I am, according to the sticks I cannot stop peeing on and the sonogram I had a month ago, just about eleven weeks pregnant. Theoretically. (I've had virtually no symptoms other than horrifying lines on my boobs, so we'll just assume the pee sticks and the doc are correct.) Therefore, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what it will be like to have an actual small person here with me. And as a result, I have discovered the reason for fundamentalist religion. Not just fundie Christians, or Muslims, but any sort of hardcore, God-is-it-and-there-a'int-nothing-else spirituality.
It is so you can answer the three-year-old's favorite question: Why?
For example, here is a conversation I may one day have with the fetus, after it stops being a fetus:
Kid: Mommy, what's that?
Me: A goat, honey!
Kid: Why?
Me: Err, um, well, a long, long time ago, there was water everywhere, and there were lots of fish in it. Then one day, one of the fish crawled up on this island. But he died. Then another fish, one that had rudimentary lungs through some fluke of evolution, crawled up and lived. Then he met a girlfriend, and they had baby fish that could breathe air. Then, a long time later, this guy named Charles Darwin counted a whole bunch of little birds on this other island, and wrote a book about them...
It would just take forever, and frankly, I didn't pay that much attention in Bio 101. Hence, the fundamentalism. This conversation is much, much easier for the religiously minded parent:
Kid: Mommy, what's that?
Fundie parent: A goat, honey!
Kid: Why?
Fundie parent: Because God said so. Now stop bothering me.
See? So much easier. Perhaps I should go bust out my copy of the King James I got for my high school confirmation nine years ago and felt too guilty to ever throw away.
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2 comments:
LMAO, Queenie! I'm so glad I stumbled upon your blog. Now try explaining to your kids why the baby bird in the Target parking lot that your 5 year old just stepped on (accidentally) was going to die anyway and you feel like a horrible, useless mother for not having some way to save the damn thing. And your not quite 10 yr old (almost in tears)accuses the 5 year old of killing it. And the one year old is screeching because *HELLO...it's hot out people* and he just wants to go home and have a nap!
But just think of the brouhaha your fetus, after it stops being a fetus, can cause in school some day when he/she starts quoting Darwin long after evolution has been banned in the public schools in favor of creationism only...;)
Oh yes I’ve used the “God said so” line before it’s very handy.
-Anne
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