“Either I’ll end up writing year-end letters about no-knead bread, hip
replacements and mango chutney, or I’ll be stuck blogging about my low
sex-drive and chapped nipples.”
“Yah, I don’t really want kids either,” said the Boatman.
The End.
I came to this conclusion at 11:45 P.M. on Christmas Day. The Boatman
and I had just returned from a delightful carolling event at our friend Julie’s
parents’ house. Accompanied by Julie’s brother Tom on the piano, we sang from
old Shopper’s Drugmart ‘Tis the Season carolling pamphlets. When it was time
for “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” Julie’s mom divided up the lines. Robbie
and I got “Seven Swans a Swimming” which we enthusiastically rehearsed several
times before the song began. Throughout the lengthy song, many of the other
carollers were distracted by wine, conversations and Julie’s adorable child who
was wandering around the living room stealing everyone’s cellphones. Not Robbie
and I. We didn’t miss a beat.
Afterwards we hung out in the kitchen, and being the nosy person that I
am, I came across a year-end Christmas letter hanging on a bulletin
board. The author opened with a compelling sentence about the smell of
baking no-knead bread wafting through the kitchen as he wrote these words. I
skimmed down the page, and learned that the author’s significant other had been
through a hip replacement that year, but had recovered in time to oversee her
garden and the production of mango chutney.
I looked up and saw Julie’s father Alain. “Who are these people and why
did the write this letter?”
“Well, you know,” he began in his charming French accent. “They are
re-tired, no kids. They travel the world and come home to bake their bread, and
write this.”
“My father has a friend who writes these letters every year. Fills the
page front and back. My father can’t read a word of it.”
“No kids,” Alain said again. Julie’s child, Alain’s grandchild, toddled
by pointing up towards the window and tilting his head back and forth.
“Lune, lune, lune, lune,” he kept repeating. He loves the moon. And
Cheerios. Soon he would head towards the cereal cupboard where he would crawl
in with the box.
Every time one of the mothers at school gets pregnant I feel dead
inside and jealous of their clear, tangible purpose that no one will ever
question them about and that will last them for their entire lives.
One Friday night a couple of months ago, as we were lying in bed, the
Boatman and I decided that we were not going to have children. That day, I’d
been masturbating on Facebook when I came across the Mommy Blog of the cool
girls from my high school. She’s a Mompreneur. Just Another Mompreneur, she
humbly calls herself. I devoured most of the seven posts she’d written. With
honesty and humour, the mother of two described her fecundated life filled with
boogers and diapers and chapped nipples. When her partner comes home every
evening, she has absolutely no desire to fuck him, but derives true, legitimate
pride and joy in the fact that she was able to transcend the day’s chaos and
prepare him a healthy home-cooked meal.
As I lay in bed, I considered the Mompreneur’s existence. I take pride
and joy in my sex-drive. And my nipples. Also, I absolutely despise cooking.
When the Boatman, a regular entrepreneur, arrives home long after I do,
I have rarely cooked anything. I tell him that while he was gone, I humped the
bed twice and he tells me that he’s proud of me.
“I don’t want to be a Mompreneur,” I told the Boatman that night. “I
don’t want to spend my day at home chasing after toddlers and then blogging
about my chapped nipples and low sex-drive. Plus I would hate having to cook
dinner for my family every day. Hate it.”
“Yah, I don’t really want kids either,” said the Boatman.
That settled that. I would become a BarrenWomanPreneur. But now I’m
worried that instead of having kids, I’m doomed to write nauseous year-end
Christmas letters about no-knead bread and mango chutney.
For some reason, the chapped nipples and no-knead bread is less
disturbing than my current endeavours, which include gathering all my menstrual
blood into a peanut butter jar and posting it on the internet.
I’m not sure why.
The End.
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