Duffer - 16 kids too many July/August 2008

 

DUFFER  ......... 16 kids too many

By Ian Robinson

I just read a story about a woman in British Columbia who recently gave birth to her 18th child.

No. That's not a typo.

This woman has been pregnant for 13 1/2 years of her life.

And no, she is not involved in some sort of weird medical experiment.

And no, she's not wearing clothes out of the 1800 and living in that freaky town they've got in B.C. where the men marry six women piece and every man has enough kids to field sufficient baseball teams for round-robin league play.

Speaking of which, what kind of moron marries six women?

Don't know about you, but I'm married to a woman - that's woman, singular - and while I love her very much, it's about all I can do to keep up with:

a) The chores.

Women generate chores. You walk through your house, you see a chair, a couch, a TV. Woman walks through your house, she sees chores. She sees a wall that needs to be painted, lino that needs replacing, a leaky faucet and a loose door knob. None of which you can fix while watching tv.

And she know just the door knob to fix them all.

Multiply your chore list by six?

Don't think so.

b) Birthdays and anniversaries.

You've got to remember a woman's birthday and, at the very least, you've got to remember the day you married her.

And remember it in advance so you get her a decent present.

I know one guy who also remembers - and buys his wife a present on - the anniversary of their first date.

Of course, his wife is like 10 times better looking than he is, so I guess homely guys playing out of their league have to master that level of romanticism, but even those of us, say fives who married fives or eights who married eights - have to remember birthdays and anniversaries. And, if you have children, you have to remember to buy your wife a present on Mother's Day and, trust me, if you forget, the foolowing defence, although sensible to you, does not work.

I kno. I once said to her. "Mother's Day? So what? Since when are you my mother?". You can't even imagine how many wall I had to paint before I got forgiven for that one.

c) The noise.

Women are different than men in that it is important to them that they communicate.

When men "communicate," one says to the other: "Yo. Catch the game?"

"Yeah. Colts need somebody good at quarterback."

"For sure."

"For real."

This is not how women talk. When women communicate, they're actually communicating about real stuff. They talk about yeast infections, orgasm frequency, their deepest feelings, hopes, dreams and aspirations, which often include what colour to have you repaint the living room.

And when you get married, you're going to have to listen to a woman talk to you about precisely those things. And running away with your fingers in you ears screaming, "La-la-la-la!" is not considered the proper response of a loving husband.

So you learn to communicate, even though it hurts you deep in your male soul and you lie about doing it with your friends, but you learn to listen to your wife when it's important to her - which is pretty much all the time - and actually think about what she's saying and respond to her in kind.

Which a fellow can accomplish with one woman.

But six of them communicating? At once? That's got to be noisier than an Ozzy Osbourne concert.

One woman is more than enough.

But this woman in British Columbia with the 18 kids may be one woman too many for any normal man.

She's in the neighbourhood of 40 years old and she just kicked out Number 18. The oldest is 23 years old.

Apparently, the number of babies this couple has generated were not planned, they told the local newspaper.

I'm thinking maybe somebody ought to take the pair of them aside and explain to them what causes it, and then they can start making sensible life decisions.

My friends who have children - ususally tow, like I have - have noted on more than one occasion, how extremely independent and competent my kids are. The could both cook at a ridiculously young age, do their own laundry and were insanely responsible about things like homework and chores.

I am often asked: "How did you manage that?"

I lie and repeat something I read in Dear Abby, because the truth is not pretty.

The truth is, my children are independent and responsible because  they are being raised by a man who can't keep house plants alive.

They are incredibly independent and responsible because I am not.

My children are being raised by the kind of idiot who once got a 10-year-old boy out of bed at midnight on a school night to watch shooting stars in the back yard at three in the morning.

The kind of idiot who, when he got tired of watching The Teletubbies, transitioned his daughter to professional wrestling and Buffy the Vampire Slayer at a tender age.

Who has been know to say, "We're out of milk this morning. Here's a couple of bucks. Pick up a Slurpee on the way to school."

I lavished loving and cheerful, immature neglect upon my children until they figured out at some point that:

1. Dad loves houseplants.

2. Dad's houseplants all die.

3. Dad love me.

4. See Number 2.

5. Better spend my Slurpee money on mild.

If I had 18 children? Simultaneously?

It wouldn't be a family.

It would be like a rerun of Lord of the Flies. I've never met these people in B.C. with teh 18 kids. But I can tell you this much from seeing the picture of them with a heard of happy, healthy looking children.

They're not people. They're advanced robots from the future.

It's the only explanation I can think of.

Courtesy of Turf & Recreation Magazine
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