Well, we just got back from our weekly maternity class… or prenatal class… or pregnancy class… or whatever. This week the non-pregnant partners were invited to attend the class – unlike last week when I was the only schlump there not retaining water. Don’t feel bad for me, though. I got to help collect the yoga mats at the end of the class!
Now don’t get me wrong: I think it’s great that they offer these classes. And they’re free! God bless socialized medicine. But Spain is such an ass-backwards country that it really boggles my mind sometimes. We watched a video in the class about childbirth. An educated guess can only lead me to believe that it was created in Holland sometime in the 1970’s and had an untrained South American actress dub the narration over the original droning Dutch. The VHS tape was so worn out in places from nonstop use over the past three decades that the sound kept cutting in and out – but that didn’t really bother me since they weren’t saying anything useful or interesting anyway! It was more “hippie artsy-fartsy” with images of loving couples staring into each others’ eyes while a pan flute accompanied the leaves blowing in the wind.
But what really got on my tits were the other couples in the class. Half of the people there talked or laughed throughout the entire video to the point where no one could hear anything the poor droning South American narrator was saying. The stand-up comedian sitting right behind us was the worst of the lot. He was apparently enamored with the sound of his own voice and felt the need to crack a (really bad) joke every seven seconds. It’s no wonder that Jan complains of her students’ lack of respect and short attention spans. Their parents are exactly the same! I would have said something to the bidding Jerry Seinfeld behind me (and possibly hit him) if I didn’t think it would distance Jan from the rest of the moms-of-tomorrow in her future classes. I just bit my tongue and tried to follow the tranquil Dutch landscapes and groovy haircuts on the TV in front of us.
We went to a child CPR class last night where we had to blow into baby manequins mouths for 3 hours…not exactly fun for a pregnant woman who is having difficulty breathing at all at the moment due to the huge growing human taking up most of her insides.
parents always say their kids are nothing like them and vice versa, but it’s all a crock of shit
and do not envy me right now, i didnt write about all the shit going on outside of that
ooh, takes me back to my National Childbirth Trust days when I used to run ‘hippie artsy fartsy’ preparing for parenthood classes. And I thought it was imperative that all dads grow beards, wear sandals and demand that their women squat and give birth without the aid of any intervention other than an enthusiastic ‘push, darling, and remember to listen to the wales’…
ooh, takes me back to my National Childbirth Trust days when I used to run ‘hippie artsy fartsy’ preparing for parenthood classes. And I thought it was imperative that all dads grow beards, wear sandals and demand that their women squat and give birth without the aid of any intervention other than an enthusiastic ‘push, darling, and remember to listen to the wales’…