheerios at the dim sum restaurant. He rode happily in his Gerry for our sightseeing tours and explored the edge of a lake in the park. He ate more Cheerios at the Mexican restaurant before falling asleep on a bench.
I could see Ginny reassessing. Here was one of her best friends, a mom but she could see that I hadn’t been that changed because of parenthood. Jimmy was as cooperative as could be, almost as if he’d been paid by Babies United to make a good impression on this skeptical couple.
Ginny and I were sitting in the back seat with Jimmy in his car seat between us as we pulled up to her hotel. It had been a lovely day and I had a feeling she was thinking, “maybe we should give this baby thing a chance.”
Just as we were saying good-by, my little prince turned and threw up directly in Ginny’s lap. Any warm thoughts she was having about children promptly vanished. We had only a hurried good-bye before she rushed to her hotel room.
Ginny lived into her seventies, enjoying a happy marriage, multiple trips to many foreign lands, many hours in adult pursuits. and many exotic restaurant meals. We remained friends and she was always very tolerant of Jimmy, even in his most awkward years. Perhaps she was grateful to him for the reminder that she would have been miserable as a mom.
About:
Wendy Freborg is a retired social worker and former editor whose humor has appeared in Scalar Comet, American Bystander, Little Old Lady Comedy, and Defenestration. Her poetry (mostly less funny) has been published by Rat’s Ass Review, Right Hand Pointing, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and WestWard Quarterly. Her life includes a small family, enough friends, too many doctors, and not enough dogs.
Illustration by Scalar Comet. Based on Original Photography by Christian Lue via Unsplash
