Opinion: Oh Baby, I Just Don't Care!

I got more interesting when my sister got pregnant. I know this because suddenly, people had questions. They wanted to know about my sister's choices regarding birth, breast-feeding, and child-rearing; about baby weight and diet and mysterious baby-stuff I don't have answers to.

I'm not a terrible person. I'm not so hideously self-involved that when the conversation turns to babies I just switch my brain off and drool, daydreaming about my dinner. (Actually, I do do that. But not about my sister's baby, I'm not that much of an asshole!) During Zoe's pregnancy we became closer than we've ever been, and at every step I knew the important stuff: Were they healthy? Were they happy? Was she looking after herself? I made an effort to know these things because they matter to me. If my friend has a baby, that matters to me too. What is important to those you love is important to you, right? But I could not tell you how much my niece weighed when she was born, and if I could, I probably wouldn't. Because it pisses me off that you expect me to know.

I was in no way prepared for the sort of in-depth cross examination I would get around the photocopier. I understand that people ask to be polite, that it's an expression of kindness. I like talking about my family and friends; I could talk to you about my sister until you're so bored you want to hack off your own foot and beat yourself to death with it. I find her fascinating. I find people in general fascinating. But babies? Not so much.

When you have a female body, you are expected to care. If you adopt a position that's very ‘whevs’ about it all, people start to get weird. The way you are spoken to makes it impossible to just not bother adopting a position on it. My mum has known me for 29 years, and still recently lumped me into the baby-sitting chat when discussing a family holiday. She assumed that I would love to babysit my niece, instead of being horrified by the prospect. Did she assume this of my dad? No, she did not. Is he in fact way more qualified to look after a child than me, having been around for the raising of two already? Yes he is. Does he have a vagina? No. That's how he gets out of the baby chat. People don't bother to include him. Me, I couldn't give less of a stuff, but when pregnancy happens, if you're a woman, you start to exist in relation to it. There is no opt-out.

I am frustrated that because of my body type (you know, boobs and a vagina and whatnot) I will spend my life being expected to adopt some kind of position on babies. People will assume I'm interested. If I say I'm not, it will be a stand that I have taken, rather than just a preference. I gather from reading the Guardian that at some point people are going to want me to explain when I'm going to have babies myself, or why I don't plan to. Yawn. Why would I have babies? Isn't it a bit old-fashioned now to start assuming that people are going to do stuff just based on their gender? We all know that women can be doctors and men can be nurses; we're getting used to the idea that mum can go out to work whilst dad kicks ass at child-rearing. So why are we making any assumptions at all about who is interested in procreation?