Marie's maternal instinct

It was about 30 degrees in Chicago. Marie and I were walking our six month-old puppy Grazie on the sidewalk. Another couple — attractive, roughly our ages, mid to late thirties, early forties — was walking toward us from the other direction. The man was pushing a stroller. The stroller’s passenger was a baby boy between six and eight months old with bright blue eyes. The boy was sitting up, alert, and watching us as we approached. He was wearing a hooded fleece red panda onesie. On the top of his hood were black fleece ears. He looked something like this:

I smiled and waved, and the kid got excited. He didn’t quite wave back, but he tracked me with his eyes, squirmed and bounced his arms up and down in unison. When we got close, he craned his neck and looked up at us. He made a little squeak of unmistakable glee and gave us an open mouth smile.

“Adorable,” I told his parents.

The man smiled broadly and nodded in tacit agreement. His wife blushed and mouthed, “Thank you.” As we passed, the man and his wife were looking at each other, beaming with pride.

When Marie and I stopped at the next corner, I turned to her.

“Seriously, how cute was that kid?” I asked, still smiling.

“What kid?” asked Marie.

She wasn’t kidding. The couple with the baby wasn’t a blip on her radar. She literally didn’t see them.

My wife has an amazing filter for things she doesn’t care about, and strangers’ babies are at the top of the fucking list. To be clear, it is not antipathy. My wife is not cold or mean. Marie is thoughtful. She adores and cares deeply about her friends and family. She just has a binary system of organization that applies both to her intellect and to her senses. The world is bifurcated into two realms:

1. Care

2. Don’t care.

The latter is exponentially larger than the former.

Exchanges like this happen several times a month. Marie and I live in Lincoln Park near DePaul University. We have two dogs. Any day of the week, we walk between one and three hours, even in the dead of winter. And our neighborhood is full of young families. We pass strollers every other block. It’s excellent people-watching. And I love looking at families, especially the ones that are roughly our ages with a child or children. I think, That could be us.

I equate children with joy. Intentionally having a child is an unequivocal statement of optimism. It’s actually the most optimistic thing two people can do. It’s looking at the world — the horror and the beauty, disaster and deliverance, love and hatred, order and chaos — and making a decision to add to it. Children are incarnate Hope.

If it sounds like I’m baby-crazy, the craze is something that I’ve been able to resist for 25 years. I’m 43. Having a child has always been a fanciful notion until I met Marie. She made the idea a serious one. But I do have a strong paternal instinct. And it’s growing stronger. On our walks, every time we pass a youngish couple with a baby, I see our future. I see cribs and car-seats and road trips and games. I see our dogs licking our baby’s face. I see fun and giggles and snuggles and naps in my lap. I see playing catch in a grassy field, like I did with my father.

On the flipside, Marie sees cost. She’s sees obligation and duty. She’s sees pregnancy and childbirth and possible complications and the inevitable toll on her beautiful body. She sees lost sleep and encroached personal space. She sees resource-allotment, energy-depletion and expense and expense and expense — food, clothing, shelter, safety, nannies and education. Most of all, she’s sees 18 years worth of freedom drifting away.

Last week, when Marie and I were discussing the possibility of moving to the suburbs, Marie described our future child as “the demon that is going to ruin everything.”

So, regarding Marie’s maternal instinct . . . it’s still in development.

Her mother Lucy has assured me that she felt the same way before she had children.

“It’s different when it’s your own,” she promised.

I’m optimistic.