Baby Hater

My baby is six. But she’ll always be my baby, etc. etc.

She’s getting sort of leggy to be considered a baby, though. Speaking of which, do you know what she hates the most?

Babies.

I love babies. Anyone, any baby at all, any species, I’ll snuggle it up if you give me the chance. They are so funny, so expressive, so alien and familiar at once. And let’s not forget the sartorial opportunities they can provide. I literally cannot drag my eyes off of them, because I am fond verging on creepy.

The girl child, though . . . a baby hater.

In the grocery store one day I say “Look at that hat!,” referring to the hat of someone very small in a chest carrier. I can only see the back of the hat but it is charming — has a fuzzy texture, I believe it had some wee animal ears involved in the design and construction.

My daughter turns without realizing what she is about to see. And then back to me, glaring with smoking-hot anger eyes. “You made me turn my head to look at a baby . . . AND I HATE BABIES!”

The hatred of babies by a six-year-old girl entertains me no end; these fresh-faced sweeties, just coming into their own, are more often moony and maternal over anything soft and small. But this kid reserves all that for animals.

Referring to a family who know with three kids the other day, I say, “There is the middle one named Violet. Do you remember the big sister’s name?”

“I do. Her name is Jane. But then also there is the baby, which, I HATE BABIES!”

She doesn’t want to have a baby, because being pregnant seems horrible. Hmm, who could have given her that idea? She’s also clear on the fact that she doesn’t want to take care of a baby. She would like a kid though, so her provisional plan is that I’ll handle the babyness of it all and then she’ll take over when it’s a kid.

I shouldn’t encourage it, or get her to say it because her contrarian attitude is so heartfelt, unusual, strongly expressed and therefore delightful. I don’t want her to end up hating babies in a real sense because she talked about hating babies so much when she was still adjacent to her own babyhood. But maybe she really does hate them. And maybe I am solidifying this in her identity by typing it down in letters.

At the end of the day I sort of like it when women don’t want babies, aren’t swayed in their decisions because of some fervent biological desire they never chose; it makes me feel like we females aren’t just a pack of baby-wanters, whereas I personally have done nothing and probably will continue to do nothing to dispel that myth.

It takes all sorts, it takes a village.

It takes a baby hater and it might take a baby hater’s mom.