yawn
I've almost decided that other parents are boring. By "other parents," I really mean other mothers. Other mothers whom I meet while hanging out at the library or at storytime. I've almost come to this conclusion based on my interactions with them and overhearing their conversations. You see, conversations between a small group of, say, three mothers of babies typically seem to involve questions and replies about whether their baby sleeps through the night, whether their kid eats solids, how often their babies nap, what spectacular motor and cognitive skills their babies can or can't do and well, you get the idea. Oh, and they talk about baby products too -- strollers and toys and cribs and other ridiculous baby paraphernalia. That seems to be all they talk about -- their kids and what they're doing with (or to?) them. Truthfully, it's quite very boring. I get bored with people asking me the same questions and me having to give the same answers ("no, she's not sleeping through the night, and yes, she eats solids"). I think I've got a standard answer down pat. Likewise, I find it utterly boring to ask other mothers these ridiculous questions about their babies, whom I also feel obligated to call "cute" or "adorable" or some other synonym (I don't think there're many more), just because they called my kid cute. It almost seems blasphemous to not call a baby cute.
This standard repertoire of questions and answers harks back to some of my interactions with strangers when I was pregnant: "When are you due?" or "How far along are you? or "Do you know what you're having?" (Um, a baby!) When I finally gave birth and randomly encountered pregnant women, I had no idea what to say to them because having been in their shoes not long before, I knew how tired and annoyed I'd been with these typical questions that I felt bad for them having to answer the same ol' questions, so I just smiled lamely and hoped they would either end the conversation and walk away or start babbling about some random topic (the latter has never happened).
Getting back to the mothers who just talk about their babies, maybe it's a case of me not being able to identify with them. These are women in their early-to-mid thirties, who live in houses they own, probably have disposable income, and who are either stay-at-home moms or will return to their carefully-thought-out career at some point. [For the record, I'm in my late-twenties, live in a rented one-bedroom apartment that I quite dislike but have gotten used to, live very frugally, and am currently staying at home with Raspberry because I'm in the midst of figuring out what I'd like to do exactly] I have no idea what their personal interests are, what their political leanings are, what makes them tick or what their values are. If I were to assume anything about them based on the kind of image they project, babies are their lives and they don't seem to tire talking about them. Now, where are all the comparatively younger mothers, people who were in school not too long ago, people who have kids but talk about other stuff when they get together? Maybe this is just a rant of sorts. Having little-to-no support system out here in Hamilton, I decided to try to become what I feared most, in an attempt to try to make some friends and of course, expose my kid to experiences beyond sitting at home all day -- the playground/playgroup mother. Instead, I find myself bored by the scene and not quite being able to identify with these women, who all seem like very nice but rather one-dimensional people. Maybe this is what I get for attempting to subscribe to social norms and succumbing to asking typical questions and giving typical answers when I engage with others. But then again, I suspect that veering from the norm will just win me odd looks. Just like the odd [even dirty] looks I get from unfamiliar librarians when I wear my glitter-girl-roller-skating T-shirt and let my kid wander around in the adult section (instead of the unspokenly proscribed children's play area), fondling objects that are not meant to be fondled. But that's just my very mature kid who gets bored with kids toys. It's another story, another rant for another day.