Dear Neighbor...

Dear Neighbor,

You’re lucky I’m having a good week, or else your casual “You two need to reproduce” joke could have ruined my Halloween.

Do you think you’re doing us a favor?  That we might have been looking at all the kids in their cute costumes, wishing we had one, and you saved the day by swooping in and reminding us that we can – no, should! – have a child?  Because we had totally forgotten it was an option. Rest assured, neighbor, that as a young married heterosexual couple, we are well aware of what we’re supposed to do next.  I’ve known about this love-marriage-baby carriage order since I started teasing people about K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

No, despite what your joke implied, it’s actually you who are uninformed.  You don’t know anything about us, other than that we seem nice and don’t currently have a child living with us.  For all you know, we have a billionaire uncle who hates kids and has promised to leave us all of his money as long as we don’t have any.  For all you know, we honestly believe our dog is a baby and I breastfeed him every night.  For all you know, we’re infertile.

And besides, what is the proper response to being told we should reproduce?  I managed an awkward laugh and an “Eventually.”  Should I have said “We’ll get right on it,” clubbed Henry over the head, and dragged him back to the bedroom, cavewoman style?  Should I have told you our whole infertility story, made you feel awful?  Should I have said “You know, it’s funny, we’ve been taking a poll of what random people think, and it was all tied up.  You just tipped the balance – guess it's time to have a baby!”

Actually, that leads me to a pretty good rule of thumb: don’t tell anyone they should have kids unless you’d also be willing to tell them you think they’d make awful parents.  Oh, what?  That’s a terrible thing to say to someone?  Yeah, so is telling people who are infertile, not ready, or maybe just don’t want kids that they should have them.

The cool parents on the block were giving out liquor to the adults, and let me compliment their kid’s costume without questioning our childlessness. Try that next year.

Happy Freaking Halloween,

Me

P.S.  You are so effing lucky you didn’t use the phrase “start a family.”  Shit would have gotten real.