{"id":18,"date":"2008-06-25T09:13:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T09:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/?p=18"},"modified":"2008-06-25T09:13:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-25T09:13:00","slug":"better-she-worries-about-this-than-i-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/better-she-worries-about-this-than-i-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Better she worries about this than I do"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I wanted to be a boy,&#8221; said Rabad to me, out of the blue, a couple of days back.<\/p>\n<p>This is a common refrain with her.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because I want a pee-pee like boys.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mamma and I have had this conversation with her before, so I knew what to say.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But then you would not be able to have a baby in your stomach, right? Boys can&#8217;t have babies in their stomach.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I think the sentence was a little too long for her, and she got confused.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But Abu came out of mamma&#8217;s stomach, na?&#8221; she protested.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes, but Abu will never be able to have babies in his own stomach,&#8221; I corrected her.<\/p>\n<p>That seemed to satisfy her. She stopped complaining.<\/p>\n<p>But then there was a new problem.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Who will be the father of my babies?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Uh-oh!<\/p>\n<p>I was thinking of a good answer, when she continued.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want Abu to be the father.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Abu can&#8217;t be the father of your babies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is also area that we have been over before. In fact, I have pointed out to them (Abu and Rabad) that if brother and sister have babies, there is a possibility that babies might be born deformed. I&#8217;m sure she remembered that, but was just trying her luck, because she did not press this point further. But&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But then who will be the father of my babies?&#8221; she said plaintively.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It can be anybody,&#8221; I said, trying not to tell her more than she wants to know.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll never find a father for my babies,&#8221; she said in a sad sort of a voice.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll find one when you are older. See, right now you are in school. After you grow up, you will get out of school,&#8221; I started.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes, and I will be a teacher,&#8221; she said brightly.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Correct. And, when you are a grown-up teacher, you will have a lot of friends. You can choose one of them to be the father of your babies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She chewed on this new information for a moment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Can I just go to one of my friends and ask, &#8216;Will you be the father of my babies?'&#8221; she asked. She had this air of &#8220;this is too easy to be true&#8221; about her.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Exactly!&#8221; I said triumphantly, glad that we had all the logistics worked out.<\/p>\n<p>She&#8217;s just 4, and we&#8217;ve already had 50% of the birds-and-bees conversation. In another 4 years, I am expecting to have the full 100% of the conversation with Abu.<\/p>\n<p>Parenthood. It comes at you a little faster than you anticipated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I wanted to be a boy,&#8221; said Rabad to me, out of the blue, a couple of days back. This is a common refrain with her. &#8220;Why?&#8221; &#8220;Because I want a pee-pee like boys.&#8221; Mamma and I have had this conversation with her before, so I knew what to say. &#8220;But then you would not <a href=\"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/better-she-worries-about-this-than-i-do\/\">[&#8230;Read More&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26,25,3,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}