On Saturday, I felt a bit like dear Bridget when the neighborhood women and I gathered to ooh and ahh over the newest baby on the street. Cameron's mom got married in her late 30s after a marathon of internet dating, and then needed fertility intervention to have her two kids. The other women, moms all, got married very young and had less than no trouble getting pregnant (more like trouble preventing their pregnancies).
The Young Moms swooned over the baby. Then they started joking about how their ovaries hurt, and speculating on the baby boom that Cameron's arrival would trigger in the neighborhood. Because, you see, everyone can have babies, right? Why, certainly, no one in that very room has had trouble getting pregnant, right? Definitely not half the women in the room at that very moment, RIGHT?!?!
On the verge of tears, I got up to leave. Cameron's mom saw the look on my face and quickly tried to change the subject to something more encouraging and less... insensitive.
"Maggie, I meant to tell you! Remember my friend Camille, the one who had her son by insemination? She's engaged!"
Apparently this friend of hers, who had a child on her own three years ago when she was 39, has been swept up in a whirlwind romance with a 35-year-old she met through work. He loves her, he loves her son, the son is already calling him "Dad," and they're getting married in May.
At which point the traditionally more cluelessly insulting (truly, I don't think she means to be hurtful, I think she's just an idiot) Young Mom chimed in:
"Ooh, it's like some urban myth from Sex and the City; you always hear about women who get married in their 30s but you know they don't really exist. But now you actually know one, so maybe there is hope after all!"
I left. Cam's mom left with me, and let me have a good cry on the sidewalk before I went home. Seriously, it's like a scene from Bridget Jones, where the Smug Marrieds treat us like a different species or something.
Maybe I need more "Sex and the City" after all, and less Bridget. Certainly New York Magazine thinks this is a fine time for Singletons in New York.
Hmm, and George wants to see a movie tonight, how interesting....
(Also, the Captain checked in on me last night, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with marriage and babies, in any order.)
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3 comments:
Never fear. Those young smug fertile ones will probably be staring down nasty divorces in their late 30s or suffering philandering husbands in middle-age life crises with no careers to speak of. You reap what you sow. Ms. Clueless will get what's due for her. Trust me.
Oh, but I would never wish that on them. I'd just like them to be a little more aware of what's coming out of their mouths.
People are insensitive, and usually the ones who have had no troubles who just don't get it. Until they break a nail or something just as dire, and the world better stop and give them sympathy. I get it. I feel for you. I got a phone from my niece -- who knows what I've been trying to do for the past two years -- saying "we weren't even trying, it totally wasn't planned, but I'm pregnant...isn't that crazy?!" Hang in there. Your time will come.
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