The Children Are Still Our Future, Goddammit!

The New York Times published a piece recently about yet another phenomenon, women who felt the need to share the day-to-day experiences of motherhood with the entire Internet. (A sympathetic reading of that article is offered over at my memex.) It's really not so much a matter of Too Much Information but, as Phil would say, Too Little Interest. I mean, you could just eat them up, sour milk smell and all, but, well, that would be cannibalism, and some legislator somewhere would just raise a big stink. Right?

So I thought I'd source some alternate blogs. First, DaddyZine is maintained by an antiquarian bookseller raising a daughter, and it's remarkably free from cute. Then there's Chez Miscarriage, with categories like "My Vagina is Angry." The Beaver's Mom never had an angry vagina snapping at her heels, you can bet on that! And finally, there's Bad Mother, who has written movingly about a recent abortion. Completely schmaltz-free.

But let's say we've gotten past the live birth phase of this lifelong financial drain. Now you have to name it. No telling how people managed this before Java.

Next consider the christening. I can only offer this up as a cautionary tale. David and Victoria Beckham — good solid genes there — copulated sometime last year and that union bore fruit. So what did they do next? They called on Elizabeth Hurley, Sir Elton John, and the rest of the Spice Girls to come and bless the child. I didn't see any photos, but I'm imagining: Rosemary's Baby. If it doesn't grow up to be another Michael Jackson, it will be nothing short of a miracle.

But demon spawn sightings are all around us. Someone in the office sent me this link, about a student who put peanut butter on a classmate's cheese sandwich, and the classmate retaliated by giving the student a semen-frosted brownie. I'm not saying this was another one of Sir Elton's godchildren, but why take the chance?

No, the next time I pop one out, I'm getting Jeremy Irons to provide level-headed godfatherly guidance: "Paedophilia should be treated as a disease, [Irons] says in a BBC interview to be screened next week. But it must also be recognised that children are attractive and that parental love has a 'sexual' element. 'It is very difficult because children under 16 are immensely attractive,' he says. 'Any father will tell you. I think our children have to be protected. But I don't think we need to have hysteria.'"