Fear of Babies: I Want the Stork Myth!

One of the reasons I'm afraid to have a baby is that I worry it will come out looking like this picture. I don't want a creepy baby with taut, translucent skin, bulging eyes, giant ears, and other characteristics akin to a geriatric.

I don't understand why our society didn't continue to run with the whole stork idea. It makes perfect sense to me: one morning, you awake to find a bonnie, chubby little cherub sleeping peacefully in its Moses basket at your front door step. It gingerly opens its round, bright eyes (or almond shaped eyes if you're Asian) and greets you with a sweet cooing sound.

You reach down and take it into your arms while looking up and down the street in a perplexed yet disinterested way and upon realizing no one is coming back for the child, you are suddenly overwhelmed with parental joy and instincts and walk happily back inside.

Instant family - voila!

Now, isn't that the way it should be? Wouldn't the stork approach solve a lot of societies' issues? I mean, after all, when you open the door and see the child, if you realize you don't want a baby or aren't ready for one at that moment, you can just go back inside and shut the door.

It's true!

The stork will totally take if from there. Once the door is shut, making it clear to the stork that the homeowner is not interested in motherhood at that time, the stork will leap out of its hiding spot, scoop up the baby, shove it down into its pouch, and take it to the next person on the list.

To me, the above sounds great. Ideal, in fact, because not only would I not have to walk around for almost a year with something foreign growing inside me, I would not have to get that watermelon out of me at some point. Plus, if my baby came via stork, I would probably love it more because I would be in a better place,mentally and physically, to do so. No raging hormones! No body image crisis! No leaking, bleeding nipples!

But the best part of the stork scenario is that in the stork myth, the baby that you get is YOUR BABY. It's not someone else's baby because adoption/surrogacy/IVF is not part of the stork narrative so the stork baby is 100% yours, no questions asked.

If the stork myth was a true tale, then I would set up delivery tomorrow.

Well, maybe not tomorrow. I suppose I would wait until after August 29th, just to keep the 'rents from going mental.