Lies!

"JEZEBEL, STOP IGNORING CLASS! THIS SHIT IS DRIVING ME INSANE." — Yes. No kidding. There was article a while back about high-school part-time jobs and whether they enhance your college application or drive down your grades and eat into your application-enhancing activities. The author researched it by asking around…

No. Sorry.

No, no, no. You've misunderstood. We don't think that nobody should reproduce. We just think that *you* shouldn't reproduce.

I've heard this cliche a few times, and I buy it: About 10% of women love being pregnant. They glow and love the world and go out looking for work as surrogates when they are done having kids because they find pregnancy just that awesome. 10% find it absolutely miserable. Most of the rest just find it somewhat…

I'm so sorry. You need a hug. You need help. Oh my God, I wish I could fix it. It sucks so badly. Empathy meltdown, over here.

Oh God, the bile. That was the worst.

Know what I hate? (Well, I'm going to tell you anyway.) I hate movies and sitcoms where morning sickness is portrayed as "cute." Fucking hell. Think about the last time you had norovirus or really bad food poisoning. Remember how unpleasant it is to throw up? Remember that horrific, intense, unbearable nausea right…

Art supplies. Pastels, watercolors, scratch paper (not scrap, scratch), embroidery floss, glitter, feathers, paintbrushes, sidewalk chalk, glue, construction paper, how-to books. You can make your own box of art stuff for any price, from very cheap to very expensive. It won't get rejected out of hand, since girls are…

Don't we all long to hear those magical words: "Darling, there's no one in the world I would rather have gestate my future children. Please, say yes to an economic unit that will marginally improve our offspring's chances of material and reproductive success, and make me the happiest man in the world!!!!"

I'm guessing there's no problem at all with scavenging all of the hair products and toothpaste you could ever need from the abandoned homes of the restless dead. Bet you could get some pretty high end moisturizer too, if you raided the right neighborhood. What I wonder is where these people are getting potable water…

Who gets this worked up over someone peeing in public? Advice: never travel to Mumbai or Paris or ride in an NYC subway. You'll need years and years of talk therapy.

In a really dire situation, I've had a friend hold up a blanket and done a quick squat next to the car. Little did I know that I've been an undiscovered sex offender all this time.

Yes! Adapting a pattern is fun-tastic applied math. Figuring out how to pattern a sleeve that will work on a person is a cool, 3D geometry challenge. Plus, for ADD kids like I was (am), knitting is a great, painless way to calm down, sit still, and focus. All my kids are going to learn to knit.

Cool dad.

Well, clearly my attempt at comic exaggeration failed. And actually, yes, my proxy and I were both okay with episiotomy under certain, very limited circumstances - I just figured it would kill the joke.....

"If you are not ready to have a child (or children — multiple births do happen) with greater-than-average needs, you're simply not ready to have a child at this point (or perhaps, at all)."

Co-housing! I would like to live like that if I could. It's very hard to make it happen in the USA, though. The Danish and Dutch co-housing communities are generally kicked off with government grants. Here, you need to find a pre-built place that works or build one yourself, and everyone in the community needs to have…

I did consider it. I actually moved during my pregnancy, and would have gone with this midwife in Town A in a heartbeat. She had delivered thousands of babies, the hospital staff loved her, and I felt very relaxed around her. However, in Town B, I was not impressed with the available midwives. For my own reasons, I…