And the Narcissist of the Week is
Dana Kessler and apparently All of Tel Aviv for being unable to understand that:
A) Life no longer revolves around your wants and needs after you have a baby
B) That becoming a Parent doesn't mean you continue to be a Narcissistic jerk who thinks of a baby as a fashion accessory.
My social circle drinks its Friday morning coffee at around 2 p.m., badly hung over from the night before. I started to realize that having kids wouldn’t be the best social move whenever the discussion around the café table drifted to the subject of babies. Let’s just say that if your 30-something friends stare at a pregnant woman as if she has a piece of lettuce stuck between her teeth, you know that having a baby isn’t considered popular
That is because your social circle consists of egocentric adults acting like children who don't like to be reminded that they are too childish, selfish and, narcissistic to take on the adult responsibly of caring for another - a duty YOUR parent did for you (though apparently very poorly because you developed no sense of gratitude or desire to "give back" )
They emailed me links to academic studies and research showing that children don’t, in fact, make you happy. They told me that wishing to reproduce is narcissistic. I couldn't always argue with their logic, and in hindsight I must admit that they were right in predicting that once I had a baby, I’d be having more conversations about the different shades and textures of poo than political debates or semiotic analysis of films.
Because the only valuable way to contribute to society is by sitting around late at night discussing movies. Properly Raising the next generation simply doesn't serve humanity the way sitting around stoned does.
As it turns out, my mistake was trying to rationalize the host’s answer, which led to me naively telling him he could have still invited us and told us not to bring the baby. To that he didn’t have an answer; he just mumbled something about not wanting to insult us. That’s when it sank in: It’s not the baby they imagined would cramp the party’s style; it was us. We simply weren’t considered cool anymore.
Why the hell do you care? You have moved on, and have embarked on a new stage in your life.. do you really give a rats ass if your childish drug addled friends think its "Kewl"?
In some social circles having a baby is super-trendy—as long as you treat it like the fashion accessory it clearly is supposed to be. Infinite talk about state-of-the-art futuristic baby strollers, luxury nursery furniture, and designer maternity clothes I regularly overheard at my pregnancy exercise class assured me that for snobby rich-girls, having a baby means what having a Chihuahua means to Paris Hilton. Other social groups in the city ga-ga for babies include well-to-do gay couples who can afford a surrogate mother. There are also the enlightened vegan yoga-buffs who too must have babies, whom they tie around their well-toned bodies in hemp baby-slings and breastfeed until they are 10.
Yes. Those are the only types of parents out there. Members of your previous social group who have had children, and who, like you, disparately still want to be seen as Cool.
Being pregnant is sort of like going to the army: You get to meet the kind of people you usually wouldn’t. And, sadly, they don’t go away after you give birth. After getting dirty looks on the playground for letting my kid snack on a non-organic banana and visiting one too many online mommy groups in which mothers refer to their offspring as “our little prince/princess” and lovingly complain about their husbands as if they were married to Ray Romano, I started to come to terms with the fact that most parents are not my kind of people. On the other hand, my kind of people usually don’t have kids. Luckily, I have my kid to hang out with.
Those are self-centered liberal parents trying to bolster their self esteem and deal with their loss of the "true coolness" of being baby-less, by trying to claim they are a better parent than you. Your response? To claim you belong to a class to really, really, uber cool people who are above all of that, but that you are extra super special, because a member of that class you (UNUSUALLY!) decided to have a Child. In other words, engaging in exactly the same one-upsmanship that the organic banana mommy is engaging in, and for exactly the same reason.
If you weren't such a pathetic liberal narcissistic jerk , you might realize that being a parent never was, never is, and never will be "Cool" - in the Juvenile way that High Schools seek to become popular. You would realize that having a kid means putting such childish thoughts away and embarking upon a new lesson in life, responsibility, love and growth - one you cannot obtain on any other path. Its not something you do to be admired -or to provide some friend to "hang out with" because that makes you feel less pathetic and lonely after your other friends have rejected you. There are lots of people who become parents and feel no need what-so-ever to prove themselves a better parent than the next person - because the ONLY THING THEY CARE ABOUT is their child and being the best Parent, Guide, and teacher to their offspring they can be - the rest of the world be damned. The fact that it never occurs to you that there are parents like that only proves you still think this is about you.
