As a full-time writer who works from home, I am the parent who is tasked with most of the errands, and because I have a five-year-old girl, she's usually out and about with me on those errands. Partly because I enjoy the company and partly because I'm pretty sure if I left her alone, she'd discover several new species of explosions.
The problem is that I'm a dude, and dudes aren't supposed to be good with kids. Especially not little girls. This often leads to ill-informed, baffled questions. Today I'd like to lay out the ones that really need to be stuffed back into the mouths of ijits and sealed with duct tape.
Where's Your Wife? This isn't friends I may meet who might legitimately wonder where my wife is. Most of my friends live in the computer anyway and would be baffled by seeing me larger than a Facebook profile pic.
No, this question is always accompanied by two things. The first is a rather dramatic look 'round that implies I've wandered away from the main caregiver and might need leading gently back before I accidentally buy a colander instead of shoes for the kid. The second is a tone of concern, as if the only explanation for me having a little girl on my own is that her poor mother took ill with a fever and sadly passed from the world. For maximum return, pretend this takes place in the Antebellum South.
The answer is that my wife is wherever she happens to be. Probably either saving babies in the NICU or resting from that labor.
Are You Going to Try for a Boy? Granted, moms with just girls get this question, too. It's a very strange thing to think that a family isn't complete until it has a small male version of the collected genetic soup. I'm willing to bet that it happens more with guys than women because there's this consensus that men prefer boys and women prefer girls.
I'm not sure how one "tries" for a boy, though. Do you think of little boys when you're having intercourse? Because I'm pretty sure that's illegal or it should be. If there was some kind of way to insure a male child, I'm certain that the Europeans or the Chinese would have figured it out by now. In the end, it's a stranger saying, "So, do you think you and your old lady will bang without condoms again, only right this time?"
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