Why do you ask?

My nephew is an endlessly fascinating source of entertainment to me. He makes me think of the Talking Heads song where playing with a baby is described as "having fun with no money". The child can bob about when music is turned on and I will be overwhelmed with happiness at the appearance of his tiny body bouncing up and down to the rhythm. He can make me laugh by smiling and he is deemed a genius for repeating any sound I've made. He's going through a biting stage right now and even the agony of his vice-like grip on my hand can't make me angry with him. I choose, instead, to interpret his bites as marks of affection (deep, throbbing, red marks of affection).

Frankly, the job of an aunt is the easiest one in the world. I swoop in when I can, love him to bits, and swoop back out leaving diaper changes, teaching the difference between right and wrong and all the rest of the hard stuff to his parents. Someday, I can be "the one who teaches him to make fun of authority", or "the one who reveals that chocolate cake makes a great lunch". These are some of the legacies I look forward to passing on to him. It's hard for me to imagine that my sister can love this little guy more than I can but even while I struggle with the concept, I can look at her looking at him and know that it is true.

However, anyone who tells you that being an aunt (or an uncle) is good training for being a parent is a lying fool. There are a multitude of reasons why this is simply not true. Yes, you can practice changing a diaper. You can stay up all night with the sick child you are babysitting. You can share the emotions of the parents through a child’s successes or failures. There are many things that being an aunt or an uncle can help you to conceive, but as I observe the many mothers in my life, I am becoming painfully aware of the most difficult aspect of parenthood and the one that I, as an aunt, will never encounter. That is, of course, other people. Or, to be more specific, other people and their notions of how your child should be raised. Here are some of the questions that I just don’t have to deal with:

How long will you breastfeed? (You are, of course, breastfeeding aren’t you?)
Have you taught him/her sign language? (You realize that really helps them to learn faster and could impact their University admittance.)
Is he/she crawling/walking/talking yet? (Oh, really? Hmm, that’s interesting.)
Is he/she taking swimming lessons? (You know, it’s a very important skill for a six-month old!)
What does he/she eat? (Formula, whole milk, trans fats, refined sugars, garlic, tomatoes, peanut butter – name a food under the sun and someone out there will be able to tell you why your child should never/should always eat this food. Odds are that if you survey 20 people, you’ll have at least two who will completely contradict each other)
How does he/she sleep? (Through the night? How many naps? For how long?)

The underlying implication of every single question is that there is a right answer and a wrong answer and the questioner is simply waiting for your response in order to judge you more accurately. And judge you they will. We’ve all met people who lack a proper social filter. People who will ask the most inappropriate questions or make the most awkward comments. We get used to those individuals and try to ignore most of what they say. However, when you bring a baby into the equation, even the most rational, non-judgmental person can lose their perspective on what is, and isn’t, their business. From the colour of his pants to the flavour of his first birthday cake, people are going to weigh in on your child’s life whether you like it or not.
I can’t think of a real solution to this problem but I’ve got some suggestions. I’m not sure if they do or not, but I think all pre-natal classes should include a section on replying to invasive questions. Amongst the pushing strategies, breast-feeding information and alternate delivery method movies, there should be another section where expectant parents hold each other close and repeat to each other “Why do you ask?” over and over until the are engrained. Push. Push. Why do you ask? Push. Push. Why do you ask? Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And for those of us who don’t have children and who are gazing down on the smiling face of someone else’s child, before we say anything at all, we should ask ourselves why we want to know. Nine times out of ten, we probably shouldn’t be asking at all.