You fail, Family Living

It’s that time of year again in Ohio, when the snow starts to melt and we see the grass a bit more and sometimes, you can hear the birds and detect the musty odor of something that smells like cheese.

And everywhere you go, teenage girls are carrying robot babies given to them by Family Living class, to learn what it’s like to be a real mother.

Robobabies are cool. They cry when they’re hungry. They crap in their diapers. They have sensors that detect rough treatment or shaking. But they have one shortcoming, and it’s that the Flesh Mommies still know they’re not real. You need to feed Robobaby to get your grade, but you also know that if you want, you can hang the baby sling (including Robobaby) from a coat hook when you come back drunk from Veronica’s party. You know that you can set Robobaby on top of the cable box to improve reception. You know you can wedge Robobaby under the short leg of the coffee table to keep it from wobbling.

So it may look like you’re raising Small Wonder, but what I call “the plastic factor” ends up meaning that it’s just not the same at all.

Example.

Let’s go back in time four years. Austin is just a baby, maybe six or seven months old. We go out for Chinese food. Austin doesn’t have any lo mein, but he gets into the spirit anyway by taking a massive antigravity dump that floats up his back and into his shirt. We discover this when putting him into the car seat, after the car-seat-related damage has been done.

“I think this happened in the restaurant,” I say, noting that a brown smear has appeared on my hands.

“Yes, that seems probable,” Robin says.

“And I’d say it’s likely that it’s still happening in the restaurant, all over the high chair he was sitting in,” I add.

“Yes, I think it’s safe to say we’re no longer welcome here,” Robin agrees.

We have no replacement clothes. We have diapers and wipes, but we’re not exactly going to go back into the restaurant and ask to use their bathroom. And I’m sure as hell not laying him on the seat of my car.

The car seat is already fucked, so we buckle him in and head across to Starbucks. Robin takes him into the bathroom, holding him the way you’d hold a bomb. I notice that the room is one of those big open spaces with a hard tile floor, with no baby changer or surface on which to work. As the door closes, I see her lay out this small mat that came with the diaper bag onto the floor.

Screaming commences. Foul odors linger in the air. I wait my turn to wash the rest of the crap off of my hands. And it’s at this moment that three teen girls walk up to the counter and order lattes, each with a robobaby wedged under her arm like an ugly Trapper Keeper.

A metallic noise comes from one of the robobabies.

“Ooh, mine’s hungry,” says the girl.

Her friend says, “Should I get caramel on my latte?” And giggles.

Screams are still coming from the Starbucks bathroom. I hear Robin say, “Eeeeeeewwww.”

Robobaby continues to whine. “Ugh,” says the girl. These are so annoying.”

“At least you like babies,” says the third.

Girl #1 smiles. “I totally love babies. I rule at this.”

And the girl at the register says, “Oooh, give me the shaved white chocolate on top. I’ll do Pilates later.”

Robobaby increases in pitch. He’s getting pissed.

“What does that take,” I ask, indicating Robobaby’s stoic face. “Formula? Or just water?”

She looks at me and I hide my shit-hands.

“Formula,” she says. “They’re kind of cool. Just like having a real baby.”

Her friend mutters, “Jackson is texting me. He’s such a jerk.”

The girls get their drinks and trundle off to a corner table, at which point they prop the babies against their backpacks on the floor and start to giggle loudly. Some time later, Robin emerges. Austin’s clothes are wet and wiped, but still not totally clean. He’s going to have to smell for the ride home, which hardly matters because the car seat has taken its abuse and is ready to dole out some olfactory abuse in return.

She says, “That was fun.”

I wash my hands and when I come out, Robin and Austin are watching the girls with the robobabies. One girl is texting on her cell phone while holding the robobaby upside-down under her arm, its head in her crotch.

“Those things are just like having a real baby,” I tell Robin.

She nods. “Just.”

Robobabies may be cool and all, but it took everything I had not to tell Girl #1 that if she wanted a glimpse of real motherhood, she could check out what was happening up to the elbows in crap on the tile floor of the bathroom.

Parenthood is gross. Good thing it comes with tax benefits.

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