Before you call my baby a “Corona Baby” just kindly fuck off

Maybe it's my age, but within my social circle there have been 6 babies born as of mid-September and 7 are on the way to arrive this year and early 2021, one of which is my own. Whether we'd call the babies born in the first half of the year a "Corona Baby" or not will be up for debate of course, but the 7 that's coming up will definitely get that moniker. I haven't announced my pregnancy to the larger public yet, but I know that the "Ooooh l guess you bought masks but not the right kind of protection!" comments will roll in like a cockroach infestation when I do.

So before we go there, this is my public iservice announcement to say, kindly back the fuck off and just don't do it. I totally get it, because I myself have made that joke. When the lockdown started in late March here in California, the first thing I told my husband was that there's gonna be a baby boom this year and maybe we'll call them the "Pande-boomers" or something. As much as I hate to EVER willingly admit that my husband is right in public, this is just an example of what he said is true and how I'm not as funny as I think I am. (his words: "You're funny, just not... ha-ha funny.") It's not funny because it's a cheap shot. It's the equivalent of a joke that a comedian might make about a club guest that makes the rest of the room cringe and want to shrivel up into oneself. And it's especially not funny when you make it about someone else's baby.

Let me translate for you what that joke insinuates, in as plain of a language as I can for you: "Oh, I see that during the Coronavirus lockdown you and your spouse had so much time on your hands and were bored out of your mind that all you did was fuck like teenagers every moment of every day and even got so excited in one of such encounters that you forgot to wear a condom, thus jizzing that baby juice all up inside there to make this new baby of yours!"

If that made you cringe, let me assure you, that's everyone else's reaction too when they heard you say "Looks like someone wasn't social distancing!" Just. Get out. Now. This isn't just pertaining to Corona Baby jokes, but any cheap seat cliché baby commentary in general—it's always surprised me how the presence of a fetus in a woman's uterus somehow signals an invitation to discuss the super intimate details of a couples' sex life when in all other situations it would be super rude and just plain disgusting. Like, Auntie, I don't even like kissing my husband in front of you, let alone have you ask me when I plan to open up shop and let that baby batter have a go at my oven. There's something about babies that make people suddenly feel emboldened to discuss this because it somehow makes it public domain or safer because sex is yucky but babies are cute? It's weird, and it's time we all realize that it's not our business, and it never has been, just like your friend's secret trick where she has to imagine a lion eating red meat to orgasm—didn't need to know it, but now that I do, I can't unknow it.

Besides being gross, it's also super insensitive to suggest that all it takes to make a baby is some free time and bad judgment. First of all, in a lockdown the thing I had the least of is time because we have a toddler and we still have to work very hard to make room for sex in between having to change the sheets or keep a kid alive or just all the other shit we have to do, hi responsibility. Second, have you thought about how it would make someone who struggled with infertility before the arrival of this very baby feel, to be joked about in that way? Oh, did I make you seem like an asshole and you feel bad? Good, that means you have a conscience. And you shouldn't beat yourself up for having not thought of that before, we're all always just trying to be better, but you should definitely know you're a bitch if you keep going about your way after knowing that could be a possibility and that every woman has her own journey with fertility that is again, none of your fucking business.

But with all those aggressive things said, I would still prefer the Corona Baby joke to the dicks who go out of their way to say "Um, omg, ours WASN'T a Corona Baby!" like their baby is somehow better than the so-called quarantine babies. Whether serious or in jest, I'm here to tell you that your statement is indicative of your participation in this awful culture of mothers judging mothers (I would say parents judging parents, but we women are the MVPs at this). No baby is better than another baby, no mother is a better mother because it's not a competition. We're all playing our own games in tandem to one another, and our job is to cheer each other on because if we don't, who will?

And if you can't do that, just kindly fuck off.