A Bundle Of Joylessness

(My mom re-married, which is why my siblings are much younger than me: 14 and 18 years, to be exact. My sister was born as I entered highschool, and my brother came along in my last year, just as I was up to my neck in graduation and exam stuff. I helped my mom with my sister, and then of course I have to pitch in with my brother. One evening mom leaves him with me (my sister was at her grandma) for what is supposed to be a quick trip to the market and what turns into four-hour coffee with her friends – which I don’t begrudge her, but my brother doesn’t really like being with somebody else, and he’s a big screamer. Then mom comes home.)

Mom: “Why isn’t he asleep yet?”

Me: “He doesn’t want to. I’ve switched to Baby TV, but he’s not looking. I sing, but he doesn’t care. I’ve been walking him around basically the whole time, trying to rock him to sleep.”

Mom: “But he has a rocking crib. Why didn’t you use it?”

Me: “Mom, I tried. He doesn’t want to lie there. He’s been screaming the whole time, but when I put him there, he gets so loud that I have to take him out again right away.”

Mom: “Okay, give him to me.”

(The screaming bundle of joy goes into quiet-happy-baby-mode as soon as mom holds him, of course. I try to walk to the bathroom, when my legs give out and I fall to the floor.)

Mom: “Hey, are you okay? Did you trip?”

Me: “No, my legs didn’t work for a second… Hey, do we have aspirin? I think I’ll need that.”

Mom: “What for? Don’t tell me he gave you a headache; he screams like this often and I’m managing without aspirin.”

Me: “No, I was walking and rocking him at the same time and I was doing these swinging motions with my legs to rock him better, so my arms and my legs are pretty stiff. An aspirin would prevent muscle spasms tomorrow.”

Mom: “You’re being a baby. You don’t need this. You need to train yourself. How else would you know what to do when you have a baby yourself?”

Me: “You didn’t just say that.”

Mom: “What?”

Me: “I’ve helped you with the first one and now with this one, but you experience all the good and the bad sides of it while I only get the bad things. I can’t sleep until three am because the baby is screaming, and I have to get up at six am. I can’t study for my graduation exams. I get puked on, I get beaten, my things are regularly ransacked, and when [Sister] destroyed my only German dictionary, that was also pretty expensive, all you could do was roll your eyes and say that she’s a baby. Do you think for a second that after all that I’ll want a child anytime soon?”

Mom: “Don’t you talk like that to me! Go to your room, and don’t you dare touch that aspirin!”

(She and my grandma didn’t speak to me for a couple of days. Apparently it’s a must in this family to want children. I’m 25 now. Still no babies.)