Black Milk - Elif Shafak [82]
I wonder how many of these baby products we really need. Plastic ducks that quack in the tub, tummy warmers made of organic merino wool, eco-friendly bathrobes for the summer, eco-friendly bathrobes for the winter, special chimes to attach to strollers, nontoxic brushes to clean the ducks in the tub, dinosaur-shaped door stoppers to keep the doors from slamming shut, glow-in-the-dark stickers in the shapes of planets and stars for the ceiling of the nursery—
All this endless bric-a-brac attracts Mama Rice Pudding like a magnet. She runs from one store to another with my credit card in her hand, determined to spend every cent I have on pink, cutesy baby things. She’s so lost in the hysteria of shopping I want to run away from her. But where to? Can a pregnant woman steer clear of her maternal side?
Week 34
This week I learn what a huge topic a baby’s intelligence is for an impending mother. Your Highness is obsessed with the matter. Omega-3 pills, fish oil capsules and some type of liquid that emits the vilest smell . . . She has been pushing all of these into my mouth with the belief that if I consume enough of them, the baby will be born with a high IQ.
“Caviar is the best,” she says. “If a pregnant woman eats two spoonfuls of black caviar every day, chances are the baby will be born a genius.”
“According to your theory the people around the Caspian Sea must be fricking brilliant,” I say.
She waves off my sarcasm as if shooing a nagging fly. “You just do what I say,” she orders.
I don’t understand the obsession with IQ. And it is not only Mama Rice Pudding. In the doctors’ waiting rooms, on TV programs, in blogs and Web sites, in the newspapers, everywhere and all the time, pregnant women are looking for ways to increase their babies’ intelligence score.
“Let’s assume for a moment that this IQ-caviar theory is true,” I venture.
“All right,” Mama Rice Pudding says.
“Let’s say that Turkish mothers have created this ‘superintelligent baby.’ What then? The child is born, and when he is old enough to walk and talk it is clear that he is supergifted. Good at music, painting, sculpture, art or mathematics. He loves to read, too, devouring the classics at the age of five.”
“What are you trying to say?” Mama Rice Pudding asks suspiciously.
“My point is, what will happen to these fish-egg babies in an environment that does not reward individual differences and unusual talents ? What kind of irony is it to desire a clever baby, but not be able to acknowledge a creative child?”
Mama Rice Pudding bangs her scepter furiously.
“Enough! I know where all of this whining and bellyaching is coming from,” she says. “You’ve been talking to Miss Highbrowed Cynic, haven’t you? You are meeting with her behind my back, aren’t you?”
Blushing up to my ears, I stop and say no more.
Week 36
It’s true. I have been continuing my visits with Miss Highbrowed Cynic on the sly. We draw the curtains, lock the doors and talk about books—just like we used to do in the good old days. Like proper intellectuals we grumble and grouse about everyone else, holding our heads high, feeling like the brightest bulbs in the crystal chandelier of society. I double over with laughter when Miss Highbrowed Cynic throws a bedsheet over her shoulders and takes up a green bean for a scepter; she does a fantastic imitation.
One day, out of the blue, she says, “Did you ever wonder why mothers use the pronoun we when addressing their kids?”
“What do you mean?”
“Check it out. They have this funny way of talking. ‘Did we get dirty?’ they say. ‘Did we get thirsty?’ ‘Did we pee in our pants?’”
I crane my neck forward and listen carefully.
“If the child falls down, the mother starts, ‘Oh, honey, did we fall down? Nothing happened, it doesn’t hurt!’ How does she know if it hurts or not? It isn