From The Desk of the Intellectually-Starved: Infants Don’t Care About Philosophy

Before I plunged headfirst into motherhood I was pursuing a degree in humanitarian studies. My days were spent reading Praust and Voltaire and I could dissect a pig’s larynx like nobody’s business. One year later the extent of my academic pursuit is singing along to the Baby Einstein DVD. Unfortunately, a six-month-old is a fairly poor conversationalist and life as an at-home mother soon becomes pretty monotonous.

The mother-and-baby groups that I frequent are better, but not by much. Our chitchat involves discussing the frequency, consistency and quantity of our children’s bowel movements. Woo.

My husband comes home weary from another day at work to a half-crazed intellectually starved old biddy that follows behind him, batty from isolation and boredom. Following him to the bathroom like a crazed stalker and nattering nonsense at the locked door where he is undoubtedly (and understandably) hiding. I plead, “Let’s discuss politics and religion! Let us debate the principles of existentialist philosophy! I need adult interaction and intellectual stimulation! Let me live vicariously through you!!”

However, any attempt at a proper conversation would inevitably be stilted due to my embarrassing cluelessness of current events. I simply do not have the time to keep up with the global comings and goings. As it happens, while Obama was inaugurated I was in labour, and while the MP’s expense reports were publicly scrutinized, I was trying (in vain) to express milk. I don’t read newspapers because my son eats them and the vast majority of literature I read has to do with bottle sterilizers and breast-pumps. 

But in the rare minutes when I can find the peace to pen my thoughts, I escape to the solace of my blog, where I can write and think about whatever I damn well please. And what do I choose to write about? Being a mother. The irony does not escape me. Why, you ask? When the Internet is a vast and wonderful forum where I can write about anything I wish?

I don’t know, really.

Maybe because while my knowledge of biomedical ethics is outdated and lacking, I can relish my expertise on the love/hate Gina Ford dispute. Maybe it’s because I have become hopelessly absorbed in my maternal role with nary a chance of recovery.

 Maybe it’s because my brain was lost with my placenta.