A week ago now, as this post was originally composed on the weekend and promptly forgotten until today, on a much-needed beer date, Sarah and I were talking about children; her present child, her future children, my waxing and waning interest in my own ability to reproduce, the societal imperative to have more! once you’ve had one! and/or tied the all-important knot of marriage. It had been over a year since the two of us sat down in a bar and drank beer while listening to a one-man band playing Neil Diamond covers and a lot has changed in that year. Sadly, one of the things that has changed is that the bar got rid of its jukebox but whatever. We’re used to that.
The weekend came. Sunday was one of those days when there was not a fragment of doubt in my mind that the baby boom is real. Sunday, walking downtown, giving the Santa Claus Parade a wiiiiiiidde berth, saint aardvark and I were swarmed by people carrying children on their shoulders, with children dragging from each hand, pushing double-decker strollers containing entire pre-school classes of over-sugared children banging their plastic spoons on their heads, shrieking “Parade!! Parade!!” It was like all the ovaries of all the world had exploded and all the sperms had come riding in, Dr. Strangelove style. It was a big mess of reproductive noise, all over the downtown core.
Then this morning, following a trail of unrelated-to-the-topic links, I came across the concept of the quiverfull family, as in, you should have exactly as many children as God thinks you should. God opens and closes the woman’s womb and decides how many quivers you get.
I enjoy the image of God as a bouncer, leaning against the ropes (ovaducts?[formerly known as Fallopian tubes]) in His tight t-shirt and jeans, asking for ID, frisking for weapons, tossing out the renegade sperm. I might write a children’s book about it someday. But I can’t enjoy the word “quiver” because, as a verb, it’s up there on the shelf with “trickle” as a word that makes me feel, well, squirmy in a bad way. And as a noun it makes me think of men in tights and that makes me think of the SCA and then we’re back at squirmy in a bad way.
I feel awe for what Sarah and Arwen and my cousin, Kristen (who has no website but a week-old baby boy named Noah) and my mom and women everywhere have done and continue to do every day and I am so not there yet. But, powers that be, you may continue to send me subliminal messages. I do so enjoy learning new things.
