by David Jester
After quickly ushering him away from the scene of the crime and down another aisle, I later returned—looking as nonchalant as possible—to find three shop assistants overturning handfuls of avocados, sniffing them and then shrugging to each other. I almost expected the supermarket to be on the nightly news following reports of a chemical attack—the beginnings of a new terrorist threat sweeping the supermarkets of England.
There’s so much baby powder down there that every flatus should simply be a puff of flowery delight, but somehow the rot creeps through. The most amazing thing about a baby fart is, most of the time, they have no idea they’re doing it. When he gets a whiff of one of his own farts, he give me a look that says, What the fuck have you been eating? In the beginning, I thought he was fucking with me, but then it occurred to me that he has no idea what a fart even is. He barely acknowledges his own shit. The only thing he is aware of is that every now and then, his diaper becomes somewhat uncomfortable, a strange man and a smiling woman expose his jiggly bits, slap some powder on his ass, and then give him a new one. I imagine that the day he discovers the power of his farts, he’s going to have a lot of fun, dropping them in social situations and then merely pointing at me. I’m not sure if he gets that from me or his grandmother, but at some point, he’s going to use that gift against us.
Bodily fluids are a weapon to him. He once got out of being held, poked, and prodded by a distant cousin by vomiting all over said cousin. She was a happy-go-lucky teenager who always saw the glass as half-full. But as soon as Ben filled that glass with white baby vomit, her outlook soured.
My mother once grinned her way through one of Ben’s exorcist-style vomiting sessions, telling me that nothing disgusting could possibly come from a baby as cute as he was. She didn’t have to change his diapers, so she could say that. The truth is that everything disgusting came from Ben. If there was anything off-color and off-scent in our house, there was a good chance he had been involved somewhere along the line. There were the vomit-stained clothes, which somehow tainted all the other clothes in the washing machine. The yellow stain on the carpet, from when he tried to mark his territory. And the black stains next to the couch, from when his markings failed him, he lost his bearings, and he shit everywhere.
“You’d think you do all of this alone,” Lizzie had told me once, during one of my many rants. “I actually do a lot more than you do, and you never hear me complaining.”
“That’s because he’s gotten to you,” I told her. “It’s like cats and toxoplasmosis, little parasites that they carry and pass on to you. And once you have them, you become their slave, unwittingly becoming subservient to them and—”
“Have you been watching the History Channel again?”
“That’s not—”
“I told you to stop watching that shit. That’s not really history, that’s not real science. It’s not real anything.”
“That’s beside the point,” I told her, glossing over the History Channel marathon from two days previous. “The point is that he’s gotten to you. He’s planted his parasitic seed in you and now you only see the good in him. You don’t see any of them bad. It’s … it’s—”
“Parenthood?”
“What?”
“That’s what you’re referring to. It’s called being a mum.”
I shook my head. “It’s the poop. The stench. It’s intoxicating, like a drug.”
“A drug that makes me only see the good in him?”
I nodded vigorously, glad—and a little surprised—that she was getting it.
“Remind me, why did I let you father my child?”
I shrugged. “I think you were drunk at the time.”
“That makes sense.”
Lizzie, being the good, worn-down wife that she was, was happy to ignore those little rants and treat them with as much seriousness as she treated my biannual ambitions to start doing some gardening. The truth? I was just as intoxicated and just as affected as she was. The parasite of parenthood had gotten to me, as well.
We were the typical modern parents, worried about everything and following every piece of advice offered to us—except the ones given out by those who actually had any experience in the matter. Rather than listening to Lizzie’s parents, who had successfully raised an intelligent, healthy, sane, and likable young woman, and mine, who had succeeded in raising a young man, we followed the advice given by soulless psychiatrists and “baby experts” with no children of their own, obvious daddy issues, and accents that couldn’t be geo-located to any place within our solar system.
I had seen the same happen to a few friends of mine, and more often than not it was the mother who led and the father who followed. But I had become just as absorbed in this pseudoscience bullshit as Lizzie. During the pregnancy, it was me who suggested we play Mozart to her bump, hoping the baby would be born with an appreciation of the finer things in life. That turned out to nonsense, of course; babies were babies, they came out pooping and crying, not playing the violin and composing masterpieces. But even after realizing I had been duped, I still fell for every other piece of nonsense that came my way. If it was wrapped in a few big words and delivered by someone with letters after their name, I believed it.
And that’s how, at one year old, Ben ended up on a baby retreat. It was hailed as an exclusive mental, emotional, and physical holiday for babies, one that could increase their awareness and their understanding, turning them into brighter and more confident individuals. It took me a day to realize that I would have been better off locking him in a cupboard with a print of the Mona Lisa and a Mozart CD.
The retreat was located in a holiday spot by the coast. A series of cozy log cabins for the parents and their offspring, and a few communal areas where they played and where the “lessons” were taught. These lessons generally involved some creepy old woman with a voice like an uncoiled hinge pointing at colorful squares and asking the babies to choose the right colors. As quick as I am to embrace even the most obviously bullshit schemes, I am equally quick at despising them. It wasn’t that I expected overnight results, but I had been hoping that Ben would be doing something intellectual, rather than filling his diaper and emptying his nose.
Clearly the skepticism had been evident on my face from the beginning. During one of the many lessons, where the parents sat uncomfortably and impatiently while being patronized by someone who had just robbed them blind, the teacher was very quick to point out Ben’s perceived success to me.
“See, see,” the uncoiled hinge squealed. “He’s pointing to the right one. I told you this would work.”
“He’s not pointing to anything,” I told her. “He’s showing you the snot on the end of his finger.”
Ben wasn’t very good at the tests she was putting in front of him, but that has less to do with his intellect and more to do with the fact that he was one year old. Despite her claims and despite the fact that she had duped so many parents into believing otherwise, she clearly had little experience with children. Or humans, for that matter.
The look that the half-cut cat-woman gave me was almost worth the three hundred we had thrown at her. Ben also saw it and seemed just as amused.
“He could be trying to tell you it’s the green one,” I offered.
She gave me a frustrated look and turned back to Ben just in time to see him eat the green slime on the end of his finger. She gagged and looked like she was about to throw up.
The other parents were all sitting in a semicircle around the teacher. It was supposed to be relaxed and cool, but it reminded me of school assemblies, of hardwood floors, hemorrhoids, and hungover teachers addressing disinterested children. They all saw Ben stick his finger in his mouth and lick it like it was a lollipop. A few of them laughed, mainly the ones who were just as fed up as I was, but the majority of them followed the teacher’s lead and looked at him like he was a demon child. A look I had given him many times myself.
“That child will never learn.” The teacher had lost
her cutesy, grating baby-voice and was now using her actual voice, which was less cutesy, but equally grating. “He’s not interested in what I have to say, he’s not even listening to me, he’s—”
“He’s one,” I told her. “What do you expect?”
“What about these children?” she asked, opening her arms to indicate the other kids, most of them ugly, all of them annoying. One of them had been labeled as “advanced for his age,” because he apparently had the vocabulary of a kid much older. I had my doubts. He knew how to ask for things, he knew how to whine when he didn’t get them, and he knew how to say “mummy,” but only when it was preceded by a demand and only because he thought it was a synonym for slave.
The only thing worse than a whining child is a parent who will go out of their way to give that child exactly what he wants in order to stop the whine.
Oh, I’m sorry, here’s your lollipop.
It’s okay darling, here, have a hamburger.
I didn’t mean to shout because you shat on the floor. I’m so sorry. How about next time I let you do it on my pillow?
Kids who get their own way turn into fat little sociopaths who think they rule the world just because no one has ever said no to them. That annoyed me. The one who kept picking his nose and wiping it on the trousers of passing adults annoyed me—at least Ben had the decency to eat his. The one with the twisted nose who whistled like a tea-kettle every time he talked annoyed me. The one who tried to hump my leg like a dog, all while hurling insults at me like I was a cheap whore with daddy issues, also annoyed the hell out of me. I’m a firm believer that you shouldn’t do to others what you wouldn’t like done to yourself. Yet if I had whacked the aspiring rapist-cum-wife-beater across the head and called him a cunt, I would be the one in the wrong. Sometimes life just isn’t fair.
“The less said about them the better,” I told her. It sounded like the right thing to say and I was glad I said it. But I sensed something was wrong when Lizzie, who had been surprisingly quiet until that point, sighed and shifted away from me. It was a combination of I am so disappointed in you and him? No, I’ve never seen him before in my life.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” one of the parents snapped. “Is there something wrong with my child?”
There were so many things wrong with her child that I didn’t know where to begin. For one thing, despite the conversation going on around him, he was staring in the opposite direction, with his hand wedged down the back of his pants and a look of determination on his face. I had no idea what he was looking for, but I didn’t want to be there when he found it.
“It’s not just your child,” I told her. “It’s children in general. They’re pointless little things who do nothing but eat, vomit, and then, if you’re really unlucky, try to eat their vomit.” They were shocked, but I wasn’t finished. “It’s not our goal as parents to teach them about these things; it’s our goal to make sure they don’t kill themselves. Babies are basically just stupid little humans. They don’t even exist until they’re five.”
“How can you say that?” one incredulous parent muttered. “Of course they exist.”
“Do you remember anything that happened before you were five?” I asked her.
She seemed to mull this over for a moment before shaking her head. “Well, no. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t exist.”
“But it does mean that none of the shit you did was important. Yes, we need to teach them to be careful, but most of them will learn it themselves. We don’t need to tell them when something is hot or sharp, because they’ll learn when they get burned or cut. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for trying to manipulate his little brain into being smarter. I’m constantly falling for the shit spewed by crazy women with shrill voices, PhDs, and mustaches, but I’m starting to think that none of it matters.” I heard the teacher gasp before mumbling under her breath as I continued. “They’ll do their own thing and they’ll figure the world out their own way. That’s why kids go to school when they’re five, and that’s why the only ones telling you to teach your child in the womb are the ones who stand to make money from you doing just that.”
I paused for breath. “I mean, look at him.” I pointed to Ben. “He doesn’t care about the shapes, he doesn’t care that his daddy is currently digging himself a very big hole, and he doesn’t care that he is surrounded by ugly babies and annoyed adults. The fact is that, for the second time this week, he’s discovered his penis and he’s going to sit there and play with it until he gets bored.”
A few of the adults looked at him in disgust. One of them looked away when he realized that Ben was in fact so excited by his discovery that he was trying to pull down his pants so he could show everyone. Some of the men seemed to be suppressing a smile, and I for one was very proud.
“How many of you are first-time parents?” I asked.
Several hands went up. One reluctant woman kept hers down, even though her husband had already raised his. I frowned at her until something clicked. “Let’s just imagine that I’m not insane for a moment and that by asking that question, I wasn’t including puppies or kittens.”
She raised her hand.
“That’s the problem. We’re so scared of messing up, so scared of failing where our parents obviously succeeded, that we go out of our way to listen to any quacks that try to sell us directions to the holy grail.”
I noticed at that point that a number of people actually seemed to be listening to me, and not just waiting for me to finish so that they could beat me up or phone the police. That spurred me on as I endeavored to win over the others who did look like they were preparing to beat me up.
“Our parents didn’t do anything special; there was none of this when we were born. They did what they felt was right and they didn’t let some crazy woman with two degrees, no kids, and half a brain tell them what to do with their lives.”
“Have you finished insulting me now?” the teacher asked, looking rather annoyed.
I looked at her, shook my head, and then addressed the class again. “Take this place for example,” I said.
“What’s wrong with it?” the teacher asked, preparing herself to be offended.
“A baby retreat?” I said, stressing every syllable. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Language!” one of the parents spat, almost instinctively.
I held up my hands in apology. It was her choice if she didn’t want to expose a kid to bad language, just like it was her choice to expose that same kid to Happy Meals and chocolate milkshakes.
“These kids have no idea where they are. They have no idea what they’re doing and they won’t remember any of this.”
The teacher jumped in again, keen to shoot down the dissenter. “It’s not about what they will remember. It’s about nurturing their development.”
“With two hours of looking at colored squares?”
“And there’s reading time, and TV time, and—”
“Oh, TV time, well of course there’s that,” I mocked. “I mean, thank God for that because it’s not like I have a TV at home or anything.”
She scrunched up her face. “I’ll have you know that these events have been tailored around the baby’s needs, ensuring they get optimum care and attention.”
“Where’s your proof?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your proof that this works, where is it?”
“I have degrees in social science and psychology.”
“That means nothing, and you know it. This has nothing to do with psychology and everything to do with money. These people want nothing but the best for their kids and will do anything to get it. You have lied to them and tricked them so you can empty their wallets.”
“How dare you!”
Her protestations were cut short by another parent, a down-trodden husband who had clearly had enough. He rose from his cross-legged position, groaned the pain out of his joints, and then joined me. “This man is right. This is all bullshit.”
Another parent, this time a mother, stood with her ugly baby in tow. “I’ve got to agree with them. I fell for this in the beginning and I’ve been holding on to save face. But this is a load of shit.”
“How can you say that?” the teacher said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Have you seen the schedule for tomorrow?” she asked the other parents. “We have breakfast, nap time, and then, after taking the kids for a walk, we sit and watch a Disney movie.” She turned back to the teacher. “This man is right. Is this a fucking joke?”
The bickering started and stirred a wave of chaos in the room. The whiny kid began to cry, a few of the ugly ones began to scream, but all of the parents ignored them and concentrated their anger on each other and on the teacher. Having started it, I managed to lose my grip on it and calmly backed away.
Lizzie was waiting for me at the back of the room, her hands folded across her torso. “Are you proud of yourself?”
I nodded. “A little, yes.”
She shook her head in disbelief. You’d think she would have been used to this sort of behavior.
“Kind of ironic, isn’t it?” I said as we watched the chaos. The parents looked like they were about to come to blows, with the teacher stuck in the middle of them. “They’re all arguing about their kids’ welfare and completely ignoring their crying children in the process.” I laughed at that, enjoying the irony and the fact that I had been the one to notice it.
I turned to Lizzie, expecting some sort of recognition, but rather than pride, she had a stern expression on her face. “Is that like your permanent expression these days?” I wondered. “I mean, you know you can change it, right?”
“Did you forget something?” she interrupted.