Families, eh?

I spent last weekend with my sister's family. And I'll be going back in two weeks. This is what happens when they give you wine and then start asking if you'd be available for babysitting duty...

I also volunteer in a kids' playgroup at a reception centre. With all this PG-fun, you'd think I actually liked kids. No, I don't.

The other night I got together with some friends of mine the way we always do when we're all in the same city. They brought another friend and we tried the latest venture by that Junior Masterchef judge I wrote about. So far the weakest one of all the restaurants we've tried. But even the tabbouleh's contribution to the evening's ambiance wasn't as poor as mine (How can you cock up tabbouleh?!). One of us had just had her 3rd child. The other was just returning to work after maternity leave. The third one has a kid that's already started school. And then...then there was  me. Having my 3rd G&T, with no work to go to and no kids to get home to.

I'm fine about not having kids. As in, ever. But I can't help but think I'm missing out on something. And very soon,  I fear, that'll be my friends. What will I have to offer; what can I bring to these friendships when all their lives revolve around hiring nannies and prep classes to secure a place in the good school?

Though... our blissfully childless existence has been interfered with some...occasionally disturbing offers. A friend of mine is struggling to conceive so she asked me to become her surrogate. Yeah, rent-a-womb. And another is battling an illness for which the doctors will have to put her on medication that prevents her from having children. And she really wants them, within this 2-year-deadline doctors have given her. Only, she's still single. So, what did she do? Asked if she could have The Man's sperm.

Is there any more effective way to make you realize you're so past it? That your shop has already gone into liquidation before you ever even got to have the big opening?

And of course I'd help them. I love them both and can't even imagine what it must feel like to want something you can't have that desperately. No, wait. Maybe I do. That's why I'm writing this blog...

I would like to find a way to still be part of my friends' lives, even after the kids start taking over. And maybe I can be a fabulous Auntie, even if I'd never make a great Mum to anyone? 

And that got me thinking of the disturbing family dynamics of the Ducksburg. Have you ever noticed that no-one actually has kids there? They all have nieces and nephews! Scrooge  McDuck has a nephew in Donald Duck who in turn has 3 of them. Donald Duck (who in 60 years still hasn't been able to seal the deal) on the other hand has a girlfriend Daisy, who has 3 nieces. And then there's Mickey Mouse, with his 2 nephews. And his girlfriend Minnie and her 2 nieces. And then there's Goofy and his nephew. 

What is all this? Where are the real parents? What's with the multiple pregnancies that defy all laws of medical probability?

Is this the worst cover-up ever, designed to give illegitimate kids legitimacy in the eyes of prudish cartoon readers?! Or the most sinister case of child-snatching the (Disney) World has ever known?! Abuse of fertility drugs of a massive scale, baby factories for the use of the rich and ruthless?!

The more you think of it, the more deranged it all becomes...