One of these posts does not belong

This post definitely has a home on the baby daddy blog, but it’s also pretty fitting right here. See, this one isn’t as much about parenting as it is about students — I see ‘em everywhere.

A while back, my wife and I noticed that we were among the oldest couples at out childbirth preparation classes. It’s a small group of folks, and we’re the only ones pushing thirty. The rest of the kids are, well, kids. They’re very young. They’ve got that young kid smell (I think that’s Axe), and they’ve got their young kid clothes. they’ve got their young kid attitudes and young kid behaviors and….hey wait. Those kids are almost exactly like my students.

There was the overachiever — the girl (of course) who raises her hand at every question, so hard that it produces a slight grunt. She waves it back and forth trying to get the teacher’s attention and pleasepleaseplease won’t the teacher call on her? And every time she’s called upon, she’s got the correct answer (of course). She’s not so bad, and her husband is pretty nice. As a matter of fact, he’s much like the boyfriends to these types of students at school — quiet, kind, doesn’t step on her toes, likes to make jokes when he can.

Then there’s the kids who just don’t seem to believe the teacher — a mother of seven and a practicing doula — really knows what she’s talking about. There are a few of these kids in class, and they’re always pushing the teacher to admit some kind of falsehood in her teaching; as though she needs to cede ground in order to sate their discomfort. For example: in a discussion over the bonding between mother and child directly after birth, and the differences in the strength of that bond whether the mother gives birth naturally, or is aided by an analgesic such as an edpidural, one student threw his hand up: “That’s not true. My sister told me.” And he went into a discussion of “pictures he’s seen” that prove the teacher wrong. Now, I’m not saying the teacher is necessarily “correct,” but the point she was trying to make was that mothers who give birth naturally feel another connection to the child that may be more difficult for mothers who have an epidural — that of the pain of birth; when you’re numb from the stomach down, it’s difficult to associate the birth with more than the process. But the kid wouldn’t let it go — he kept trying to get her to say she was wrong, and his wife jumped in at one point and also started arguing, claiming that “her cousin” said that “her friend” had a kid once and…. A few weeks ago, we heard that the teacher was wrong about mothers who go beyond their due dates because they heard of this dude who was sposta be born in like, early June, but wasn’t born until late July.

At this point another parent jumped in and asked “Is there some way to game the system? Like, can we do the epidural until she’s at, like, 9 centimeters, and then just cut it off so that she has a natural childbirth?” I get what this guy was getting at — he wants his wife to be comfortable, but wants to ensure that bond between the mother and child, but he forgot something pretty important here: It ain’t his choice. Secondly, the doula brought up the simple fact that the pain might be unbearable. not that the pain of labor is unbearable, but the fact that if this couple did something like that, they’d keep the mother away from all pain up until the most painful part at all, and that’s no way to have a baby. (During a break in the class, this father also asked the doula if it were required that he watch the childbirth video — more on that, later)

Another couple is also like my students in the way that they consistently show up late to class, if they even show up at all. Last night they walked in about twenty minutes late, and when the break came at one hour in, they skipped out and went home. Past experience tells me that they’re either hiding in the bathrooms or smoking weed in the field behind the hospital.

Another couple is much like the new kids in school, or the kids who just moved to your schoolfrom a farm. They’re well-dressed, but always wide-eyed and seemingly confused. They never speak. They smile when the teacher looks at them, but you can see deep within them that they’re begging: “pleasedon’tcallonme.” I can’t much of a read off them, nor can I get a read off the last set of parents who seem to be genuinely interested in this whole process, and who remind me of my wife and I. If they have a question that just hasn’t been asked in class, they ask it (but only after all the other crazy-ass questions have gotten out of he way); if they have a question that relates only to them, they keep it until the break and ask the doula in person. No reason to trouble the rest of the students with something that just doesn’t fit with the progress of the class.

Sitting in the class last night I couldn’t help but be annoyed at the fact that one of the soon-to-be-parents kept raising his hand to tell jokes; that he and another student felt it was inappropriate to watch video of actual childbirth, because that’s “just not right” (I totally understand that some men are uncomfortable with the process; some men get queasy at the sight of blood. But this is a childbirth preparation class. We’re probably going to learn a bit about the process of childbirth); that he kept checking his cell phone for text messages; that he kept sending text messages; that another one of the kids just sat with his head in his lap and played with his watch; that those two kids skipped class; that some of the students took every opportunity to interrupt the class; etc.

My wife, on the way out of the building, said: “Jeez, that was a pain in the ass. Can you believe some of those people?” And all I could say in response was: Those were my students, babe. That’s exactly what an 8th grader acts like.

It was too much like being in school, and it was a painful end to an already difficult day. And it was also a painful realization that the kids I have will likely behave throughout life the same way they do today. I’m sorry, world. I’ll do the best I can.